How’s that for an absurd acronym? I’ve been planning this one for a while, but couldn’t come up with a cool enough string of capital letters. I’ve settled on this one, though, so here it comes: Episode I of Sorry For Not Reviewing Everything I Play. This is where I do micro-reviews of all the games I’ve been sifting through in the last month but haven’t ever felt inspired enough to do full reviews of. Everything will basically boil down to this: Love, Hate, or Meh?

Since this is the first episode, I may reach back a little further than just one month. I feel like I’ve been cheating our readership pretty hard, especially during our December hiatus. My plan is to have a new episode up the second Monday of every month from here on out, but we’ll see what happens. I hope you all enjoy this! This time, I’ll be commenting on Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Darksiders, and Mass Effect 2.

Borderlands

I haven’t gotten a chance to play any of the DLC, and I hear that it’s been pretty great so far, but the core game is phenomenal. It got complaints here and there from critics, but I think they’re misinterpreting the type of game that Borderlands is. It’s Diablo II only a sleek and very, very sexy FPS. What other game gives you a rocket launcher that fires 3 rockets in a tight spiral, each one adding acidic damage over time in addition to the already massive damage inherent in all rocket launchers? If you haven’t played Borderlands yet, give it a try. The ending is awful, but the story intended to be a secondary feature anyway.

Love.

Assassin’s Creed II

I understand that not everyone was a huge fan of the first Assassin’s Creed. The second installment takes what was a solid formula and adds some much-needed color to the universe, the characters, and the gameplay experience. With an entire town to yourself, paintings the collect, several bonus puzzles, and some extremely memorable locales, Assassin’s Creed II made some very good choices. Sure, it dragged on a bit at times, especially if you were going for 100% completion, but on the whole?

Love.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

My opinion is purely biased here. Batman is, and always has been, my favorite super hero. That said, Arkham Asylum is easily the best comic-based game I’ve ever played. My favorite comic-based game is XIII, (which is one of the most underrated games of all time) but Arkham Asylum is still better. Impeccable voice acting, lots and lots of comic lore, tons of collectibles, rock-solid combat system. Bliss for Batman fans, excellent stealth game for everyone else.

Love.

Deus Ex: Invisible War

I tried to get into this. I really did. I loved the original Deus Ex so much that I dove straight into this one, and it just didn’t work out between us. I’m only a few hours in, many weeks after starting it. I’ve heard the story is worth wading through the technical hiccups and generally worse everything, but I just couldn’t do it. Of perhaps the greatest frustration was that every time I switch areas on the copy I downloaded from Steam, the game minimizes, acts weird, and then pops back up for a load screen before I get control of the action again. That wears on my patience for sure. Maybe someday, but for now?

Hate.

Darksiders

This one is kind of controversial! Just about every critic complained about Darksiders plagiarizing its gameplay from other games, namely the Legend of Zelda and God of War franchises, with a little Portal thrown in towards the end for spice. It’s hard not to see the validity of that argument while playing, and yet, I still had an absolute blast with the game. This is kind of a weird position to be in as a game journalist. On the one hand, I can see chastising the developers for relying so heavily on other successful titles. But on the other, there’s all that fun that I had. It’s got Mark Hamill in a major role, who does amazing work as always. It’s got the best horse ever. I absolutely forgive Darksiders and have incredibly high hopes for the sequel, which will introduce the other three Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Love.

Mass Effect 2

Here’s the big one: Mass Effect 2, the sequel to that one game I hate. Bioware has redeemed itself in my book, thanks to this game. I’m still not calling it better than Baldur’s Gate II, but it’s certainly close. Time and repeated plays may even change my mind. All one can say about ME2, when you boil it all down, is wow. All of my complaints about the first game were addressed. Free DLC at launch with seamless integration into the rest of the game, absolute heaps of additional DLC on the way, truly deep characterization, the return of my two favorite characters from the first one, solid humor, and a beautiful score. It doesn’t feel formulaic. This guy is my favorite new character, and yet his trailer does no justice to his depth. I won’t spoil anything, but “The Assassin,” is not just a solitary killer. He’ll pluck your darn heartstrings! ME2 offers truly beautiful storytelling. And perhaps best of all: it truly has replay value. If you make a new character in ME2, it assumes you made certain decisions in the first game. If you import a character from Mass Effect, though, you’ll probably find yourself with a very different experience. In fact, you could have four or five very different experiences. Everyone advertises replay value for their RPGs nowadays, but Mass Effect 2 actually delivers.

Love, love, love, love, love.