A sorceress in Orcs Must Die! 2 fighting a golem.

It is midweek and time for our usual questions:

• What games are you playing this week?
• Would you recommend those games to other Border House readers?
• What games have you ranting?
• Are any of those games listed ones that you want to see covered on the site?

I played a more Guild Wars 2 again this week. I got one character up to level 19 and another up to 14. I am taking it slowly and really enjoying the content. Otherwise, I started Orcs Must Die! 2 with a friend.

So, what have you been playing?

Brought to you by this awesome piece of art by eleyonart on DeviantArt.

Basically the entire internet (or at least every person I follow on Twitter) was tuned in to Microsoft’s live Xbox reveal press conference in which precious few details were released about the new Xbox One.  Not to be confused with the Xbox 1.  Yeah.

Some things we know:

• It’s not backwards compatible with the 360.  Boo.  Not unexpected, but it would have been nice.
• If you want to play a secondhand Xbox One game, you’ll have to pay a fee.  Disappointed in this, because used games are a great way for low budget gamers to be able to enjoy great titles.
• The controller got like “40 new design changes” which mostly means it’s a bit more refined and smoother in all the right places.
• There’s going to be a Halo TV show.
• The new Call of Duty: Ghosts promises to deliver us more emotion while we’re shooting other humans on the battlefield.  The technology looks pretty sweet, in case you need to see every single pore and hair on a man’s arm.  There was a pretty cute dog though, who already has his own Twitter account.
• It has 8 times the graphic performance of the 360.
• All downloaded and installed games will be synced to the cloud, so if you sign in on your friend’s Xbox One you can play any games that you own.
• The Kinect technology is getting a full retooling, with a 1080p camera with a larger field of view, 60 fps video capture for Skyping with mom & dad, and you can walk up to it and say “Xbox On” and it will turn on for you.
• You’ll be able to connect your cable box to the Xbox One and watch TV through the console instead.  You know, in case you want all your friends to know that you’re watching the “Dance Moms” marathon.
• It’s going to be releasing later this year.

So there you have it.  More details should be released by E3 time, but if you want a pretty good rundown of information check out this article on Wired.  So, let’s discuss this piece of machinery. Impressed, underwhelmed, blown away?

Let’s start out with the Sorceress character.  According to the game’s website, they are “bewitching women….weak of body” but have great knowledge.

Certainly not “weak of boob”.  A shot of the Sorceress in gameplay shows that she’s clothed just the same while actually being played in game, and watching the video on the website shows quite a bit of jiggle while she’s casting spells.  Umm…yeah.

And now, the Amazon.

Where do I even begin here? Those proportions!  I’m not sure how she manages to have such large boobs and a gigantic rear end without her waist being wide at all.  But even more  fascinating is how small her head is.  One of her boobs will quite literally cover her face and then some.  It’s amazing that Atlus attempted to make a strong muscular woman character who still remains completely sexualized with her Escher Girls pose, her complete lack of any armor, and her stereotypically feminine face and hair.

Dragon’s Crown will be out this summer, in case you actually want to give this company money.  I won’t hold it against you, but you better send me some ridiculous screenshots.

(h/t to Nush B on Twitter for the tip)

Edit: We need to add a link to this awesome set of revisions that turns the table around on the male characters of Dragon’s Crown.  Thanks to @gygaxis for the tip.

Game Changer Chicago Design Lab seems like an interesting and worthy cause to stand behind here on The Border House.  This initiative, run by Patrick Jagoda (game studies teacher at University of Chicago) and University of Chicago doctor Melissa Gilliam, is a collaboration between faculty and university students at U of C and youth (mostly high school students from the south side of Chicago, a disadvantaged part of the city) to make digital stories and games about sexual and reproductive health.

Their latest game, Lucidity, has just been released and is available for play on the game’s website.  Jagoda reached out to us to give us the following description of the game: “We recently released an interactive story with mini-games called Lucidity that deals with sexual violence and other issues around sexuality. The piece was co-produced with youth and moves between videos, comics, text, audio, and flash games (a room escape, a point-and-click adventure, and a 3D maze). The game also directs players to resources such as rape crisis hotlines, sexual assault information, and STI FAQs.”  The organization is trying to get the game in as many 13-18 year-olds hands as possible.

The full trailer is above, and you can also visit the Lucidity site to play the game right now. Warning: the game may contain triggering language.

As of this writing, you all have 22 hours left to mosey on over here and pick yourself up at least 3 awesome games from indie developer Double Fine.  With no minimum dollar amount you can own Stacking, Psychonauts, and Costume Quest.  If you beat the average (currently $8.40) you will also get a snazzy copy of Brutal Legend too.  All of these games unlock on Steam (did you know we have a Steam group?) and if you’re feeling extra generous there are even more perks such as Kickstarter backer access to their upcoming adventure game Broken Age, and a t-shirt!

I’m sure most of you know about this already, but I just didn’t want anyone to miss out because they weren’t aware of the end of the bundle.

Cryptic Studios’ Neverwinter is a game that kind of snuck up on me.  I’m not a huge D&D aficionado and don’t follow or know the lore all that well, and I didn’t spend much time in Dungeons & Dragons Online.  But Neverwinter is actually a pretty solid free-to-play experience that I’ve been quite enjoying over the last week or so.

The Facts:

• It’s technically in “Open Beta” but characters won’t be wiped and they’re accepting real money transactions so nothing will be deleted.  Basically it’s a way to have a “get out of jail free card” but essentially the game has launched.
• Appears to be PC only.
• More of an MMO than Dungeons & Dragons Online but instead feels more similar to a game like Diablo 3 than it does to a traditional MMO.
• Plenty of things to do in this game!  Max level is 60, there is PvP, player made dungeons, questing, skirmishes (5 person adventures), tradeskills (including an offline version), gear treadmills, etc.
• Speaking of player made dungeons, one of the neatest features of Neverwinter is the Foundry, where players can make awesome scripted dungeons for each other.  So far I’ve played a few and the writing and lore were surprisingly well-developed.  Seems like it will unlock a lot of creativity and replayability in the game.
• There is a boob slider. =(  On the plus side, at level 15 on my Halfling Devoted Cleric, I haven’t been given a single piece of armor that shows any of my skin.  She is shown above in the top picture sporting her fauxhawk.
• The game is free! There are some complaints about it being “pay to win” but that doesn’t really bother or affect me and my mostly solo playstyle.  I haven’t felt too compelled to pay yet, and I’m getting a ton of value out of this game for free.  Your mileage may vary here.

I have a 43 minute recording of myself playing and talking quite a bit about the game in case you want to check it out here.

Anyone else playing?  I’m curious to hear some thoughts from our readers.  Discuss below.

Thank you to Samantha for sending it to me!

An asura from Guild Wars 2, standing among giant golems.

It is Wednesday so let’s go ahead with our usual questions:

• What games are you playing this week?
• Would you recommend those games to other Border House readers?
• What games have you ranting?
• Are any of those games listed ones that you want to see covered on the site?

This week I bounced around with a few hours of several games. I played a bit more with a character on Guild Wars 2. I leveled up my gnome mage in World of Warcraft. Finally, I knocked out a few more G rank quests in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. I didn’t do anything major, but I saw a little bit of progress in several things.

So, what have you been playing?