Apocalyptica

I have this strange fascination with apocalyptic stuff.

2 years ago, if you had mentioned anything about an apocalypse of the end of the world I would've flipped my rocker. Remember Y2K and that whole year 2000 thing? that scared the living daylights out of 7 year old me! All those commercials and t.v. shows talking about the power being shut off, stocking up on toilet paper, and when the clock finally reached 12, nothing happened, but I was already in a full fledged panic attack, to the point where my dad had to demonstrate that the power was still working (obviously- we weren't standing there in the dark). Then I remember someone saying that doomsday was on 6/6/06? And now this whole 12/21/12 thing? When I first heard of it, I was really scared and told people not to talk about it, but really, what can you do? save the world?


Anyhow, lately I have found things about worlds ending, Utopian and dystopic societies, sci-fi really fascinating, not fascinating as in ' post pictures from the newspaper on my wall about what may be our eventual fate', but as in movies, media, pictures, etc. Here are some:

• Nero's Welcome Reality concept album

This album eased me into the apocalyptic sub genre. The concept is basically the end of the world, and trying to rebuild it from the ashes. Just look at the album cover- it looks like something from a Stephen Spielberg film.

• Assassins Creed

 When I first found out that Assassins Creed was not really about history, but the protagonists' attempt to stop the solar flare of 2012, I admit I was really reluctant to try it, but a few years later I found myself hooked on the series. The plotline of the modern-day Assassin and trying to save the world can be a bit confusing though, but still, it makes you think, are we the ones saving our world, or are we the ones destroying it? Hmm..

• Mad Max Series

Guilty pleasure: I'll admit that I like the Mad Max series. Although I really don't know what's going on, all I know is that the government fell and the world is now in total anarchy and chaos. I watched Thunderdome when I was a little kid, because I was a big fan of Tina Turner and my mom told me she was in it. And I find it hilarious that Max is wearing that same leather jacket though the whole series. Speaking of Mad Max..

• Borderlands

  

There is no box or catagory or description that can describe the badassery which is the Borderlands series. Borderlands isn't apocalyptic, per se, but it does take place on a dystopic planet called Pandora, and theres loads of guns and violence that will turn even the girliest girl into a testosterone ridden mutant.

• Tank Girl

 

Tank girl is a series of comics drawn by Jamie Hewlett (same guy that draw the Gorillaz too!), and she is basically a kick ass warrior kicking ass in the kick ass future or something. I don't know. There was also a movie adaptation of it, which caught my attention on the television more than the Magic Mike DVD I was trying to watch on my laptop at the same time.

• Fallout Series

 The Fallout video game series is a superior gaming series going all the way back to 1988 when we thought the commies were gonna nuke us. Basically, Fallout follows a path of 'alternate history', meaning what would've happened if we had lost WWII or been nuked in the 50's like people thought we were. So now the world's water supply has radiation, there are mutated people aaaaaannnnnd everyone is fucking insane. Sounds like fun.

• Akira

 

 Although I've never actually SEEN this movie or read the manga, I really like the plotline, and the whole Neo-Tokyo backdrop is easy to visualize since, Tokyo is already kind of Neo-Toyko, right? Not make sense? hmmm? ABCDEFG?

My Borderlands 2 Review and Guilt.

First things first, I am not a FPS type of gal. I doln't care about COD and all its avengers, I really don't understand Halo, and I'm just not too fond of anything else that resembles a scenario of which "this is what it would be like if you were drafted into the military!"

In some cases, I am willing to put my motives aside and try one of these FPS games, because they have a sort of significant back-story behind them. One example would be Fallout 3, which has a plot so engrossing that it should be made into a feature-length film.

Borderlands 2 is also one of these games. At first, I wasn't too sure about trying this game. Even though the cover art is what made me interested in the first place, the whole idea of playing a FPS made me hesitate, but when I read the plotline on wikipedia,  I figured, ehh what the hell. Here is the plot copypasta'd from wiki:

Five years have passed since the events of Borderlands, when vault hunters exposed the secrets of the Eridian Vault. A man called Handsome Jack has taken credit for the vault hunters' actions and claimed the wealth of the Vault, allowing him to take over the Hyperion Corporation and effectively gain dominion over Pandora. Promising to clean the lawless planet up, Handsome Jack embarks on a campaign to exterminate Pandora's existing colonist population and industrialize the planet. The main symbol of Handsome Jack's rule is a massive supply base built in the shape of an "H" on Pandora's moon. The base is always visible, and can deploy Hyperion forces to any point on Pandora. Borderlands 2 begins with the player fighting to the death to win a priceless cache of loot in a gladiatorial tournament run by Handsome Jack for his personal amusement. The player succeeds and gains notoriety, but Handsome Jack sees this as a threat to his popularity with the people. At the tournament's end he denies the reward and leaves the player for dead in a tundra. The mysterious Guardian Angel from the first game then contacts the player and explains that Handsome Jack must be killed, directing the player to rescue the four original vault hunters from Hyperion's clutches to accomplish this. Although Jack's full intentions are unknown, part of his plan involves finding an ancient evil named "The Warrior" that is located somewhere on Pandora.

 
See? interesting, huh? In the beginning, I wasn't really looking forward to playing this game (since I had already bought it, I felt obligated to play it), but I figured, hey, if it doesn't work out, I can always return it, right?


Wrong. This game isn't going anywhere. People claim that this game is addictive, and I'll tell you why: When I first began the game, I breezed through the first few parts so fast that I became confident in my abilities to conquer any enemy at any cost. At one point I became so engrossed in the game that I started yelling "come at me, bro!" to my television screen. Now here is where you realize that the game has got you. At one point I died, and instead of re-spawning near where I left off, somehow I re-spawned all the way on the other side of the town. For at least 3 minutes I felt like I was being jadded, and wondering why I was transported into a vast wasteland instead of where my save point was, only to find out that I WAS near my save point, but the camera was angled to make me think that I was supposed to go in the opposite direction. HAHA funny, ok, I see what you did there. Even though I WAS mad, I had realized that if I weren't so damn into this game at the moment, I would have just shut off my Xbox and went to bed.
This game isn't without its faults, though; the boss fights are too much for tv. Borderlands 2 is clearly not a game welcoming to newcomers. The boss fights are really difficult and are time consuming, please be expected to die at lease 10 times during this round. I find that cowering in a corner and waiting until the enemy comes to you easier than running into combat head-on. The enemies in this game are brutal, and they level up every time you level up. The amount of violence and hostility in this game is so epic it makes the wasteland in the Fallout series look like the fucking garden of Eden.

Overall, I really, really like this game, a little more than I should, because like I said before, I don't play FPS, they SUCK, and normally they lack plotline, but this game is better than most FPS in my opinion. Yeah there's enemies, and there's parts where you wont know what the hell is going on, but the game wont let you down, there are marker points on your map, a cute little robot named claptrap whom I will defend at all costs, and GUNNNSSS, loads and loads of guns.

Now here is the guilt. I kinda gave up on Borderlands 1. I did. As I played through several days of Skyrim, Borderlands just sat there collecting dust, because I had played through it and found myself frustrated at the fact that it just seemed to throw you into the game, whereas Borderlands 2 eases you into it. I recommend this game for anyone