Which is to say, a funny, pretty shooter with some RPG elements.

Why no excitement for Borderlands Mr. Chick? I think it looks cool.

Eufloria!

Any comments on Tropico 3? I actually held off on Dawn of Discovery for it

I agree with Bob that Eufloria looks like the most interesting thing coming out this week.

The Tropico 3 demo generated a lot of positive forum buzz. I'm really looking forward to that one.

Yeah, I really enjoyed the demo and will almost certainly pick up the full game, pending reviews from certain outlets (come on, Tom!). My only worry is about how much variety and longevity there's going to be.

I enjoyed the Tropico 3 demo a lot. Or at least much more than Cities XL and I may buy it fr Steam on sale before release for $30.

I'm kind of intrigued by Eufloria; I've been getting a kick out of the Indie games that are family oriented, like World of Goo and Braid. I'm almost on the verge of getting Machinarium, which came out a week or two before and of sortuv looks like an Indie Wall-E.

I should clarify that I haven't seen Borderlands or Tropico 3. I'm skeptical about both, but looking forward to trying them.

As for Eufloria, whoa. Thanks for mentioning that one, guys. That's definitely on my radar now.

Didn't Eufloria used to be called Dyson?

I downloaded and played it when it was free and it was only ok...

However, looking at the website, they've added new modes and such. If they've changed it and added to it enough, it might be worth a purchase... if not, then it isn't.

I was initially skeptical about Borderlands, but everything I see makes me more excited about it - in particular, it sounds like the gun randomization is more than just a few numbers floating about in otherwise generic weaponry. Enough that a friend and I have preordered it.

But then, I liked Hellgate and thought that the main place that particular game fell down was trying to be an MMO, which is not something Borderlands is attempting.

OIC. I suppose if you haven't seen it, a comparison with Hellgate might come reasonably out of Gearbox's marketing. Really, though, Hellgate was an RPG with a first-person perspective ill-advisedly slapped on top of its die rolls, while Borderlands, regardless of the marketing, is fundamentally a shooter with some RPG elements bolted on. You will never miss an enemy because the dice decided you should. Skill trees almost exclusively affect your class abilities, things like turrets, pets, shields, invisibility, melee attacks...a few affect the damage on crits you gain from headshots. The guns vary grossly in things like fire rate, mag size, aim variance, round damage, elemental DOTs, actual round behavior...some lucky few testers in high-end areas have found things like rapid-fire RPGS that MIRV into acid-splashing bouncy grenades; more mundane items include things like fire shotguns - say again, fire, shotguns. Most interestingly, the Gearbox staff's response to the prospect of a lucky overpowered weapon drop in the early game has been "then have fun with it, we're taking no steps against that."

The humor is a flavor that's actually pretty rare in my eyes - the Claptrap shorts are your standard promo pop-culture slapstick, but the other aspects seem...delightfully skewed. In one trailer: "The shooter and the RPG made a baby." "Elites" from other games becoming "Badasses" in this one. In the PAX panel, the Gearbox guys played a rescue quest whose quest giver NPC wanted you to rescue the target "so I can kill him at a later time", for "impregnating my momma".

I played Eufloria when it was Dyson - didn't like it, but wish I did, and I somehow suspect I'm missing the point. The major problem for me was that the influence of planetoid stats on the seeds they produced was a. nonsensical and b. abstruse and difficult to read in quantity; if it doesn't matter, the game is just slower Galcon. If it does, and I believe it does, it's a bunch of tedious, difficult microinspection to determine why things are going wrong, a prospect that doesn't appeal even if the game's not trying to be ambient. If I'm supposed to be laid-back, that don't fly. Fortunately, one of my major thoughts playing Dyson was "this really needs just one or two other units" - which according to reports is what they did. I'll be giving it one more chance. It is lovely and calming, when you're not actually playing the game.

"Didn't Eufloria used to be called Dyson?"

Pretty much. It was (and still is) more or less the free beta, which was submitted to the IGF. There are quite a few changes to the gameplay and content between Dyson and Eufloria, though. I definitely plan to pick it up once my budget recovers from Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend. Then again, I loved Dyson as it was.

By the way, on the planetoid stats: "There are many types of seedlings depending on the asteroid, with three factors determining their stats. These factors include energy, strength, and speed. These factors also change its size and shape. The size of the body represents durability/life, the size of the wings represents speed while the size of the sting represents attack power/damage done."

You blew off Borderlands this week and Uncharted last week, but had 40 posts about Section 8. Fail.

Oh, I know the system - but a) Is this a healthy indestructable planetoid? A fast stationary planetoid? A dangerous inert planetoid? And b) Picking those out of the swarm is a big fat hassle - "Ok, those fifty are fast but those ten can kill, but they won't last long, while these hundred are good defenders, oh fuck it" - not to mention that it's not like you can realistically pick and choose what to do with whom anyway, so you just push a certain percentage to the next planetoid.