Right, so Sleeping Dogs is a game that is so inconsistent you could have a brilliant time one evening, but then play through an absolutely terrible mission the next night. I've just played through one of the worst missions in the game, involving showing some important American guy a good time in the city. This meant I had to find women for him to hang out with (which in itself is a bit weird), and then sing karaoke in a private booth. It wasn't fun.
That is Sleeping Dogs' problem. One moment you're kicking arse with your martial arts or slow-mo diving and headshotting enemies, the next you're ferrying people around the city. It's especially grating this late on in the story, at a point which the whole thing should be reaching a dramatic climax.
Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to tell you what I think of Borderlands 2 yet. But, thanks to the (frankly stupid) nature of print and online embargoes, here are somebody else's thoughts <cough>Game Informer<cough> that may - or may not - accurately reflect my opinion about what I've played so far:
"Instead of taking the easy route, the studio has taken everything that impressed in the original and greatly enhanced it. From major bullet points like the story to smaller details like the UI and inventory system, Borderlands 2 surpassed my expectations and stands as a prime example of how to knock a sequel out of the park...
"With an entertaining antagonist, some surprising twists, and cutscenes you actually want to watch, the story is one of the many significant steps up from its predecessor."
So, Borderlands 2. If you haven't pre-ordered it yet, you should (probably) think about doing so. Maybe. And if anyone asks why, you didn't hear it from me.
Aside from a brief foray in to Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I'd be lying if I were to say I'd been spending time with anything other than League of Legends, the most played PC game in the world.
Riot has released a new tier and reward structure for their ranked system, and this has made me more determined than ever to get myself to a respectable Elo.
Elo is the rating system Riot uses to measure the skill level of each player in ranked play, and with this comes a term known as 'Elo Hell'. You see, a professional League of Legends player will have an Elo of 2000+. Mine currently fluctuates anywhere between 950 - 1200. This is Elo hell. This is a special place where you often wonder how some of your team-mates managed to navigate past the login screen, such is the level of their skill in the game. A place where people think it's a good idea to try a champion they've never EVER played before, and then wonder why they play terribly. A place where team-mates are never in the wrong, and any misfortune that may happen upon them is entirely my fault. A place where... I could go on all day, I really could.
But at the end of the day, I'm in this Elo range because I deserve to be. Part of the reason is from playing ranked games way before I was actually ready to do so. This was roughly 6 months ago, and since then I've learned so much from watching tournaments and pro streams that it feels like a completely different game now. My re-emergence in to the ranked queue began last week, and so far has been very hit or miss. But then nothing ever worth having came easy, right?
