What We Played #148: Borderlands 2, Titanfall & FFX HD

Rather than bore you again with tales of how much fun I’m having playing Warframe with the odd bit of PS3-powered Borderlands 2 thrown in for good measure, I thought I’d expend a few sentences on what is, to me, a pleasantly surprising aspect of playing Digital Extremes’ F2P title.

Unusually for an online game my experiences of playing with ‘randoms’ have been on the whole quite positive. There have been some exceptions to the rule but I think that as it is primarily a cooperative game that there’s less incentive or purpose in griefing.

As a result of playing with randoms a lot more than usual I’ve encountered a number of clever and/or funny PSN IDs and here’s a shout out to a few of my favourites:

• Hyph-n, very clever and disappointed I’ve never thought of it.
• xo-MCMLXXVIII-ox, a great twist on sticking your birth year somewhere in you PSN ID.
• DeusEggs, just for the giggles.

Aran has been spending this week playing his own special first person combat game that also included aspects of the kind of resource management you might expect to find in a turn-based strategy title:

This week I played The Stomach Bug War. Basically it involves ingesting something dodgy and then letting a virus (or bacteria) turning your stomach into a warzone, complete with pain. Monday and Tuesday I was confined to my bed, the Bug clearly winning and taking great glee in it. Then on Wednesday I began my fight back and managed to send in food reserves and medicines to my white blood cells on the front. Today it appears the Cells have gained the upper hand and are launching a counter offensive. This war will be decided by the end of the week.

I’ve also been playing FFX HD for a combo feature with TC and it’s either live by the time this is published or it will be soon after. It’s such a great game to experience again.

Rather than vomit-inducing bugs, Stefan turned to some of our community, Youles, McProley and Wick, for his first person combat experience and to have another attempt at Call of Duty: Ghosts‘ Extinction map. “When it decides to throw ridiculous near unbeatable numbers of enemies at you, it gets ridiculous. Then the server went awry and booted us out.” He reckons that they might try it again.

Blair says that inFamous Second Son has become his most played game so far this year as he’s recently been struggling to find much time. He’s played right through both the good and evil routes for his review and concludes that ” it’s an amazing game, the visuals are incredible”. He also found a little bit of time for SteamWorld Dig and Surgeon Simulator.

And last up this time is Jim:

This week has been devoted almost exclusively to Titanfall. As I mentioned in Wednesday’s column, I wasn’t that excited when the game first appeared. However, with little else to play and an urgent need to put uni work out of mind, I snatched it up for 30 bob on PC.

After playing a few rounds, I knew I was going to love the game. The balancing is spot on and Titanfall doesn’t fall victim to the sometimes-confusing array of customisation options available in other multiplayer shooters. Playing the same clutch of modes and maps is starting to lose its novelty but I’m far from done yet.

The only other game I’ve spent time with this week is the rather unique Deception IV: Blood Ties for Vita. It’s a truly bizarre third person action game in which traps are your main weapon. Roam your very own customisable castle as heroes chase you, placing all sorts of deadly contraptions for them to bump into. Though often hilarious on their own, building a sequence of multiple traps creates some insanely rewarding bonuses, not to mention a good spectacle.

Have you played anything this week that’s stood out for one reason or another, or perhaps you’ve bumped into a gamer online with a particularly clever or funny gamer tag or PSN ID?