When I read earlier this week that Borderlands was probably going to get a sequel, I was significantly amplified. I’ve written about my love for the game, but I was worried that it wouldn’t sell well enough to garner a second installment. It wasn’t because it wasn’t a great game, but rather its release date seemed to come in the heart of the lion’s den. It was dropped in the middle of the Fall blitz, where I assumed that new IPs went to die. I’m fucking glad I was wrong. I figured that in the middle of the sequel bombardment that saw Modern Warfare, Uncharted, Left 4 Dead, and Assassin’s Creed all dropping new titles on our collective gaming asses, what sort of love would this diamond in the rough get?

Answer: Apparently a lot.

Answer: Apparently it isn’t in the rough that much.

I’m weary of new IPs failing in general. Games that take risks like Mirror’s Edge seem to be cast into the Land of Forgotten Games. Even shit like Dead Space, which was well-received really didn’t sell like gangbusters. I suppose it’s all relative. Dead Space is a “success” at one-million sold worldwide. Uncharted 2 has as already sold a million, Modern Warfare 2 has sold a zillion fucking copies in two days. No, seriously. I think they’re giving away copies of MW2 with the Sunday paper this week.

So what chance did Borderlands have, I thought to myself.

It’s such a busy part of the year for gamers. I mean, I’ve bought Borderlands, and I’ve loved it, but I definitely haven’t given it the attention I would have if it was released in May, or June, or something. I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t a good time to release a video game anywhere. Is there saturation everywhere? Even the old-school dry spells that were the winter and spring are seeing a deluge next year: Bayonetta (SWEET, SWEET BAYONETTA), Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII. And so on, and so on.

But Borderlands has punched through, it’s sold well. I don’t know, I’m not an economist, I have no idea how much it cost to produce. My rough estimate is: a lot.

If I had to guess, I’m going to say it’s been buoyed by a few things.

First, the gaming community was abuzz about the title for a while. I knew about Borderlands for quite some time, and with every review that came in, it cemented my idea that the title was dope. Sites like Kotaku and Destructoid were all up on its junk. And that’s a good thing. When a game garners a buzz, it attracts gamers. There’s the sense that something is going on, something you want to be a part of.

Oh shit, ended my sentence with a preposition. Don’t tell my professors.

But no seriously, it does. Especially with the online community these days. Games that are drawing players in, draw other players in. “Dude, this game is sweet” gets one friend to buy the game based on another friend. The hive mind, collective consciousness type shit. It has been impressive, even with Modern Warfare 2 cracking open the very Gaming Earth with its saturation this week and filling us with gunshots and Russian terrorists, Borderlands has still been able to bubble up to the surface.

Secondly, I’ve seen advertisements for it everywhere. It’s nice to see a commitment to spend furiously on a new IP. Again, I’m not an economist, but if I had to guess how much they spent on their advertising campaign I’d say: a lot. There’s been tons of commercials on television, and they’re pretty sweet. The game is slick and looks sexy in action, the artistic design has even cell-shaded haters impressed, and if you wrap that all around a catchy song like they did – Cage the Elephant’s Ain’t No Rest of the Wicked, you’re going to draw people in.

It’s nice to see some new shit amongst the same old franchises. Listen, I worship at the altar of Final Fantasy, but I’m always looking for something new to experience. A new franchise, a new title. And every time they seem to fail, I can only imagine it reinforces the thought bubble in the Talking Heads’ minds: New titles flop, play it safe.

And as I said, that makes me stoked.

Maybe it can’t happen for every title, but Borderlands proves it’s possible. Score.

MARCH 9, 2010. Fuck yes. That’s when Final Fantasy XIII drops. And I’m shooting ridiculous loads onto my own face in excitement. I’m screaming at my Nana, yelling at her about Final Fantasy. She’s cowering in the corner and I don’t care! Why? Because fucking Final Fantasy XIII has a release date! I’ve been sweating this thing forever. I’ve gone through some serious shit since this game was released! I lost my virginity, got addicted to sleeping pills, got unaddicted to sleeping pills, watched my fucking Patriots lose the Super Bowl, three girlfriends, fourteen pairs of shoes, nine beards, four hundred and fifty thousand cans of soda, and a new sweet ass cat.

MARCH 9, 2010. Don’t knock, don’t call, I will fucking stab you.

I’ve given up on being good at first-person shooters for a long time now. I simply accept that I don’t have the quick-twitch muscle fibers, or the brain capacity to be excellent at them. So when I try and talk my friend Bags into playing some MW2 with me, and he hits me with:

It’s going to be tough, because I’m going to suck at first.

I can absolutely relate to him. I’ve just come to grips with that a long time ago. I am not a unique gaming snowflake. There’s always going to be noobs that school my sad ass. Even with my acceptance of this fact, it still burns deep down inside to hear some twelve year old kid laughing at me because I missed with two full clips and then had the dishonor of him meleeing me to death.

The horror, the horror.

It didn’t always use to be so resigned to mediocrity. I used to be the shit in my close-knit gaming circle. High school friends and myself spending hours in my room as I took them to task with the beatdown stick in Mortal Kombat II or Mario Kart 64. My mortal enemy was also my best friend Joe, and it was usually the two of us giving each other a run for our money. Of course, even back then I sucked at FPS gamers. I can recall the teenage rampages I’d go into as Joe would remember spawn points (before we knew they were called spawn points) and usually throw a knife through my dumb face.

Then everything changed when Al Gore invented the fucking internet. And global warming. He condemned me to bake under the sun’s unleashed fury amidst a legion of gamers far superior to me. I was like the high school quarterback, trying all of a sudden to play college ball.

Oops.

Double oops.

I learned quickly that whatever lame skills I had on a local level didn’t translate to the global scheme. Fucking internet! I was aghast, I mean, I won the local Blockbuster video game challenge! A year’s worth of unlimited gaming rentals (which they stipulated in the small text was two a week; even my pre-pubescent brain recoiled at the trickery) at my disposal! But I wasn’t special, I wasn’t even good.

Fucking shit.

So the same applies to Modern Warfare 2. I’m not really good. If I get five kills, I feel like the fucking man. Oh, those ungracious gamers who rattle off 15 kills a session. What does a kill mean to them!? What does sex mean to a pornstar! Probably fucking nothing!

But Modern Warfare 2 is different. Because It’s kind of like little league. Everyone can win! Well, sort of. In other words, there are things even retard gamers like myself can strive for. With their dope-ass built in leveling system, this RPG whore right here can work towards swag, even while blowing. If I have enough persistence I can unlock new guns, modifications, et cetera. This is probably old hat to other Call of Duty players, but for me, it’s friggin’ tight. I mean, what other way to suck in a WoW-addicted gamer who sucks at FPSers?

Give them swag to work towards! If there’s one thing I like, it’s loot! LOOT, sweet, delicious loot. And even if I never come in first place, I can still garner myself a tight grenade launcher.

It’s a nice balance. Because of course, the skilled gamers, as in not me, can unlock this shit quicker. Every match gathers you XP, and the better you do, the more points you gain. They even have “Aw, you’re cute at sucking” type rewards, like getting five assists. I mean holy shit, they reward you for breaking your own death streak. It’s like free experience points. A little league reward for the kid who finally hit the ball. There you go Charlie, you may drool and you run to third base instead of first, but you successfully threw a ball to first base today.

Well done, here’s a cookie.

I love it.

I beat Modern Warfare 2 this morning. Sort of. With a FPS like MW2, is saying I finished the single-player campaign the same thing as saying you’re done with a meal when you finish your appetizer? I mean, I assume that any serious player is just getting going when they finish off the story mode.

It’s a pretty dope game, but I think it peaks a bit early. I felt the same way about Uncharted 2. I like my final episode, chapter, whatever, to be stacked with awesomeness. And if you rocket your hardest load two hours prior to it, even if what you’re experiencing is awesome, you’ve already jumped the shark.

For me, nothing topped the nuclear blast and the fallout in Washington. Everything after that was simple “sweet” as opposed to “holy fucking shit.”

It’s the same reason I’ve began to tune out of 24 every season right around thirteen episodes in the past few years. Take aside the fact that every season is practically the same – you know, just like Modern Warfare, it’s a couple of rogue dudes going against the government to truly save the world. But also, right around the thirteenth episode of a season of 24, Jack has already:

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Bayonetta’s coming out on my birthday. Bayonetta’s coming out with a special edition. Bayonetta’s coming out on my birthday. Friends, family, brother, parents, girlfriend, thinly-tethered acquaintences, please, please, please, I’m not begging. But chip in and buy this collector’s edition for me for the 360. The picture displays the PS3 edition, but I assume it’ll get some Micro-love as well:

Via Destructoid:

The Bayonetta special edition will contain a soundtrack disc and a hardcover art book, all wrapped up in a spiffy slipcase. So far it’s been announced for the UK, Spain, France and Australia, and will release alongside a standard edition on January 8. Sega of America has not announced anything regarding a US special edition, but it’s safe to assume that such an announcement is likely.

Insert dreamy sigh.

Well, I got to the point in Modern Warfare 2 when you take the reins of a double-agent and shoot up a ton of innocent people in an airport. Coming directly off of it, and penning this shit as some sort of impression as opposed to an intellectual exercise, I’m not really sure how I feel about the scene. Did it achieve the desired effect of making me feel disturbed? Well, sure. I walked around an airport gunning down civilians, while deploring the dude that commanded me to.

My first reaction was a general sigh at the fatigue that has come from Jack Bauer-inspired utilitarianism. You’re thrust into the role of a soldier who is asked to go into deep-cover as a member of Russian Terrorist Guy’s group. And of course, the general prevention of a zillion casualties is of course rationalization for the fact that you help them gun down like three-hundred civilians. Slay the few, to save the millions! It’s an old hat, isn’t it? Jack Bauer and Jeremy Bentham and John Locke and LOST and a million other places have jacked off this theme for a million years.

I’m not really sure where I fall on this topic, but I know it’s been done to death.

But! But! But!

Maybe this scene is designed to show what truly killing the few to save the masses looks like! Perhaps the entire moment is to humanize the idea of sacrificing the few, and what that truly means. Instead of some mathematical equation, it shows the price of championing this utilitarian method of morality. It’s not just numbers, it’s human lives spread across an airport floor.

I think there may be the incorrect assumption that because Infinity Ward portrays this scene in their game, that they’re espousing this utilitarian belief themselves. The idea being that well, they have characters stating that you must lose some to save the greater sum, so clearly they believe this as well. But instead it seems that maybe they want to explode this notion through the use of this scene, and others throughout the game.

Again, I’ve barely played the game, I have no idea where I am within it. And I’m not even sure how I feel about all this, I’m writing it off the cuff and as it comes to mind. But I feel like there can be a mistake in assuming that the characters in a medium, any medium, generally mimic the beliefs of their creators. Just because we assume the “hero” echoes the beliefs of those who write them, doesn’t mean that’s correct.

And furthermore, perhaps because no one had played the scene prior to being outraged about it, no one has spoken about the fate of the compliant US soldier that takes place in the massacre. They’re murdered at the end of the chapter. This may be very well the punishment afforded to the one who complies with such a demand. Their is definite punishment to the character you control, they bleed out as the villains escape. Perhaps, in other words, if you adopt this utilitarian idea, then the bad guys always win?

I’m not really sure how I feel about the scene, nor am I sure what Infinity Ward was trying to say, or ends up saying. But the scene itself is intriguing, and worthy of discussion. If they wanted to get us talking, they’ve certainly succeeded.

Oh shit, chocobos have turned thirteen. And just like a teenager, chocobos have grown fucking huge, and sport amazing, cheesy mohawks. I fucking dig their new look. They’re goddamn enormous, they dwarf the baddies seen in this scan, and they cum in their pants while they sleep. I may have made that last part up. They actually cum in the hay in the barns they sleep in. Click the picture for the entire scan.

About a week ago a bunch of shenanigans popped off regarding some controversial scene in the forthcoming Modern Warfare 2. There’s an optional scene that depicts a bunch of pinko Russian terrorists that carve up an airport with bullet spray. The player assumes the role of a terrorist, and well, shoots up innocent civilians. Not unexpectedly, a thousand-million people shit their pants in outrage, swore to boycott the game, et cetera. Australia, bored with counting its kangaroos and starting up Outback Steakhouse franchises decided it wanted to reconsider the rating they gave the game.

I’m completely cool with it.

It seems pretty obvious that Infinity Ward is trying to rock a nauseating angle with this scene. The entire expression seems to be a means to depict the horror of terrorism. Infinity Ward themselves conveyed as much in a statement:

The scene establishes the depth of evil and the cold bloodedness of a rogue Russian villain and his unit. By establishing that evil, it adds to the urgency of the player’s mission to stop them.

I imagine there is going to be a visceral, disturbing aspect towards controlling a character slaying a bunch of innocent people. Furthermore, I think it’s an interesting method to evoke such feelings. Infinity Ward takes the unique media of video games to literally put the player in the pants of a pinko murderer. It’s a way of depicting terrorism that may be unique to video games. Sure, there could be first person narrative in a book, or a point of view perspective in a movie, but actually playing the role of the terrorist?

Sort of unique.

I can appreciate that there is a disturbing agency to the situation. The player, as the terrorist, is asked to pull the trigger and kill the civilians. It’s a bit different than simply guiding the player through a first-person perspective. Instead they’re responsible for mauling the player with bullet-spray. Is there a difference between making the player view the atrocity, and making them commit the atrocity?

Probably.

Definitely.

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Ah, to write continuously without thinking much about the words you’re puking onto the inter-pagez. Occasionally you contradict yourself. A lot. I like to pretend that I’m not a slut for pre-order swag, or collector’s editions. But then one of my cum magnets – you know, movies, video games, or books that draws the semen from my penis like venom from a wound – shows me their super ballin’ fresh fly collector’s edition. And I jizm. Behold the MASS EFFECT 2 SUPAR COLLECTOR’S EDITION.

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