Sniper Elite V2: Painting walls with brains since May 1, 2012

I don't think words can adequately describe how deeply satisfying I find this game to be. The moment of lining up a perfect long distance shot, watching that single bullet fly some 200 odd meters and then blow chunks of a man's skull around the room behind him. There is nothing to compare it to. All I have to say on the subject is... Eat your heart out SAW, I found a new outlet for my gore driven urges.

"Clean up on vertebrae 4."

Sniper Elite V2's story puts you in command of an elite sniper set in Berlin in an attempt to... something  rockets, something Russians. The fact of the matter is that if you're playing this game for the story you came to the wrong party. The straight shit is that you're a dude with a gun that can shoot bullets very far away with incredible accuracy, and also it's amazing to turn brains into brain pudding. Anything else is clearly irrelevant to how the game is meant to be enjoyed.

"Nothing can save you now.... I will not be gentle."

The game has a pretty good set of options in terms of graphical customization. Even on a mid line PC it's smooth and pretty on a low setting.The audio in the game is top notch, from the sound of enemies shouting commands in the distance to the kick and reload of your bolt action rifle. With the addition of responsive and well tuned controls, the game delivers a very tight and impressive experience of making peoples insides be on the outsides.

I don't even feel like I need to brag this game up. The screenshots should speak for themselves. There really isn't a whole lot to add to what's going on here. Each mission gives you a variety of objectives but the ones that you're really going to be looking forward to are the parts where you get to use gun on man. If you're not entirely sold on this yet the game allows you to play the entire single player campaign cooperatively as well as 3 other cooperative game modes with a number of maps. As if the game wasn't good enough on its own, now you can bring a friend along to the slaughter or take them out if you're more interested in the Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch multiplayer modes.

"I don't mean to make light of your situation Sir, but I have a raging murder boner right now."

I can't stress enough how fun this game is. Even more so if you've got a buddy to pull along for the ride. It's a must buy, no questions asked. If you're still sceptical there is even a demo out. There is literally no excuse not to at least try this game out. Go play it. Now.

Weevils out~

League of Legends

So I know it's been quite a while since my promised "Monday updates" but for a small period of time my brain turned into a liquid and dripped out of my ears. I forgot I had a blog to maintain and fled into the woods to live with the wolves for a period of time. Now that I'm back I can get on those updates.

League of Legends is a free to play widespread and successful title but for those that aren't aware it is a MoBA styled game. MoBA standing for Multiplayer online Battle Arena, made popular by the Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients (DoTA). Right now there are several games of the same genre on the scene now, but by large League of Legends seems to be the most successful of which.

I'm going to be straight with you. MoBA games are not easy to jump into, and for the first month of solid playtime with this game, before I even found a champion that I liked, I could do a total of one thing. That was to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter, by computer controlled players no less. There is no easing into a game like League of Legends. It treats you like you're the fresh meat on the prison block, and every gang member is excited to have a new turn on the communal bitch.

You control a solitary champion (free champions are offered in a random line up week to week) and your goal is to push down one of several lanes with your team mates. Aiding your small computer controlled mobs to travel down each lane and thus offer you some protection against the part way turrets on the opposing side while at the same time preventing enemy champions from doing the same. Once you manage to break down all the turrets along one or several lanes leading up into the enemy base, you have to destroy their 'Nexus' or HQ to win.

The basic goal of the game is really quite simple, but there are mountains of complexity added when you find that each individual champion out of some 80+ to choose from have their own unique abilities, passive powers, and play styles. Made even more complex by how each of these play styles and powers interact with both the opponents you face, and the team mate that you have decided to partner with. A fair portion of the learning curve is patience as you face a growing number of combatants and learn what each one of them, as well as you are capable of.

"Oh god the names...Who is? What...do?"

With so many champions and combinations to encounter one absolutely glaring issue that has come up is balance. As with many games League of Legends suffers from imbalances in champion skills as well as combinations. Now, I'm sure that Riot Games had every intention of making each champion they design as balanced as possible, but as the player is allowed to choose which items they wish to buy from a wide selection during each match. They have had some characters turn into absolute monsters on the field when they might have been intended for a support role. This seems to be even more of an issue with newer released champions as opposed to the older discounted champs.

"I am supporting you! It's a 'supporting' laser!"

Don't get me wrong, even with an unbalanced champion on the field, player skill will almost always come out on top. A good player who is intimately familiar with a champ that they play can sway the tide in a team fight or turn things around at the last moment from a defeat to a victory. As each match is a random match up using their matchmaking system, the game has endless re-playability so long as you don't mind having the snot pounded out of you while you learn.

All in all, the game is good. Really good. Good enough to keep me drudging through the horrible violent pixel rape to become half way mediocre at it and continue working on my skill now. If you haven't given this game a shot, or have only heard passing references of it. I fully suggest you go check it out, so long as you have a tolerance for losing and enough patience to practice.