In Third Person

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx just hit XBOX Live and PSN and I was quick to purchase this Borderlands add-on. Unlike the other pieces of Borderlands DLC, this one brought with it a number of additions, including new zones, new guns, new vehicles, new bad guys, a bunch of new quests and most importantly, a raised level cap. With 11 more levels for my soldier to grow, I was eager to shoot more dudes and collect more guns. I've only played just over an hour of it so far, but I thought I'd share my initial impressions.

When you load up the first new zone, T-Bone Junction, a video plays that sets up the story. General Knoxx takes place after the events of the first game, and the Atlas corporation is looking to take you out. However, you still have Scooter and Marcus helping you out, as well as a mysterious ninja, who promises you access to General Knoxx's armory if you help her, which is basically the equivalent of the Vault. Story was one of the biggest weak-points in the main game, and I sort of get the impression that they're trying a bit harder to convey the story better.


From here, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx started off on the wrong foot. The very first encounter you face are a pack of ninjas, which from what I gather are a big deal in this DLC. Right now, I'm not liking the ninja encounters. Part of that dislike comes from the level scaling; I'm not sure if this content scales to your character or not, but I started with a maxed-out level 50 character and the level 51 ninjas immediately wrecked me. That extra level made them way harder to kill and way easier for me to die. I died at least 4 times trying to beat the first ninja boss, which cost me almost $2 million in lost cash.

The other problem I've had with the ninja encounters is that I don't think the game engine was built for players to fight enemies that move the way the ninjas do. The ninjas are extremely quick and can move laterally almost instantly. It's really hard to do any sort of meaningful damage when they're constantly running laps around you. I was getting physically dizzy trying to keep up.


The raised levels of enemies made the first few quests up until you reach Mad Moxxi really hard. Had the enemies started at the same level as me, the fights would have been much more reasonable without being too easy. But because they're all leveled higher than you possibly could have been coming into this DLC, I found myself getting owned repeatedly. During the first highway encounter, I died a number of times because I thought I could handle fighting two airborne drones in my new Monster vehicle. Nope. Then I got into a mess of a situation where I was killed just outside of a checkpoint by a lance vehicle that shot a giant shock blast. When I re-spawned, the same vehicle shot and killed me before I could even move. This happened twice in a row. Thanks for cheating me out of another $800,000. Before I had finished the fourth quest in this DLC add-on, I had lost over half of my money due to dying, which took me two playthroughs of Borderlands to save up in the first place.

I finished off my session with another ninja battle. I leveled up to 51 half way through the fight, and noticed that I was doing a bit more damage and the ninjas were having a much harder time taking me out. Unfortunately, the fight did not end fair and square. You fight the second boss ninja on top of a bridge a few hundred feet above the ground, but my boss managed to jump off the bridge herself. She lived, but the game did not know how to handle the fact that the boss was hundreds of feet below me. The ninja just zipped back and forth and I picked it off like a fish in a barrel.

I get the feeling that I'm only scratching the surface of The Secret Armory of General Knoxx so far, so I will withhold final judgment till I'm finished it. If you're looking for a new Borderlands fix, this seems to be the DLC to get so far because it raises the level cap and adds a ton of new content. Due to the unfair enemy scaling to start, the initial awkwardness of the ninja fights and at this point typical Borderlands jankyness, I'm not as high on it as I would like to be. But I'm hoping it picks up after a rough start just like the main game did.

In April of 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV captured my imagination with a great story and fun open-world gameplay. Prior to GTA IV, my only open-world gaming experience was with The Godfather on the Wii. While many may have grown accustomed to (or weary of) the Grand Theft Auto formula by this point, I was completely caught up in the life of Niko Bellic, trying to find my way in Liberty City.

Almost two years removed from that experience (and almost one year since the release of The Lost and Damned), I have begun playing Episodes From Liberty City, which I received as a Christmas present from my girlfriend. Will this GTA IV add-on experience grab me like GTA IV did? Will it stand out on its own terms? Does the GTA IV style of play hold up even after I've played other fantastic open-world style games like Assassin's Creed II and Borderlands?

Before I get into this, I must preface my writing by saying that I've only played The Lost and Damned so far and that I'm not very far into it. I'm definitely in no position to pass any sort of final judgment on the game. I just wanted to take a bit of time to write about my initial feelings towards this episode.


Right off the bat, the tone of this game is very different from IV. Rockstar did a great job of re-purposing the world of Liberty City to better tell the story of Johnny and The Lost biker gang. All of the graphics have this gritty filter over it, which does make the world look and feel different from the Liberty City of old even though its the same place. New music, radio stations and television shows have been added to spice up the media content lineup. Motorcycle handling was one of the things I hated about GTA IV, but it feels a lot better in this one.

What stands out to me the most though so far is the story. The tale of a brotherhood biker gang taking on a rival gang while facing internal strife feels really well done. The tension between Johnny and Billy is palpable and believable. I'm very interested in seeing where this goes. Even in game, the brotherhood aspect of the story matters. You have meters that monitor your relationships with other members of your gang. The longer they stay alive, the better they will perform when you're out on missions with them. If certain members die, others will fill their place, but their meters will be reset.

The one thing that has really hampered the experience for me so far are the controls. Historically, the GTA series has been known for not having the most intuitive control setups. When I first jumped into IV, I had nothing else to base it on, so the transition wasn't that painful. After playing a number of other games since then, it has been tough getting re-accustomed to the controls and how the game responds to my commands. I most recently played the mission where you travel with Niko and Playboy X to the drug deal, and a combination of the controls and the game logic lead me to die about a dozen times before I finally beat it.

Maybe I'll be able to get comfortable with or overcome the controls. There's still a lot of motivation on my end to play it, so we'll see how the rest of The Lost and Damned plays out.

One of my initial concerns over The Beatles: Rock Band was the limited song selection. With Rock Band 2 packing over 80 songs on the disc and currently over 900 songs total available, 45 Beatles songs seems paltry in comparison. Even if the game eventually included every single Beatles song ever made, the catalogue would never catch up in terms of sheer volume of songs.

Since the game came out though, I've played way more Beatles than regular Rock Band, because most of those 45 songs are really, really awesome. Adding to that awesome this week was the release of Abbey Road as downloadable content. If you're familiar with The Beatles catalogue, you probably already know wheter or not you want this.

For me, Abbey Road is easily my favourite Beatles album, so buying this was a no-brainer. The moment I had a chance, my brother and I played the whole album front-to-back.

The joy I felt from playing through the entirety of Abbey Road may have only been rivaled by the first time I "got" Guitar Hero. Your experience will vary based on how much you like the music, but for me that is the best music game content to date (and maybe the best it will ever be).


For all of the hyperbole, there are two caveats to this package. For the cost of completing the Abbey Road package, you're paying a lot for not much. Most of the big songs from the album came on the disc, so you're paying mainly for 2 full songs and the 16-minute medley. If you love Abbey Road then this doesn't matter. The pricing for individual tracks is a bit dicey as well. Would you pay $1 to get "Her Majesty", a 21-second song?

The only other beef that some may have is the inability to play certain songs from the medley separately. Due to te way these songs were put together, it would be weird to have "Polythene Pam" abruptly stop when "She Came Throgh The Bathroom Window". If you've played The Beatles: Rock Band, you've experienced this withthe first 2 songs off of Sgt. Pepper.

And in the end...if you're looking for more Beatles music for your Rock Band, this might be as good as it gets.