Banner by ozzo
Hello, members from all over the globe. Welcome to the a very special edition of our Newsletter (yes, I?m fully aware that I say this nearly every month, but nevertheless, this truly is unique): welcome one and all to SuperCheat?s Newsletter: 2009 Volume.
First of all, I?d like to apologize for the delay in behalf of all our Staff. It?s all Qwertyuio?s fault {for the last time, since we've decided to fire him; ~Ed}. Everything. I?d also like to send an e-hug for TestVirus, our fantastic Editor who will be on vacations until next month. Thank you for your job throughout the year, hope you have a fantastic time!
Now a brief comment about 2009: it was incredible. As usual, many members joined, many left, many came back. One of the headline?s was Dave?s (Youkou) departure {Seemed like it was longer ago; ~Ed}, which still leaves many of us in shock. For those of you who don?t know, Dave was an Administrator well known for his unique sense of justice. Nevertheless, he was a great contributor, and I?m sure we can all thank him {except, of course, for the people he banned; ~Ed}. Changing the subject, we also had a design update! The site now looks much better, smoother, easier to look at. However, I?ll never forgive Rich for making me use the wretched Dark Skin. *sad face?* {why? I've always thought that the Dark Skin is much nicer - I can actually look at it; ~Ed} Several other options were added as well, including a recent update to our BBcode, in which Mark (our brilliant programmer) added those new ones we?ve been requesting for so long. Finally (trying to make it brief, though I?m fairly sure you?re not reading this), Rich decided to implement the Most Valuable Player Competitions, where you aim to become the number 1 Submitter, Forum Poster, or T&C Poster. The winner gets not only a special prize, but an amazing, gorgeous badge made by one of the most talented artists the site has ever seen (who, me?).
We?ve had several downsides along the way, though! For starters, there was the highly amusing case of the "I poke badgers with spoons? avatars, which lead to a conspiracy plot by many of our members. It was actually the work of a hacker who turned to be a friendly user, helping Rich with what was apparently a minor error in our system. Oh, and did you know about the small glitch? There was a trick that allowed you to read parts of posts from the higher forums, such as the famous Super-Moderators Forum. I bet you didn?t know about it, uh? We?re not revealing anything, sorry! (; {Although I will hint that the rumours of a certain thread in there that everyone seems to want to see turned out to be false, to the disappointment of many a peeker; ~Ed}
Overall, 2009 was a great site for the site and above all, for our members {especially me; ~Ed}. It was pleasure to post with you.
On to the Newsletter itself, we have?not going to tell you! This time, you have the privilege of finding out for yourself.
~Contents~
-Qwertyuio?s Interview
-Posting Achievements
-Anniversaries
-Video Game Review
-New Members of November
-Special Article: Most Valuable Player: Submissions
-Member of the Month
-Pixel?euphoria?
-Disclaimer
Qwertyuio?s Interview
? This month I interviewed someone that many would call a supercheats legend. I think that's pretty much all I need to say for you to know who it is, after all, he did manage to make it extremely obvious I was interviewing him at a time I wasn't able to do damage control. D: So here's the interview many of you have been waiting for, say hi to CurryMonster.? {About time too!; ~Ed}
Click
here to
download the Interview.
HOST?S NOTE: For reasons I?m not aware of, you?ll have to download the interview once again. Apologies for the inconvenience. {Not accepted; ~Ed}
Article by Qwertyuio Posting Achievements
Well, lots of last minute entries, making it in only days before New Years! This includes geezerguy, getting in with less than four days to spare, and InvertAlpha, getting in with less than one! With that said, Happy New Year, and enjoy the last Posting Achievements of 2009!
I hate growing up? Next Generation
1,000 ? 4,999
*EternalSD
Junior Elites
5,000 ? 9,999
**poke.addicted (Author?s Note: THERE IS NO X__x, ONLY POKE.ADDICTED)
Elite Members
10,000 ? 14,999
***neptis
***sk8rboy (A.N. Again!)
***Gamerad
***InvertAlpha
***geezerguy
Veterans
15,000 ? 19,999
****qwertyuio
Supercheats Legends
20,000+
imaloony8.0 and the newsletter staff apologize if you had a posting achievement but were not featured in this article due to you not making a topic or loony being an idiot by not noticing it. Achievements will only be counted for the newsletter if they have a thread made for them in the month of that newsletter. Your achievements won?t be counted if you don?t make a topic, so make sure to keep up to date with your post count!
Anniversaries and Birthdays
Welcoooome to the annual edition of the SuperCheats Newsletter! It?s obviously your resident Lukie here speaking and my is he happy, yeeess he is. Why? Because this article is actually quite full for once. Anyway, on with the article..
SuperCheats Anniversaries: Second Year {**) - Balthiersbit (Nov 16)
Third Year (***) - steelersrock01 (Nov 29)
- Zeldafan11 (Jan 9) [.. Putting this here because I?ll probably forget to put it in the next newsletter.]
Fourth Year (****) - Gamerad (Dec 11)
- InvertAlpha (Dec 20)
- Qwertyuio (Dec 22)
- Sk8rboy (Dec 24) [ .. Apparently ;p]
Fifth Year (*****) - jose22_1986 (Dec 11)
People Who Wore Their Birthday Suits This Year: - December 4th ? ShadowStriker64 (14)
- December 10th ? Forgoten_Scars (17)
- December 14th ? g33k (16)
- December 29th ? StarDust shall live (18)
- December 30th ? Sk8rboy (18)
- December 31st ? Beta X (16)
Congrats to all that had their anniversary this month and happy birthday to all the people who celebrated their birthday this month. Sorry if I forgot you and stuff. Happy New Year to all of you and hope you have good one. (;
Article by geezerguy Video Game Review: Borderlands
Well there ain?t no rest for the wicked, and maybe, with a game like Borderlands, that isn?t such a bad thing. This is a game that was part of literally a mob of games I got for Christmas, and so far, this may be my favorite of the bunch, if not my favorite of the year. But how good is it, and what did it do right and wrong? Well, you?ll have to read this review to find out!
Please note that this review will be broken down into four categories (Graphics, Sound, Plot, Controls, Gameplay) from the least important part of a game, to the most. I will be using a scale of 1 to 10, with 5 being average, not 7.
Graphics: When Borderlands was first announced and screenshots of the game were shown, it was nothing special. The graphics were good, just as everything else, but above all, it simply looked like a Fallout 3 knockoff. No one really gave much attention to this game until shortly after when new screenshots of the game were shown, showing a whole new art style which would make this game stand out from the bunch.
The new art style was cell shaded and gave the game a look of its own, capturing both the tough grittiness of a desert and the cold loneliness of a cave. This style gave a new breath of life to all the characters, enemies, and settings of this game, and as you might expect, it really shows and makes this game truly great. On contrast, close up the graphics look a little blocky and slightly dated, but this is hidden well with the unique style.
A small complaint that I have with this is that while everything looks great, all animations on NPCs are limited, giving the cities (and by cities, I mean like one small settlement, an enemy camp, and a medium sized city) not much life. Characters will never move from their spots apart from occasionally shifting their arms or head, and often you?ll come back to see characters standing or sitting in the same place they always were. This makes the cities seem lifeless and dull, like everyone else in the city is dead. In fact, the only life, ironically, rests in the little amusing robots called the CL4P-TP, or Clap Traps. Other character simply don?t move and make the cities really dull and depressing to look at, and take a lot of life from this game.
Score: 8/10
Sound: The sound in Borderlands was very, very positive. All the enemies say really creepy things, or have terrifying roars, or make odd noises that really bring them to life, and the sounds of the world itself seem to make it a character as much as anyone else sitting around. The voice acting that was there was pretty good, giving every character their own voice, personality, and style of speaking, especially the main characters.
However, the gun sounds is where it really shines. Without going too much into detail about them yet, there are literally millions of guns in this game, and it seems like each one has a unique sound to it that no other gun has. They explode, blast, and rata-tat-tat their way through enemies and you?ll never tire of hearing brand new sounds from these guns.
However there is one huge disappointment in this category. If you look back at the beginning of this section, you?ll notice that I said that ?The voice acting that was there was pretty good,? That was because there was very little voice acting in the game. There were a few larger speaking roles like Scooter, Commander Steele, and each of the main characters, but for the most part, it?s just text. At the beginning and end of each mission, you just get text, which is pretty annoying. Probably the biggest speaking role is Patricia Tannis, because there is a series of missions where you must collect about 15 audio diaries of hers. Other than that, I wish they could?ve made more use of the voice talent and kept them in the studio for more than five minutes. But despite this, this category is pretty solid, and receives bonus points for having a great theme song: ?Ain?t no Rest for the Wicked? by Caged Elephant.
Score: 8/10
Plot: This is probably the weakest part of this whole game. Before I get to complaining, let me give a brief rundown of the story. You play as Roland the Soldier, Lilith the Siren, Mordocai the Hunter, Brick the Berserker, or any combination of them as co-op allows. Each character arrives on Pandora for a different reason, which the game never goes into detail about for some reason, but the game manual does give a brief description, such as Brick searching for his sister, or Lilith looking for one of the few Sirens in existence, hearing that one is on Pandora somewhere. All of these character are also ?Vault Hunters?, or treasure hunters after what is apparently a fairy tale that somewhere on Pandora exists a vault put there by aliens, and full to the brim with alien technology. Things really get interesting when the Vault Hunters arrive to a small town (And by small, I mean one or two people plus a Clap Trap live there) named Fyrestone only to be greeted on their HUD by a character named The Guardian Angel, who promises that the Vault is real and that she?ll help the player find it.
Now, for a while, you?ll care about the story, and you?ll especially be interested in the contents of The Vault. The characters seem fine even though most don?t want to say much aside from the large index cards of what the character should be saying given to you at the beginning of each mission. But as the story drags on, any potential character development goes down the crapper. You learn more about Patricia Tannis through her audio diaries, and that?ll actually get pretty interesting, which makes you wonder why they didn?t do that with all characters, especially since every character had a reason why they got to Pandora. Hell, even a short series of missions for each character would have been nice, but that aspect simply disappeared, which was a huge disappointment.
And to top things off, the ending is hugely disappointing and pretty confusing, but there is a funny bit at the end, which wasn?t bad. All in all, this plot just makes you crave for more. More character development, more story, more dialogue, and more everything.
Score: 5/10
Controls: This game does simply astounding here. The developers clearly went out of their way to make the controls really responsive and really convenient, and that?s something I really respect. Unlike Fallout 3, you can look down the sights of your gun, which makes it so much easier to aim, whether it?s using flat iron sights, more complicated ones or a scope, it seems like aiming in the game is a simple task. The crouch and melee go the route of Call of Duty, with B making you crouch and clicking the right stick to do a melee attack, which differs for all the characters (Energy Blast for Lilith, Pipe for Brick, Combat Knife for Roland, and Machete for Mordocai) and is generally responsive. I never cared for that type of melee controls, but Borderlands seems to have gotten the formula right here.
Weapon switching and reloading is also pretty simple, going for a kind of ?Gears of War plus Halo or Call of Duty?, with X reloading, Y cycling through weapons, and the D-Pad to select one of your 2-4 equipped weapons (Increases as you go on.) The bumpers also play an important role, with Right Bumper throwing a grenade, and left bumper activating your special ability. And luckily Start and Back are exactly what they should be, menu and map, and not part of the game, something stupid, like, oh, I don?t know, pressing back to throw a grenade. But no one would be stupid enough to make that the default control, would they?
The driving controls aren?t bad, taking a note from Halo. The left stick controls acceleration, and the right turns the camera, which also steers the car. Left and Right trigger each fire a weapon, left bumper activates turbo, Y lets you switch between gunner and driver (a nice touch, but not super useful, as it takes a decent amount of time to switch), and there?s not much else to say. The car controls feel a bit more slippery than Halo?s driving, But you get used to it. I?m not sure what to think about A for lock-on, however, as it?s a toggle and doesn?t seem to target what you want most of the time in cluttered affairs. A sub-targeting system for the car would?ve fixed that, but whatever.
Overall, the controls are smooth, and there?s not much else you could ask for, and they just work.
Score: 10/10
Gameplay: The game really shines through here. This is what makes this game worth playing, and it?s what will make you fork over sixty dollars for it, grab on, and never let go.
Let?s cut right to the chase with combat. Combat is smooth as you use one of four characters, the Tank (Brick), the Sniper (Mordocai), the All-Around Support (Roland), and the Specialized. Each has their own strength and weaknesses, and although I?ve only played as two so far (Roland and Modocai), they seem very balanced and play off each other?s strengths well. Each character even gets their own special ability to help the team take out the competition. Roland can throw out a turret for supporting fire, Brick can go into a berserk rage, getting immense damage resistance and health regeneration while holstering his weapon for a period of time, Lilith can phase into a different dimension, making her invisible and fast and causing a shockwave upon entering and exiting, and Mordocai can throw out his pet bloodwing to attack enemies. Each of these moves can be upgraded and customized, or completely ignored to focus on other skills, which adds a huge level of individualization and customization, making every character unique. Each skill is useful in their own ways as well, from increasing magazine, to adding elemental damage to melee attacks, to upgrading turrets, it seems like Gearbox really went all out with the skill tree.
But a big selling point of this game is that it has up to four player co-op. Lacking LIVE, I?ve only experience 2-player co-op, but it?s still quite fun. To keep things interesting, when playing co-op, the difficulty is scaled, and the loot gets better for everyone. The experience definitely gets harder, with stronger enemies, but you?re able to revive your fallen comrades. It?s also quite fun, despite the fact that the friends I played with were simply terrible at the game, it was still a blast, and even as we died a million times, we still had fun.
However, I did find the death system a bit? eh, forgiving, and at the same time, frustrating as hell. When you ?die?, you fall to the ground, bleeding out. From here you can still shoot, but you can?t look down the sights. If a friend revives you before you bleed out or if you kill and enemy before bleeding out, you get a ?second wind?, and are revived with full shields and partial health. If you do bleed out, or hold X to instantly respawn, you teleport back to your most recent checkpoint and lose a percentage of your money. If you return and your allies are dead or you?re playing alone, the enemies will have recovered their health. Losing money in this game isn?t a huge deal, as most stuff you need is cheap, guns are everywhere to sell, and most of the best guns are simply found anyways. Worst of all, if you die and happened to miss a checkpoint by accident, you could get booted back to the beginning of an area. Especially in a co-op game this can be annoying, having to fight your way back through potentially respawned and beefed up enemies alone, or having to wait for your team to fight their way back to find you really gets annoying. This system could really have been helped in the long run.
Speaking of the ?checkpoints?, these are also your save points, which can really get annoying. Unlike Fallout 3, you can?t simply save wherever you want and pick up from the exact same space, which is annoying if you want or need to stop playing and haven?t hit a checkpoint for a while, you either need to keep playing, hoping there?s a checkpoint around the corner, or you need to backtrack to an old one.
Despite the bad stuff, one thing this game has going for it is loot. This game has an unbelievable variety of guns, shields, grenade mods, and class mods. It?s rather frightening. Literally millions of guns, dozens of class and grenade mods, and thousands of shields are at your finger tips, guaranteeing a new experience gun wise every time. Pump action, automatic, scoped, sighted, bayonets on the end, and everything in between, the number of guns you can find is frightening. There are only a few guns in the game that stay the same in terms of name and appearance, but their stats are rarely the same, usually randomizing for incredibly different play every time.
Score: 8/10
Bottom Line: Borderlands is a great game, and a joy to play, especially with friends. Where it lacks in plot and voice acting, they make up for is simple fun gameplay. An amazing amount of replayability, a long story and co-op will keep you coming back for a long time to come. This is a must own for any PC, 360, or PS3 owner who loves FPS or RPG games.
Final Score: 8.5/10
Article by imaloony8.0 New Members of December
Hello,thanks for reading this article by me/Beta X. This article will be about the New Members joining this month of November. After having the usual posting and topic creations, we have people that are new, and who introduced themselves to us in a topic.
We have 10 members that joined this month. The members that joined this month are:
-backwoodsrc (December 1)
-Emerald_Leafeon15 (December 9)
-pcgamer4life (December 14)
-anaconda_man159 (December 14)
-Abrakachamp (December 15)
-arif_itachi (December 18)
-MexiaTheNobody (December 19)
-doamasniperx14 (December 21)
-Rilenator? (December 30)
-hayabusatan (December 31)
I hope you guys become active on this site.
Thank you for joining this month, this month of important holidays, and joining this site which is full of great people; thanks for doing so.
Article by Beta X Special: Most Valuable Player: Submissions ? Year 2009 and December 2009
As you all know the December 2009 Submissions MVP was decided and declared this month, along with the overall MVP for the whole year of 2009, the very special awards, I?d think you agree. A lot of people were up for the challenge, but only
two six would prevail and the six that would eventually prevail would have a fight to the death, fighting to become the new heir of SuperCheats Kingdom.. What, the prize is getting a game of their choice? I thought my idea would have been much more interesting {which was...?; ~Ed}, but whatever Rich thinks is best.. ;_; Anyway, on with what went down, yo. After a long, cold and icy December filled with Christmas, family, friends and the New Year our winners still managed to submit as much as they could, all hoping to win the Most Valuable Player and any game of their choice. After the long, grueling wait Rich finally revealed all of the winners, and the ones the overcame the rest are as followed:
Most Valuable Player(s) for the Year of 2009: Winner: Superbird5005
Runner-Ups: ressurection666
Prod1gy X
guy in oakland
ChrisMaclean
Most Valuable Player for December 2009: Volke {which makes me the only person to date to have won a free game on SuperCheats on two separate occasions; ~Ed}
So, congratulations to both of the winners and the four runners-ups, they all get to choose a free game of their choice and get the bragging rights {do I really need them?; ~Ed}, of course. Now we wait for the start of February to see the winner of the current Forums MVP!
Article by geezerguy Member of the Month
And back to your favorite
member Host again. I'll be as quick as possible, this time around. Considering yet again, no one was able to suggest a single member, I had to decide December's Member Of The Month all by myself. It was quite the tough call. No one actually stood out, so finding the appropriate member to win such a title was a task I couldn't exactly complete.
Without further delays (or not *lolface*), December's MOTM will be...
No one!
Exactly. No one. I finally did it! This is now a perfect example of how this specific article shall go from now on. Starting next month, you will have to message me (you can simply post here, but if you want privacy, email me or message me over msn) with the member
you want to win. No suggestions? No MOTM.
We'll have new categories as well: Member Of The Month (wait, that's not new), Post Of The Month, Topic Of The Month and a new surprise one, which I'll reveal on next week's episode. Topic. Members who have won previously can now be nominated to be elected once again, so be active, and don't
be like Qwert spam!
Vote now, and win a special microwave!
Article by Vasco Pixel?euphoria?
LAST MONTH?S WINNER:
X__x
You?ll have the option to wear a badge. If you decide to use it, I?ll personally change your current signature so it is just one image, and thus you won?t be breaking the rules.
________________________________________________________
In the old Newsletters, this game consisted of finding ONE hidden pixel everywhere on the site.
The pixel shall be hidden by one of the Newsletter Staff Team. We won?t mention who did it, so even the other members can look for it. The pixel will be in the middle of an avatar, signature or even text, and it will stand out by not being part of the original piece (something that should be fairly easy to notice).
Here are two examples:
Click, please. To make it easier, this month?s Pixel will be hidden IN A POST, by Vasco.
Good luck to all~
Article by Vasco [center][b]Disclaimer[/center][/b]
This review was not intended to offend anyone and elaboration was used necessarily for enjoyable reading.
Any attempt to re-create/rip this review will cause TestVirus to go freaky. Seriously. I won?t even mention anyone else, he alone is enough to scare the crap out of rippers. If you still want to proceed, we also have loony. Now leave.
NOTE: I?d personally like to thank everyone who contributed to the Newsletter, this year. All of you did a marvellous job, and our members should all be damn appreciated for your work. Even you, DeadWing: if you ever read this, thank you. It?s been a pleasure to lead the Newsletter for these few months and, once again, I?d like to thank Flareon_Dude for the opportunity he handed myself and Lukie. I hope to continue working with all of you next year. Until next time. (:
The Newsletter Team.
Vasco ? Host and Article Writer
Qwertyuio - Interviewer {fired after this month; ~Ed}
Lukie ? Article Writer
Imaloony8.0 ? Article Writer
Beta X ? Article Writer
TestVirus101 ? Editor (Absent)
Volke - Honorary Editor and Honorary Article Writer {although no articles from me this month; ~Volke}
If you?d like to help, please send your application at the e-mail bellow. Also, regarding the Special Article, we accept the Special from ANYONE. You can just make an article you think it?s pretty interesting, and send it to us. If it?s good enough, it will be posted, and of course you?ll get credits for it.
For the above mentioned, or for further questions, e-mail me at:
vasco_gamer @ hotmail. com [remove the spaces]
« Last edited by Vasco on Jan 7th 2010 »againstall has invadedBECKY = 10/10