Which of these 2009 releases should I try next?

Games
1

I skipped a few “secondary” titles this year. Which should I get next:

F.E.A.R.T.W.O.
Tropico 3
EU3: Heir to the Throne
Gratuitous Space Battles
Dawn of Discovery: Anno 1404
Borderlands (not really a “secondary” title)

or something else?

2

Gratuitous Space Battles
Gratuitous Space Battles
Gratuitous Space Battles
Gratuitous Space Battles
Gratuitous Space Battles
Gratuitous Space Battles

3

Dawn of Discovery: Anno 1404

4

I would rate Borderlands and Fear 2 as simply too boring to bother with if you have played an FPS, oh … ever. GSB is good fun, it’s not quite a great game yet, but it’s perfect as a play-for-5-mins tower defence session break. EU3 if you have time to burn. Haven’t played tropico 3 or anno 1404 yet.

5

Dawn of Discovery is excellent.

6

Could you elaborate, a bit? I was looking at buying Borderlands, but as someone who has played FPS games consistently since the dawn of FPS, I feel like it would be easy to headshot everything and feel overpowered in an RPGish game, especially against AI.

7

It’s diablo + wow + fps. Too heavy on the wow side to be much fun IMO. And yeah generally you tend to run into things that are either too easy to kill or are hard to kill by virtue of having 2433898354 HP and requiring you and your pals to sit there like a dork hammering them as the ammo runs out on 3 guns. No real AI to speak of for anything, just, things either shoot you and charge, or charge. The RPG elements don’t add up to much - certainly nothing as interesting as Diablo’s class based skills, just, “this gun will do more damage” / “you might get more loot” / “electricity does more damage”. The only skill that is even vaguely creative or interesting is phasewalk, and that’s one one character, and that’s basically ghost + shit FPS melee for one hit. Whee!

8

GSB

9

I’m greatly enjoying Borderlands (SP only) at about 3/4 through the game. Really took away the post-Dragon Age blues and is very cool.

10

I would throw Fear 2 out of the window (literally!).

I would probably try Borderlands and GSB.

11

Tropico 3 is just way too easy to lose yourself in for hours and hours.

12

Disagree. Brick’s Rage ability is a blast. The world is interesting, the graphics are fantastic, and I love chasing down Tannis’ insane recordings.

There’s also a bit more variety to the talent trees than you mentioned. For Brick, there’s the melee tree, the tank tree, and the explosives tree. For the Hunter there’s the sniper tree, the pistol tree, and the bird tree.

I’d agree that the Hunter’s and Soldier’s special abilities aren’t as “fun” as Brick’s and the Siren’s, since they’re non-interactive. You just hit a button and something happens. Still fun classes, though.

I’d give Borderlands a 7-8 as a single-player game, and a 9-10 as a multi-player game. Like all games of this time, it’s best enjoyed with friends.