And yet, however great these and other improvements were in 2012, there is one thing that seemingly improves year after year — voice acting in video games.

Sure, there were examples of poorly executed VOs (I’m looking at you NeverDead, Kinect Star Wars, and Resident Evil 6), but there will always be games that do not fully illustrate the strides that the industry has made towards progress.

The outlook for the continued improvement of narratives in games and the voices to accompany them is promising.  2013 will assuredly perpetuate the positive trend with titles like: The Last of Us, God of War: Ascension, BioShock Infinite, Metro: Last Light, and South Park: The Stick of Truth, not to mention a plethora of others.  As great as it is to look ahead, let’s venture into what titles truly made 2012 another great year for voice acting in the games industry.

Without further ado, here are the 2012 winners:

BEST VOICE ACTING

1. Borderlands 2: This video is just a brief example as to why Borderlands 2 is the first game on this list.  Each character plays their role as if it was going to be their last, being humorous and serious when the occasion calls for it.  The VO work of the actors in Borderlands 2 is part of what makes it such a unique title that players can enjoy time and time again.

2. Mass Effect 3: Mass Effect 3…man.  Besides the performances of both Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale, the sheer scope of the universe means that hundreds of characters are part of it.  Each character that comes across Shepard on his/her path throughout the universe has some sort of interesting dialogue that lends itself to the atmosphere of the game and further expands the lore.  Most everyone at Gameverse made sure to stop for every quest when playing through the game, myself included if for nothing other than to hear more dialogue.

3. Max Payne 3: I personally believe that this game did not grab the audience that it should have, but Max Payne 3 is one of the better games I have played this generation.  The Houser brothers sure as hell know how to write a game, and Max Payne 3 is no exception.  I felt bad for Max the entire time I was playing — he was an alcoholic with a decomposing lifestyle that was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Max’s character (played by James McCaffrey) could have easily been on our “Best Individual Performances” list, and the others working around him performed equally well.

4. Sleeping Dogs: There are not many games that have immersed me as well as Sleeping Dogs.  Part of it was surely the authenticity that United Front Games brought to their version of Hong Kong, but it was the way that the characters spoke to and of each other that truly makes me want to visit the actual city.  The characters were varied and spoke an interesting blend of Cantonese and English, and the writing gave them an engaging conduit for their work.

5. The Walking Dead: Every character in The Walking Dead has some sort of impact on Lee, Clementine, or both and affect choices that the player has to make accordingly.  Interactions with other people in The Walking Dead range from nerve-wracking to darkly comical, but each carries with it some form of governance by the player, making every discussion personal for whatever player is at the helm of Lee.

6. Assassin’s Creed III: Assassin’s Creed III’s many talented VO actors brought further authenticity to the Revolution-era atmosphere of the game.  Historically accurate vernacular further propelled the believability for the player, not the very least of which was Connor’s impressive performance.

7. Far Cry 3: Vaas Montenegro is one of the main reasons that Fry Cry 3 is on this list, but the actors portraying Rook Island citizens and the other colorful characters within this interesting island realm kept the audio entertaining from start to finish.  Even Jason Brody and his yuppie friends showcased character traits outside of what was expected from the game, leaving us impressed by the wide range of emotion in Far Cry 3.

8. Halo 4: The complementary cast was excellent as they always have been, but this time around the focus on Master Chief and Cortana were especially brilliant.  Halo 4 is by far the best vocal showcase for each character, and the one-on-one interactions between the two have never been so engaging.

9. Spec Ops: The Line: Nolan North sounding like Nolan North is still a concept I can get behind after playing through Spec Ops: The Line.  As he and his fellow soldiers progress further into the dilapidated ruins of Dubai, the dialogue between each of them becomes more and more chilling to listen to.  The way that these characters break down is something that needs to be experienced, as the voice-overs and writing made for an alarming experience that will stick with players long after they finish the game.

10. Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Alright, more Nolan North!  Call of Duty: Black Ops II may not have differentiated itself much from previous entries in terms of gameplay, but the vocals for the game were still top notch.  Regardless of your opinions on the story, each character lends their part exactly as you would expect them too, something that is perfectly fine for a title of this nature.

(CLOSE CALLS)

Dishonored
Darksiders 2
Uncharted: Golden Abyss

BEST INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES BY FEMALES

1. Clementine – Melissa Hutchison: Poor Clem.  Stuck in a world surrounded by the dead and a number of living who are far more deadly, Clementine and Lee Everett meet early on in the game and forge a relationship from then on.  Lee acts as a protector and father-figure of sorts towards Clementine, where each interaction between the two has weight and meaning.  Her wide range of emotions and realistic sense of character are what truly make Clementine an outstanding character that players invest in emotionally.  Despite being 37 years old, Melissa Hutchison perfectly represents the fear of being a young child in an unsure world and makes Clementine the most lovable character of 2012, if not one of the more memorable of the last decade.

2. Commander Shepard – Jennifer Hale: Not to take anything away from Mark Meer, but Jennifer Hale’s performance of Commander Shepard holds a special kind of resonance in the Mass Effect universe.  She carries each line with a sense of pertinence that aligns well with the gravity and weight of each of the games.  Hale also carries Shepard’s other traits within her voice-work — leadership, determination, compassion — and it makes the Mass Effect experience positively immersive.

3. Cortana – Jen Taylor: Not to discredit the acting of Mackenzie Mason that breathed life into the motions of Cortana, but Jen Taylor is what truly made the character into what she is.  Having played the character for over 10 years now, Taylor’s performance is an even more involved continuation as the rogue AI behind the curtains of Master Chief’s actions.

4. Lilith/Patricia Tannis/Captain Scarlett – Colleen Clinkenbeard: Of all the Borderlands 2 characters that Clinkenbeard has played, Captain Scarlett from the first DLC pack Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty is by far our favorite.  I think most players are fans of the deranged and borderline psychopathic Patricia Tannis, but Captain Scarlett is the sort of nefarious anti-villain that gives Borderlands its distinct personality.  The fact that Clinkenbeard does each of these voices (in addition to one of the protagonists from the original game and her reprisal, Lilith) is no small feat on its own.  But that they are all wildly funny and fit perfectly into the world of Pandora is a great touch.

5. Aveline de Grandpré – Amber Goldfarb: The game may not have performed up to technical — and likely sales — expectations, but Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation was still a unique entry for the Vita and within the Assassin’s Creed world.  Amber Goldfarb’s portrayal of the multi-cultural Aveline de Grandpré was a natural addition to the worldly portrayals of the Assassin’s Creed games and characters.  Her experience as a trilingual actress made Aveline’s dialogue rich and enjoyable to listen to and brought legitimacy to the voicing within the game.

BEST INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES BY MALES

1. Vaas Montenegro – Michael Mando: Vaas Montenegro was easily the most vicious, complicated, and intriguing villain of 2012 and is one of the more interesting bad guys of the last decade, games or otherwise.  Within the dangerous jungles of the Rook Islands, the protagonist’s encounters with Vaas are harrowing and compelling experiences that leave their mark on the player.  Michael Mando was the actor portrayal, voice, and likeness of Vaas, and he turns his persona into an incredibly complex evil.  The plot in Far Cry 3 may have fallen off a bit after the introduction of the game, but Mando’s constant ability to keep Vaas captivating made the playthrough more than worth it.

2. Handsome Jack – Dameon Clarke: I would venture to guess that you had no idea Dameon Clarke voiced Gohan and Cell from Dragon Ball Z at various points in his career.  Yeah, we didn’t either.  What we do know, however, is that he brought life to one of the most purely evil villains in recent memory.  The writing for Jack was dastardly, sure, but Clarke truly embodied the chaos and madness that his character brought to the world of Pandora.

3. Connor Kenway (Ratonhnhaké:ton) – Noah Watts: Assassin’s Creed III may have had faults (many, many faults…), but many of the voice-overs were not among them.  Noah Watts’ performance was a brilliant counterpoint to the many marred ambient performances, and gave a level of depth and development to Connor that hands-down exceeded the rest of the cast.

4. Wei Shen – Will Yun Lee: Wei Shen is not an ordinary police officer.  Being installed deep into a branch of the Triads, he was forced to emulate their culture based on his own background.  The traits of his character bring out the best in the actor assigned to play his part, Will Yun Lee.  Lee’s portrayal of the unpredictable Shen fits perfectly for the character and stands well next to a lot of other expert performances.

5. Lee Everett – Dave Fennoy: Lee is a character full of conflict, strife, regret, and compassion.  A convicted murderer turned guardian, Lee’s poise is a perfect complement to Clementine, the young girl that he aims to protect in a world ruled by the dead.  Fennoy does a great job in each of the interactions he has with other characters, and gives Lee’s thoughts more weight when the character is alone.  Considering how much of The Walking Dead is character and story driven, it is easy to recognize the wonderful voice acting that Fennoy provides.

BEST COMMENTATING

FIFA 13 – Martin Tyler, Clive Tyldesley, Alan Smith, and Andy Townsend provided spectacular English-language commentary on play that felt dynamic and fluid, almost as if players were watching a live match.  Commentators for other languages also did a superb job at lending realism to the sports simulator, but the presentation of FIFA 13 was truly one of its finer points.

(CLOSE CALL)

NBA 2K13

WEIRDEST VOICE ACTING

Dust: An Elysian Tail – Dust is an awesome game (and you really should play it), but the voice acting and the writing are on two completely different levels.  I’m a fan of some of the voice-work, but then HOLY HELL, FIDGET!  A few of the other characters also have this odd high-pitched, someone-is-holding-a-gun-to-my-head desperation in their tones, although the characters do have an interesting place within the game and the voice-work is likely a reflection of that.

(CLOSE CALLS)

Asura’s Wrath
Madden NFL 13

WORST VOICE ACTING

NeverDead: It is difficult to have any good words for NeverDead as a product, whether you are discussing its gameplay, writing, or voice-work.  It is a broken game at its core, but that does not excuse the awful VO performances.  I can’t imagine the actors saw this as something other than a paycheck, because the writing itself is pretty damn bad.  Repetitive, grunt-worthy one-liners and constant narration of things the player is currently experiencing make for an auditory experience best left ignored.

A lot of people put hard-worked hours into this game.  A shame, really.

(CLOSE CALLS)

Nothing else.  Maybe Postal III if you include the Steam release being in 2012, but that is a stretch.

We hope you enjoyed the results, and please feel free to chime in with your opinions below.  We’ll be running this feature again next year, but in the meantime be sure to check out the games on this list!

The plot elements are the strongest part of Mister Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage. Mister Torgue (who is a surprisingly nice fellow) has found a new vault that will only open when the ultimate badass kills the greatest coward. Naturally, your goal is to kill everyone between you and the vault full of loot. The plot itself is basically an affectionate parody of professional wrestling. I’m not a fan of pro-wrestling, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I suspect there may be a second layer of jokes for pro-wrestling fans hiding behind the ones I understood, but if they are there they don’t detract from the experience. A number of jokes come from pro-wrestling tropes and plotlines being forced on the real world. Mister Torgue ruins an ambush by commentating about how it’s obviously trap, a number of quests are about getting sponsors and smack talking your opponents before the fights, and so on.

The new content is a little… meh. There are some Torgue specific slot and vending machines. These use Torgue tokens that occasionally drop from enemies. Another unique currency was not really what Borderlands 2 needed, but it is kind of cool. If you don’t like Torgue guns, you’re out of luck there. If you can get one, grab a triple barreled Torgue shotgun; that’s what convinced me Torgue guns were awesome. The maps are kind of generic, with no real standouts like the underground oasis in the Captain Scarlett DLC. None are really bad, like the one in Captain Scarlett that killed your frame rate, but the lack of “wow” moments is a disappointment. I’m reminded of the lack of environmental variety from Borderlands 1.

Unlike the Captain Scarlett DLC, there is no new vehicle, which is a disappointment, considering how awesome the skiffs were and all the motorcycles present. I really feel there was a wasted opportunity there. There’s a series of racing missions, but you use the runner for them.

A minor annoyance is the games inability to tell what character the player is, or how many of you there are. Playing solo as Gaige, I was referred to as he, they and him or her. The inconsistency is the weirdest part. Speaking of Gaige, there’s no acknowledgment of her existence. A quest has you putting up each of the Vault Hunter’s posters to show how badass you are, but Gaige doesn’t get a mention. Disappointing, really.

The core gameplay of Mister Torgue is you going around fighting guys in arenas. You kill dudes to get the things you need to access the arena, you kill dudes to get to the arena, and then you kill dudes in the arena. The game does mix it up a little with the aforementioned racing missions and some other interesting sidequests. I like the arenas in Mister Torgue more than the ones in the base game; they seem less… exhausting. Not sure what it is (my best guess is that they’re simply shorter), but it works out well. The arenas themselves have some variety. There’s a few in stadiums, but there are more interesting ones, like the one in a giant metal tower made mostly of scaffolding surrounded by lava, or one has you start a bar fight with a bunch of not-yet-hostile NPCs.

In terms of amount of content, Mister Torgue is about the same as Captain Scarlett. It feels slightly smaller and shorter, but has more stuff happening. The environments are a little blander, but the characters and dialog are excellent. If you like Borderlands 2 and the Captain Scarlett DLC, you’ll like Mister Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage.

Sorry, MISTER TORGUE’S CAMPAIGN OF CARNAGE  ҉

https://twitter.com/ECHOcasts

> Hey g*uys! Sorr#y for the lack of upd%ates lately. My ECHO com’s been on $the friTz. I thin^ some)_’s tr#4ng to h/*ck it

> YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH IT’S TORGUE TIME BITCHES

> THIS IS MISTER TORGUE COMIN AT YOU FROM PANDORA I HAVE TWO QUESTIONS FIRSTLY ARE YOU READY TO BLOW SOME SH*T UP AND SECONDLY HOW ARE THINGS

> ARE YOU A BADASS ENOUGH BADASS TO SURVIVE “MISTER TORGUE’S CAMPAIGN OF CARNAGE”? I’M LEGIT CURIOUS CAUSE I DUNNO YOU THAT WELL #BADASSITUDE

> I NEED NEW PUNCTUATION THAT LOOKS LIKE AN EXPLOSION CAUSE PERIODS ARE TOO CALM AND EXCLAMATION MARKS LOOK LIKE AN UPSIDE DOWN LOWER CASE I

> LOWER CASE IS FOR PUSSIES

> OKAY THE NEW EXPLOSION-BASED PUNCTUATION LOOKS LIKE THIS (><) AND REPRESENTS AN EXPLOSION NOISE WHICH IS HOW BADASSES END SENTENCES (><)

> WAIT I TAKE IT BACK THAT LOOKS KINDA LIKE A SPHINCTER ABORT MISSION

> ON PANDORA SETTIN UP MY CAMPAIGN OF CARNAGE HERE’S A PICTURE OF ME THROWIN UP THE HORNS LIKE A BADASS #BADASSITUDE http://twitpic.com/bdho6y

> TORGUE GUNS ARE THE BEST THING EVER IF YOU DISAGREE SHUT UP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAkDPobvqM

> OKAY GOT IT ҉ THIS IS NOW THE OFFICIAL END PUNCTUATION OF THE TORGUE CORPORATION ҉ I DUB IT THE EXPLERIOD

> THE EXPLERIOD CAN MAKE ANY SENTENCE BADASS, FOR INSTANCE: “THIS VEGAN CASHEW-BASED CHEESE SUBSTITUTE IS DELIGHTFUL ҉ ”

> GODDAMMIT TWITTER SPACING WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY EXPLERIODS THEY LOOK LIKE WEIRD FLOWER THINGS OR SOME SH*T

> BY THE WAY WHAT IS A VEGANS

Update:

> MY CAMPAIGN OF CARNAGE DROPS ON NOVEMBER TWENTIIIIIIIIIIIETH

> IF YOU DIDN’T READ THAT LAST TWEET LIKE IT WAS A SICK GUITAR SOLO YOU F*CKED IT UP

So, Tuesday is when it come out then.

Since we’re avoiding spoilers, there won’t be much discussion of the story in this review. To summarize, it’s good and Gearbox delivers on what they promised, even if they got cute with the ending. The main quest will take a few hours to complete if you do the sidequests. If you try and speedrun it, you could probably complete it in under two hours.

Captain Scarlett adds several new areas. These are quite large, and there is a lot of variety. Most are quite pretty, and one underground area is freaking beautiful. There are some problematic areas. One has a gate that blocks access to half of the map, and the gate can get stuck and refuse to open. The same level has a place where you can get stuck in the level geometry. This is especially annoying if you’re a Mechromancer with 400 Anarchy stacks. Another has horrible framerate issues (a level designer appears to have been over-generous with the lighting). In later levels invisible walls start to be a problem. Most of those feel like level design oversights rather than deliberate restrictions on player movement, especially since a loot chest is located three to fifteen feet behind one of them. There’s also a place where the player can die from fall damage. An oddity, considering Borderlands 2 doesn’t have fall damage. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong or bad with any of the levels, but like the Mechromancer DLC, this Captain Scarlett could have used more time in QA before release.

There’s very little reuse of assets. The Pirate enemies are not quite palette swapped bandits; they have a few unique tricks up their sleeves. A few, mostly the bigger guys, are quite nasty. The sandworms are not quite as interesting; they mostly sit there spitting at you. I didn’t encounter any interesting variants in playthrough 1, although there may be more variety in playthrough 2. Speaking of enemies, the final boss fight is pretty disappointing. He’s huge and visually interesting, but is extremely reminiscent of the fight against Tyrpticon in Transformers: War for Cybertron. Even the color palette is similar. It’s bizarre.

Speaking of big bad guys, there is some endgame content for those of you who are level 50. Two new Invincibles, both have which have already been beaten by people on the Internet. They drop a new currency that can be used to purchase weapons that, so far, don’t appear to be worth it. Gearbox says there’s something we haven’t figured out yet. More puzzling is Gearbox’s decision to put the new Invincibles on a once a day timer. This isn’t an MMO; there’s no reason to deny the players the ability to kill the big ugly guys fool of loot. All in all, this is probably the most troubling part of the DLC.

The sidequests are entertaining. There’s a whole series of them involving finding pirate treasure. Those are quite well written, and have very interesting loot. On the topic of loot, there’s some new stuff. I found about ten items with new red text. There appear to be more. Some of them have some interesting costs associated with their benefits. Most of your quest rewards are unique items, so you’ll end up with quite a few in your inventory.

The last major new thing are the Skiffs.

They’re good.

The Skiffs handle quite well. It’s honestly quite a shame we can’t use them elsewhere. Since they hover they can strafe. They can’t move vertically at all, and you will see them get stuck on wooden signs that are two feet too short to hit them. In terms of weapons, they all have a turret mounted machine gun that can be controlled by a gunner and a prow mounted weapon for the pilot. The prow weapon can be rockets, sawblades or a harpoon. The harpoon is by far the best. It fires slowly, but does massive damage, can go through multiple targets and explodes a few seconds after it hits something. It’s really a shame there isn’t a man-portable version (if there is, I haven’t found it).

All in all, I would recommend Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty. There are some problems and troubling design decisions, but it has a good amount of entertaining content.

I like Gaige as a character a lot. Her visual design is atypical of female videogame characters and very cool, although her default skin is undersaturated. Her backstory, told via ECHO logs, is entertaining, although not available in-game. Her voice actress is wonderful, although her screams when Gaige takes an elemental DOT are extremely unpleasant (this could just be my own aversion to the sound of young women screaming in pain, but others have the same complaint). This is a fairly accurate summary of my opinion of the DLC: it’s excellent, but…

The DLC itself adds nothing but Gaige. There’s exactly what you would expect at minimum, and nothing else. There are no bonus head or skins for those with special editions or for those with a Borderlands 1 save. There are no ECHO logs of her in the game itself (they can be found on YouTube for free, but it would’ve been nice if they were in game somewhere). Fortunately, what is there is good.

Gaige herself is a fun character. Her shouts are vaguely meta, and convey an impressive amount of character. Her “aww, but I want ’em both” and “number number numbers, math math math” when examining loot are less annoying than Maya’s “they both have pros and cons…”, but this is a personal preference. A number of her skin names reference band names, and her skill names reference Community and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There’s a lot of geeky fanservice here, and not the kind that involves the male gaze.

Deathtrap, the kill bot that Gaige can summon as her action skill, is cool, fun and effective, if a bit derpy at times. He is insanely powerful at the lowest levels, reasonable in the 20s and 30s and still useful at in endgame play (more useful than Axton’s turret, but less useful than the others). A number of skills grant him new abilities and most, if not all (there is some uncertainty over one or two skills, and a few overlap), affect his appearance. The capstone ability in each tree changes his head, and the other skills add armor plates, spike or blades to his body.

As an aid for newbies, he works well. For more experienced players, he’s more useful as a tool than a weapon. Deathtraps AI is wonky at times. He’s generally sufficiently aggressive, but occasionally will fail to notice enemies attacking him from ten feet away. This appear to happen mostly where enemy AI pathfinding is unconnected and happens extremely rarely (I encountered it once per ~10 hours). He has an electric attack for fly enemies, which he uses on static enemies as well. He’s also fond of attacking those shock cactus things, barrels and Jack statues with it, even in favor of the guys shooting him. He’s also fond of using his laser, which does massive damage to a single target, on the weakest enemy on a group. Long story short, Deathtrap’s AI needs work. It’s generally good enough, but when it fails it fails in ways that are annoying rather than ways that are funny. A common request is for the ability to command him to focus on a target. Personally, I would suggest making it so using the action skill while pointing at an enemy cause him to attack it (or defend it if it’s an ally) until it’s dead or you tell him to kill something else and have holding down the action key dismiss him.

Like everyone else, Gaige has three action trees. Best Friends Forever is largely aimed at newbies, Little Big Trouble is for intermediate and Ordered Chaos is for “hardcore” players. Gaige has quite a few more one point skills than the other characters, which I like. Awesomely, almost all builds are viable. Whether you want to go all in one tree or spread out over all three, it’ll work. It’s a pretty impressive piece of design.

The Best Friends Forever tree is largely about buffing Deathtrap and increasing player survivability. Don’t think of it as just the newbie tree though; A number of skills synergize very well with Ordered Chaos skill. Close Enough allows for up to half of your missed bullet to ricochet and hit enemies for half damage anyway. It’s quite popular with Anarchy users, as it helps cancel out the insane accuracy penalty. Cooking Up Trouble grants you health regeneration when your magazine is full. I quite like using it with Blood Soaked Shields, which depletes health. Buck Up, which is supposed to allow Deathtrap to restore the shields of a friendly target, is often used on enemies. And on you while you’re in Fight For Your Life mode, which is unhelpful. The skill is largely useless and counterproductive with Deathtrap’s AI in the state it is now. Upshot Robot increases Deathtrap’s duration and both of your melee damage as long as keep killing fools and stacks almost without limit. However, it doesn’t increase Deathtrap’s health, so he’ll most likely die not much longer after he would’ve been dispelled. The capstone skill, Sharing Is Caring, grants a copy of your shield to Deathtrap. The current consensus is that it definitely works with Nova shields, but Amp and Spike shields are iffy.

Little Big Trouble is mostly about Shock damage. The first two skills, More Pepe and Myelin are generally considered underpowered. The Stare adds a fiery laser to Deathtrap, but contrary to the description, it is for single targets, not many. Shock Storm, which creates a Shock AoE whenever you get a critical kill or Deathtrap gets any kill, has too small of an AoE to be useful. Shock And “AAAGGGGHHH!” creates a Shock AoE around you whenever you reload, and would probably see a lot more use by Anarchy users if it wasn’t so deep in the tree. One Two Boom, like Buck Up, is currently crippled by Deathtrap’s AI. It allows Deathtrap to fire a Shock orb, much like the secondary fire of the shock rifle in Unreal Tournament. The Shock orb often ends up being shot in unhelpful places, like the sky. Interspersed Outburst sounds very useful, but I never hear about anyone using it. Make It Sparkle is much the same story.

Ordered Chaos is all about one skill: Anarchy. If you have Anarchy, ever kill or automatic reload (while in combat) will give you one Anarchy stack. Each Anarchy stack grants you +1.75% gun damage and -1.75% gun accuracy. Anarchy stacks cap at 150 by default, but that is increased by 50 for every rank of Preshrunk Cyberpunk you have. Preshrunk Cyberpunk can be boosted to ten ranks with class mods, for a total of 650 Anarchy stacks. Manually reloading eliminates all Anarchy stacks, and going into Fight For Your Life rapidly depletes them. As does exiting the game. Ordered Chaos is for hardcore players, and not just in skill level; to get the most out of Anarchy you need to be able to play marathon sessions, not a little bit at a time. Which is most unfortunate for those who are like shooters and are very good at them, but have other commitments. Anarchy has other issues. If you’re not the host of the game, every time anyone reloads will count as you reloading. So if you enjoy playing with friends, you better host or not use Anarchy. This, Deathtrap’s derpiness and the negative money trading at launch suggests that Gearbox does not have the best programmers/QA guys in the world. Making games is a lot harder than it looks, so I don’t want to sound like and asshole, but I’m really curious as to how things like this made it into the release versions.

Smaller, Lighter, Faster increases reload speed and slightly decreases magazine size. It only has four ranks, so you’ll need it and Anarchy to go any further into Ordered Chaos. A Gunzerker with ammo regeneration will be your best friend. Robot Rampage allows Deathtrap to do a spin attack thing, and is probably his highest single target damage ability. Unless that target is moving, in which case Deathtrap will spends a few seconds spinning and hitting nothing. He will then proceed to make the spinning sound until he finds another target or his timer runs out. It is an extremely annoying sound, especially since he follows you while making it and there’s no way to get rid of him early. Blood Soaked Shields is probably my favorite ability. Each level restores a percentage of your shields at the cost of a percentage of you health when you get a kill. It goes all the way to 100%/5% at level five. When paired up with some form of health regeneration, like Cooking Up Trouble or Discord, the cost is almost totally alleviated. It combines nicely with Amp and Nova shields, and allows you get much closer to enemies to counter Anarchy’s accuracy penalty. Discord increases accuracy, fire rate and grants health regeneration at the cost of Anarchy stacks. It’s biggest bonus is preventing an accidental wipe of all your Anarchy stacks, as it is triggered by manually reloading. I personally don’t care for it that much. Death From Above causes your shots to be AoE while in the air at the cost of Anarchy stacks. It doesn’t really do all that much extra damage. The Nth Degree allows for every 10-[skill rank] bullets that hit an enemy to hit another enemy. There’s no way to increase the skill rank about five, unfortunately. With Claws overrides your melee attack with one that attacks twice, dealing bonus damage equal to .6% * your Anarchy stacks and restores some of your health at the cost of a single Anarchy stack. If you like melee, this is the skill for you.

Overall, I really like Gaige. Like everything else here though, it’s with a but… Deathtrap and Anarchy, the two core things about Gaige the Mechromancer, are really buggy. Not unplayably so for me, but they bugs that are there could easily render hey key features unusable for others. In addition, $10 is a lot to ask for this much content, especially since a story DLC is slated to come out at around the same time for the same price. At $5 this would be a solid Yes, Go Buy Now. At $10, and this buggy, it’s a much more conditional recommendation. You should get Gaige the Mechromancer if the price tag is acceptable and if the bugs don’t seem like they’ll bother you too much.

http://www.borderlands2.com/us/skilltree/mechromancer.html

The Best Friends Forever tree is for newer players and is mostly about increasing player survivability. There’s some cool stuff in there for Deathtrap as well. Upshot Robot keeps him in play as long as you keep killing dudes and increases both of your melee damage when you kill dudes. The capstone skill, Sharing Is Caring, “grants a copy of your shield to Deathtrap”. That should work nicely with spike shields (shields that damage melee attackers) and nova shields (shields that blow up and kill dudes when depleted).

Little Big Trouble is mostly about elemental damage, mostly shock. Which is nice, because shock damage doesn’t have any general penalties. The Stare gives Deathtrap a fiery laser, and is therefore awesome, because lasers are cool. Like giant floating killbots. You can also give Deathtrap an Unreal Tournament style shock orb that explodes when you kill it. Interspersed Outburst lets you slag guys if you stop shooting for a bit. Since carrying around slag weapons is a pain, it’s probably my favorite skill in the tree. The capstone ability, Make It Sparkle, lets you shoot Deathtrap with an elemental weapon to make him deal that type of elemental damage.

The final tree, Ordered Chaos, is all about the Anarchy skill. You cannot advance past the first tier without grabbing Anarchy. Anarchy works by creating an Anarchy stack whenever you kill a guy or reload while in combat. Each stack increases weapon damage by 1.75% and decreases accuracy by 1.75%. Stacks last almost forever (some skill deplete them, as does dying) and are capped at 150 stacks by default. This can be increased to 400 with skills. I must admit, the biggest question for me is how a gun shoots when you have a -700% penalty to accuracy. The capstone skill, With Claws, is pretty underwhelming. Your melee attack attacks twice, damage is increased by .8% per stack, regenerates health and uses one Anarchy stack. It’s probably better than I give it credit for, given the accuracy penalty Anarchy imposes, but it just feels kind of blah.

The Mechromancer DLC comes out October 16th and is free to those who pre-ordered Borderlands 2.

The game itself worked so well as a break from reality because the game never took itself too seriously. Jack, your nemesis in Borderlands 2, is “the most perfect ass” to quote a friend. He’s constantly jabbing you with the most immature insults and you tell yourself that it won’t get under your skin, but damn, you can’t ignore it. Before long you’ll find your eye twitching and your knuckles going white as you listen to Jack insult you in the most imaginative ways –

Jack – “I’m wracking my brain trying to think of a name for that diamond pony I bought. I was going to call it ‘piss-for-brains’ in honor of you, but that just feels immature. Hey, maybe ‘Butt Stallion?’”

Just the same though, the game doesn’t pull any punches, and anybody buying the game should be prepared to have the game rip out your heart and sauté it in your own tears especially if you played the first Borderlands. Gearbox certainly didn’t pull any punches in making this game a memorable experience whether you play alone or with a friend or three.

If you normally play games alone though, I might stress that the game is easily one hundred times better with a friend because you actually have someone there to exclaim and laugh with as the ridiculous antics of Jack get progressively more homicidal. It’s simply a better experience when shared with someone else, and I think that can be said about a lot of games. Gearbox certainly did a remarkable job when it came to gauging their players’ moods, emotions, and adrenaline. The game never once ended an emotional peak incorrectly and it was a fantastically smooth ride throughout the game.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the play style, let me explain a little bit. You end up on a planet, which, for all intents and purposes, is lawless and is inhabited by bandits, hick colonists, and a whole lot of bad asses with more guns than you can imagine. Every living thing on the planet, and even most inanimate things, has a gun you can rip from its obliterated remains. As long as you have a weapon you can get a better one and that mechanic combined with a nearly infinite number of guns gives you a constantly evolving style of gameplay, which Gearbox deserves to be extremely proud of.

I’ve found in my experiences that cooperative gameplay is a nesting ground for glitches, the most memorable and entertaining of which would probably be from Fable 3 if any of you have played it. Borderlands certainly didn’t have anything on that level of ridiculous, but they did have some. My partner and I did occasionally have issue reviving one another even when we were practically standing on top of each other, which often resulted in the death of one or both of us. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it didn’t happen most often in the Circles of Slaughter half way through one of the last waves of enemies. It definitely caused a lot of frustrated groans and ice cream breaks were completely necessary after those happened.

The UI had its frustrations too, of course.  I found that having the “dismount from vehicle” button and the “travel” button on the same key caused a lot of unintentional dismounts and often ended in my partner and me running on foot looking for a new Catch-A-Ride Station when we got to a new zone.
This game was also the first game ever to actually keep me entertained and interested in every side quest. For once they weren’t just another way of grinding out levels and instead actually brought more depth to the game’s phenomenally designed NPCs. My favorite side quest involved a string of tortured souls leaving messages behind referencing a gun with an unimaginably terrible curse that I won’t spoil for you so that you can discover on your own. Just know that it’s totally worth the side quest, and you’ll probably end up throwing the gun off the highest cliff you can find.

If you know what quest I’m talking about, you’ll understand why I’m going to mention the sound of the game next, which was extremely satisfying from headshots to gun fire effects. Most of all the character voice was spot on and unique for every major and minor NPC. I was also a huge fan of the smooth gradient transition from normal voice to radio voice when you walk away from an NPC who’s talking. That way you don’t have to just sit there absently while the character gives you the mission and its backstory. I’ve never enjoyed, in real life or games, when someone wastes my time and I really appreciate it when the game company takes that into consideration.
I’ve got some questions though. The New-U stations are Hyperion owned and Jack is owner of Hyperion, yes? He spends the entire game trying to kill you off and any time you do actually die, you use a Hyperion New-U Station to resurrect. That just seems counter-productive to me. A lot of games play off the dying thing by having you play from a save point as if you never died, but Borderlands turned it into a mechanic that they flaunt. Personally I think that they should have just slapped a different company name on the New-U station and called it done, but they kept Hyperion on it and it confuses me.

The tech trees were also stuffed with great new innovative mechanics to have fun with, but a few were less effective than others. Clearly the game is about guns, guns, and more guns, but when you have a tech tree that builds melee skills from level five and upwards I expect melee to be a viable option and a play style I can enjoy from the first point I put into the tree. Instead, melee generally becomes useful around level twenty to twenty five. Of course, it’s not really an issue in the end because you can re-spec your talents for a more than reasonable price so you can level up with guns primarily and switch over in your thirties to the melee-centric tree to at least try it out.
The level design of the game was well laid out. With that said, my co-op partner and I continued to run into small collision volumes that just had no business being where they were. Suddenly when driving the Light Scout we’d just find ourselves doing random one hundred and eighty degrees spins accompanied by a crashing sound when nothing was in the road at all. We also ran into a bit of an issue with some forgotten UDK material and texture applications as you can see in the picture below.

This glitch, if it really was a glitch, really seemed almost more like an easter egg homage to UDK so I’m really not that bothered by it.
Overall, Borderlands 2 is the perfect response to any emotional situation you might be having. It’s a perfect way to let out aggression when you’re mad. It will make you laugh when you’re feeling down and, once you’re feeling better, you’ll continue to have a good time for as long as you want to play the game. Best of all, Borderlands 2 has tons of content and I assume the DLC will be worth waiting for. It certainly doesn’t get stale and is a perfect game if you want to invite some friends over with their laptops for a good old fashion LAN party.

The time is now to take out Handsome Jack. Gather up your friends as you run rampant through the world collecting bazillions of loot and guns in an effort to save Pandora from the evil grips of the Hyperion Corporation.

The Borderlands 2 launch trailer is now live! My favorite part s easily the fist bump between Lilith and Maya. Also, Roland looks awesome in a beret. I’m also digging that Handsome Jack think he’s the hero and the players are the bad guys. It will be interesting to see where Gearbox goes with that. We were told on Community Day that some of the vault hunters were on Pandora for bad reasons.