Games that I currently play

I don't really get consoles, but inbetween work and other things I always liked to play a few rounds. Here is a small list of games that I find so incredibly great that you should check them out:

1^st-person shooters

Borderlands

Do yourself a favor and play this game with three other people from the beginning. Preferably use Skype while doing that or even better: lock yourself in a room for five days. While I can see why this game got "good, but not excellent" reviews when the reviewer played it alone primarily, as a coop mix between shooter and Diablo 2, this game simply rocks in a way few games have ever before. Another important thing to realize is: every review comparing borderlands to Fallout 3 (if not just talking the original art-style), is pretty much talking out of its ass.

Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2

They spent so much time to polish the coop experience on this game it seriously is going to impair your ability to work on anything. This is an amazing online shooter game. The whole game design is based on the idea that the 4 player team has to stick together. There is no going alone, you have to help each other. Anyway, I enjoy playing this game way too much. The only problem is that you're going to scream in your microphone a lot which might disturb people living with you (true story ;-) ).

Half-Life 2: The Orange Box

There is nothing but value in this box, because you get 3 full new games and 2 old classics. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is interesting, but Portal and Team Fortress 2 are really what it's all about. If you want to know more, go to gametrailers.com's Orange Box page. The Team Fortress 2 trailers are especially worthwhile to watch!

If you're in Germany and of legal age, I recommend buying an imported version, because, unfortunately, Valve Software does not make an uncensored version of The Orange Box available via Steam if you're account's address is in Germany. In my opinion, by playing the censored version, you're getting robbed of the real experience, because, for example, it's impossible to tell if you've successfully hit a target in Team Fortress 2.

It's worth mentioning that I bought the censored version off the Steam network, without knowing that it was censored, first and Valve's excellent support staff let me activate an import version that I mail-ordered from PC Fun in Munich and subsequently returned the initial credit-card charge.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

What an excellent team experience! A few months ago, I locked myself away with some friends and we played this game almost exclusively for a few days straight! They get everything right that Battlefield 2142 got wrong:

• ET:QW has bots that you can use in every setting (Single-player, LAN and Online games). Battlefield 2142 only supports bots in a few maps and because of some idiotic piracy fears, it's impossible to play most maps in a LAN setting (which is where I play games the most, because I rarely have the time otherwise).
• ET:QW has upgrades for the class you're playing that carry through a series of maps, unlike Battlefield 2142 where the developers decided to cripple the LAN gameplay and do not allow you to achieve even temporary upgrades making offline gameplay even less satisfying.
• Instead of a dedicated "have less fun to enable your team's success"-commander role, they have an excellent AI system that generates missions on the fly. Even if the objectives on the maps become redundant, it's much more fun for everyone involved.