Borderlands Headache II

You just got to love gaming on the Personal Computer. When you have a monster rig that can support the latest and greatest games with ease, you are normally guaranteed a heck of a good time. But unlike games on the consoles though, when these games go bad, they do so with such ferocity and vengeance. Such is the case with Borderlands. Just as I am really getting into the game - it's very, very addictive and it is perhaps one of the best first person shooters ever made - I am now starting to experience numerous, repeated occurrences of fatal crashing while playing the game. You see, at least with the consoles, you don't get this kind of problem. What makes this situation so disappointing is that Borderlands is a darling of my game library - it's my 2000th game. This kind of bad experience should not have happened in a game that marks a moment of great history in my life as a gamer.

That's exactly how I feel at the moment...

When things like this happen, we PC gamers like to always first blame ourselves for the problem. I noticed that there was a new display driver for the Nvidia 9800 GTX so I thought, "Silly me! No wonder it crashes!" After updating the driver, the problem persists. Then I turned to the forums for answers and I have pretty much tried everything from installing old drivers to reducing the game's graphical settings (even though the game runs smoothly at 1080p at max settings). In a way, it's always good news when you see that many others are experiencing the same problem though. It's apparent that the game fails to work for many, many users. I am done trying to fix this game on my own. It's time for Gearbox to step in and do the dirty work - and fast. I still don't regret the decision of buying the PC version over the consoles - I just wished I purchased something else in its place. The graphical perks I get from this version is certainly noteworthy and this will not stop me from buying the very promising Dragon Age: Origins for the PC - I truly pity the poor souls who can only play that game on the consoles... Go buy a capable gaming PC already. I just hope that Gearbox will release the patch for the PC version of this game very, very soon because things are not looking good right now with their reputation just when they got a killer game out. I will not be playing Borderlands again until then. For everyone else - at lease until the PC demo is out so you can test it out on your system - skip the console versions but wait for the patch before you pick up the game.

Nintendo's Platinum Reward 2009

I finally received the reward I ordered in July for being last fiscal year's Club Nintendo Platinum member. Took them long enough to send it to me. So who won the fight between Doc Louis and the Mario Hat? If you have been paying attention to the list of games I own on the Nintendo Wii, you probably already know the answer to that.

That's one long box.


It's-a me, Mario Hat!


Strange, there is no epilepsy warning on the "Instruction Manual".


I now know what I'm going to be next Halloween.


The design is quite authentic.

Bad Ultimate Edition: God of War III

In April of this year, I completed a Sony survey that was conducted to determine the fate of the collector's edition packaging of the upcoming God of War III. The one thing that I was urging them to include with the game was access to the first two games on one Blu-ray disc. Well, we all know now that Sony is planning to re-release the first two games for the PlayStation 3 but the unfortunate thing here is that GoW III's "Ultimate" edition will not include those games. It figures - Sony wants money. It was obvious what Sony's intent was when they first announced the re-release so it is no surprise that the "Ultimate" edition will not include them. What do you get instead? A large box, an art book, a couple of soundtrack CDs, a video documentary, and exclusive digital contents. Overall, a disappointing announcement. After seeing how everyone went gaga over the possible inclusion of the first two games with a special version of GoW III from the survey result, Sony turned what could have been the best "Ultimate" edition ever released into a missed opportunity of epic proportions.

Shouldn't the soundtrack be unlockable in-game and not packaged separately?
The Pandora's Box looks nice but I rather have the remastered GoW and GoW II.

Games Played 10/26/2009 - 11/01/2009

- 10/26/2009 -
Critter Crunch Demo - PlayStation 3*
Demon's Souls - PlayStation 3

*Fun little puzzle game where you mix and match animals based on food chain to clear them.

- 10/27/2009 -
Demon's Souls - PlayStation 3

- 10/28/2009 -
Raiden IV - X-Box 360
Tekken 6 - PlayStation 3

- 10/29/2009 -
Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time - PlayStation 3
Demon's Souls - PlayStation 3

- 10/30/2009 -
Tekken 6 - PlayStation 3
Tekken Tag Tournament - PlayStation 2
Torchlight Demo - PC

- 10/31/2009 -
Borderlands - PC
Fallout 3 - PC
Tekken 6 - PlayStation 3
Torchlight Demo -PC
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - PC

- 11/01/2009 -
Borderlands - PC
Fallout 3 - PC
Tekken 6 - PlayStation 3

Borderlands Headache

The Personal Computer version of Borderlands may have forsaken the "Games for Windows" branding as well as its Live feature but strangely, this game is fully compatible with the X-Box 360 controller. As a matter of fact, the game's instruction manual readily shows off the 360's controller layouts and the configurations files even mention "Xbox" in there. Why this game didn't fall along Microsoft's effort at streamlining PC games is beyond me. Unfortunately, my X-Box 360 wireless receiver for the PC is dead so I am unable to use my controller to play the game. When it comes to precision, nothing beats a keyboard and a mouse but in terms of overall comfort, I rather just hold a small controller in my hand than have a bulky setup in front of me.

Nothing works!

The cool thing about this game is that it actually works with my Super Joy Box, a USB converter that allows me to hook up my wired Dualshock 2 PlayStation 2 controller to the PC. I really didn't expect it to work at all and I had been playing the game using a keyboard and a mouse until late in the afternoon when I stumbled upon the Super Joy Box that was misplaced in between the move several weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised that the game recognized the controller but then something was wrong - all of the buttons work perfectly except for the Y-axis on the left analogue stick. For some reason, tilting it up - which should translate to moving forward - moves my character backwards instead! The opposite happened when I tilted the stick backward. I researched the game's forums on the web and unfortunately, I cannot find a remedy to my situation. The problem is definitely not with the controller - the calibration test revealed that everything is fine with it. Perhaps this is a ploy to force people to play the game with only the X-Box 360 controller if they want to play with a gamepad? For around 2-3 hours following my discovery of the problem, I had been experimenting with the game's *.ini files only to find myself being terribly frustrated with the situation and there was no solution in sight. The constant failure was draining the very life out of me. It also doesn't help that the PC gaming community mostly despise the gamepad - a lot. I have already wasted too much time on this when I could just have fun playing the darn game.

Update Note: 11/02/2009 - I found a great solution here. I hate using JoyToKey because it is a big hassle so the controller.zip solution presented there is definitely the better alternative. After installing the files into the appropriate folder, the left analogue stick is now functioning properly. A new problem will emerge if you are not using Logitech controllers - the input assignments of the face buttons and the triggers were all over the place - but it was easily remedied by going into the extracted xbox360cemu.ini file and reassigning the buttons there. Using a gamepad does result in less accuracy in this game but now I get both the convenience of the console versions plus the better graphics and performance that are just simply not possible on the consoles. It's $10 cheaper too!

And oh, all of a sudden an "achievement" notification popped up on the screen while I was killing enemies last night so the "achievement/trophy" system did make it into the game. It's just that it will not go to any player profile to show it around - It's all about achieving and conquering them anyway and not about showing them off for some illusion of gaming excellence so why would that matter right? Or is it? - When I looked deeper into the in-game menus, I found a long list of things to do there. It's not my cup of tea but I thought I would mention it for those who are really into the achievement/trophy thing.