I’ve played what could politely be referred to as an “obscene” amount of Borderlands 2 since I first got sent it for review. According to Steam, I’ve put in 152 hours so far. That’s more time than I put into most games before moving on to the next thing. I only played Diablo III for about 40 hours before I got sick of the grind, and only made it to 149 hours in Skyrim after a year, three different playthroughs, and some DLC all combined. What is it then about Borderlands 2 that is keeping me playing long after I’ve hit level cap with two characters?

To many backers, myself included, Project Eternity is something of a dream project; a veritable super-group of RPG developers, including Chris Avellone (Planescape: Torment), Tim Cain (Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura) and Josh Sawyer (Icewind Dale II) teaming up to create an old-school epic. By the end of the campaign, just shy of 74,000 people backed the project on Kickstarter, with another undisclosed number contributing through Paypal, After asking for $1.1 million to make the game, Obsidian Entertainment raked in over $4 million, making the project the most strongly backed Kickstarter game campaign so far, and increasing the size and scope of the game far beyond the original parameters.

With only a single screenshot of the game existing, it’s far too early to speak about the game itself, but the amount of money raised, the way the stretch goals for the campaign were structured and some of the comments on both the Kickstarter and on gaming forums say some very interesting things not only about Project Eternity but also about the industry and community as a whole.

When it comes to playable characters I have a very definite type. I don’t mean blonde or brunette, lithe or curvy. I mean the type of characters I choose to play or create usually fall into one very certain set of parameters, personality types and skills. It doesn’t matter if the game is a turn based strategy RPG, an old-school isometric, real time/turn based, action RPG or FPS hybrid, I usually choose to play exactly the same kind of character. Or at least I did, up until about a week ago — when I discovered that stepping outside your comfort zone once in a while really freshens things up.

My eyes are gritty and I’m not regulating my body temperature too well. It’s a sure sign that I haven’t slept enough in a while. As an insomniac I’m used to the sore eyes and fatigue sweats, but today there are some lovely extra symptoms nagging me. My lower back is killing me, and depending on which way I hold my neck I get a stabbing pain in the back of my head. I haven’t felt this way in over a decade, since days passed unnoticed outside as I was first playing Diablo II. I have all the warning signs of loot fatigue and it doesn’t look as though it will be getting better any time soon.

Have modern games been dumbed down, or have we become dumbed down instead? Daniel Wilks recently picked up the long awaited and very promising “old school RPG Inquisitor, and discovered that he might not have the stomach for this kind of grind any more.

Daniel “D20″ Wilks longs for the old-school days of asynchronous multiplayer gaming, and explains that some of the best roleplaying game experiences have the potential to come out of it.

With Borderlands 2 only scant weeks away, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has been touring Australia to talk about exactly how much we’re going to enjoy blowing things into little pieces. Daniel Wilks managed to corner him long enough to get this interview – which includes a lovely clip of Randy singing ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’. Enjoy.

Why are there so few historically accurate RPGs? Our resident RPG man Daniel Wilks examines the difficulties in making an RPG that stays true to form, and posits some ways we can get around the problem of, well, magic not being real.

Confronted and confounded by ever-increasingly more complex skill trees in your RPG’s? Daniel Wilkes is as well, and he examines those of The Secret World and Path of Exile to see if there’s really a “skill tree sweet spot”.

Every year brings the inevitable Steam sale, that time of year when games are so ludicrously cheap that you’re actually clinically insane not to purchase them. Daniel Wilks is the same, and he’s here with some of the RPG’s that you should be keeping an eye out for.

Our resident RPG man Daniel Wilks takes a look at the ARPG Krater, and discovers that some wheels are better left un-reinvented.

Daniel Wilks heads into the post-apocalyptic ruins of Dubai to see if a gripping, morally ambiguous narrative about the true horrors of war can save this cover shooter.