Borderlands 2: Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt

 Another month, another Borderlands 2 DLC. This time it focuses on Sir Hammerlock and his quest to hunt and kill every rare creature in Pandora!

I went into this DLC with high hopes since the previous two DLCs(Captain Scarlett's Booty and Torgue's Canrnage) have been fantastic, with their interesting characters and quests. This DLC however feels cut. I'll start with the main story quest(and I'll try to remain as spoiler free as possible but no promises).

After you travel to the new location and meet up with Hammerlock, you get echo chatter from the "big bad" of the DLC. Hammerlock is uninterested, and only wishes to hunt down his creatures but he makes you go after him regardless. After some very amusing, though short story quests, you "take down" the big bad and boom, game over. You can work your way through the main story quest in about an hour and there are barely any sub quests tying back to it. It's not like in previous DLCs where everything feels like it's connected to the main storyline. Then again, even in-game, the characters treat the main storyline as something to get out of the way. It was a very good mock of what goes on in most games, the bad guy's omnipresence, the constant reminder of how bad he is and how he's going to do so many bad things(e.g Borderlands 2). Though I don't think it worked quite as well as Gearbox had hoped. It feels as if they're striving so hard to poke fun of it, you aren't having as much fun playing through it. After you end the main quest, the side quests feel repetitive. Trek to X location and kill Y creature, repeat. I understand you're on a monster hunt but there could have been a tad more variety. Most of the special monsters you hunt are reminiscent(if not a recolored copy paste) of the giant sub level monsters you fight around Pandora on a regular basis. The writing is still snappy and smart, yes there is some witty dialogue when you receive/turn in a quest but the writing can only go so far.

With new DLC comes new monsters of course, which are a bit more varied. There is a new human faction as well, spear throwing savages and elemental witch doctors. They're no different from any other human faction though the witch doctors throw whatever element they're imbued with. Also, they can summon Rakk storms.

There is one particular enemy that was a constant nag to my sanity. They're giant sacs of death that look like rotting, flying cabbage, called Spores. These giant balls of assholes will royally fuck you up if you're not careful. They fly quietly high over the battle field and fire off elemental attacks that can easily kill you or dispense of your shield. Shooting at them only makes them move faster towards you and when you kill them? They have spawnlings! They will rush into your face and explode dealing even more damage. Make these things priority number one when you go into a fire fight.

Speaking of environmental hazards, the new setting is stunning. Huge mountainscapes, filtering light pouring in from huge cracks in the cave, giant bones of monsters you wish you could fight. It's easily the best looking environment out of the other two DLCs.

In short, Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt ended up being not so big after all. Short main story, uninteresting side quests, re-skinned monsters. Compared to the other two DLCs, this one is definitely the weakest of the group.

Journey: Lost In The Sea Of Bullets

I've heard a lot of incredible things about this games in the past months. Great soundtrack, fantastic visuals, beautiful story, and since I recently acquired a PS3 (don't judge me), I decided to baptize it with a game that received such high praise. Journey, made by thatgamecompany who also made Flower, is more than just a game, it's an experience. No dialogue, no speech just sights and music. You start as a small cloaked figure confused and scared, traversing the vast and empty spaces of the world you're in, and you come out something better. You gain a deeper understanding of what it really means to be this little red figure hopping along the sand.

Game mechanics are pretty straight forward. You have a scarf that dictates how high and how far you can jump depending on how long and how much charge it has. You can make the scarf longer by finding floating symbols in the environment, that's all there is to it really. It's like a Mario game without having to hunt down your pink, kidnap prone wench. You jump along from gorgeously rendered location to the next, wondering what you're doing in such a place.

I wont touch on the story since it's very much worth the playthrough. Plus it's a bit open ended and very subjective.

Honestly I didn't want to write about this game because it's pretty flawless which is very surprising. Though I will say this game isn't for everyone but then again, isn't any other game? The reason I wanted to write about this game in particular was because of something I noticed when I put down the controller and reflected. This game conveys so much with so little and it doesn't fit into any genre, not entirely.

I'll walkthrough what I felt when I first picked it up. I was expecting a few things: dialogue of some kind, monsters to fight, boss battles, a really weepy story. When I first got control I nearly stopped playing. I was thinking "Is this it? This game is boring as hell!" I tried jumping, I tried attacking but all I could do was walk. I felt trapped and useless, I actually started to fidget because I couldn't do anything. I finally reached the point where you receive your scarf and though "fantastic now I can at least jump!" a little hop and that was it. The game was trying my patience but I pushed on regardless. As the game progressed the frustration started to dissipate. I started enjoying the limited jumping, the scenery and everything around me. It was unlike anything I've ever played. I had no idea I could feel such things from a game that offered no words. I was taken aback by it all.

This game showed me something going on within our gaming world. Most of the games out have at least one of three tropes in them: heavy dialogue, PvE, or guns. Go ahead, go look at your game pile and find one other game that doesn't have at least one if not all of those tropes. I'll wait. ... Saw it? See what I mean? Our games are so drench with hand holding and ricocheting bullets that I'm surprised we even have game genres. We are making games and not experiences. Sure there are a few games that have one if not all of those tropes that have managed to move you emotionally, but the thing that remains is that Journey is the only game I've come across that pulls at all your emotions with nothing more than a music note and a grain of sand. It also showed me how impatient I've become. I was trained to seeing some giant set piece explode or a giant monster appearing or everything going to hell within the first five minutes. I've been trained by past games to expect some cliched intro to keep me playing. I didn't realize I was going through the motions until after I finished Journey and picked up Far Cry 3. Sure enough, everything turns to shit after the first few minutes of game intro.

Another thing that really left me reeling was the co-op in Journey. You gain a partner after you get out of the tutorial levels and you expect to be able to communicate whether it be voice or text chat. The only way you can communicate is by using the music tone you usually use to activate switches in the game world. This take on co-op showed me something I seldom see playing on a console with strangers, cooperation. Every time I played, my partner would always hang by me, we would fly around in unison, show each other secret passages and hidden scarf pieces. It was like playing with someone you knew and not some stranger miles away. This showed me that people do have the capability of playing with others without resorting to name calling or being obnoxious jerks. I wish there were more games like Journey to show us that games don't always have to follow a strict set of linear, unspoken rules. That games can be more than gun simulators or  textbooks of dialogue and gore.

It's a distressing thing that a game that causes such an emotional response is put on such high regard instead of being the norm.