Ah man I know how that is we have one kid but only one car, trying to keep up with bills is very very hard, I plan on investing in another 360 soon but not until I get some other stuff taken care of first.

I'm just joking. Everyone's situation is different.

We have two vehicles, two jobs. The standing rule is that if one of the jobs disappears, so does one of the cars.
I think that's reasonable, considering that what we owe on her schooling (which was established before we met) exceeds what we owe on both vehicles combined.

But, see, we live in a community where the hospital is a mere 5 miles away, and the grocery store and schools are in walking distance.

That's what works for us. I'm just ribbing you. It's not like I'm ready to slap down the cash for another gaming rig, either.

I dont have too many vices, me and my girls kid are 14-16 so I am at a different place but you guys obvious play together and like it. There are certain games that are great via system link and most of them are in bargain bins. Just a suggestion since I was the same way. I first ended up buying another one after the whole red ring thing then ended up manually fixing it with the whole washers but it ended up opening up Crackdown,Saints Row 2,GRAW1&2, VEGAS1&2, and the Halo series to better gameplay.

Like I said the only machines I have are 3.2ghz and below with crappy video cards since I shifted focus. My friends however dropped 400 a card on SLI and buy every new processor that comes out on a 1 1/2 year cycle. His motherboard alone costs more than an xbox with 2 copies of crackdown and a copy of borderlands. It's just a shift in perspective for most people but if you dont have the scratch for either I would start saving since it may be some good fun.

I did drop 700 in parts for a HTPC to play BR but it dont cant as a PC to me

What, if any, filters are available for the game to tone down the graphics, language, and gore? I have two twin 12-year old step-sons who would LOVE to play this in co-op and are big Halo fans. The box art and graphics, though, have me extremely concerned that this is just too mature for them unless the filter options are robust and functional.

Thanks.

Its all animated, I dont recall them cussing but yeah if you get a good weapon you can blow of legs and heads, I will have to look.

It's funny though most people have issues with language and sex more than violence. There was this guy at work that would buy edited versions of movies like Titanic, oh it still had all the deaths and stuff, they just edited the nudity.

I think if there is someone around to teach empathy along with cause and effect you can leave it all unfiltered.
I will let you know how it works in 4 years if my daughter doesnt become a serial killer she's 14 now and ive never heard a cuss word or violent act and I dont filter one thing from her.

There are no language or gore filters. You can turn down the speech and FX volume but they are tied together, so if you mute them, you loose all the sound effects along with the speech.

They do swear. Mostly the people you are shooting but your characters will throw out various swears based on different triggers like finding a gun on the ground. Its not as frequent as I had feared. Army of 2 was much more offensive in this regard in my opinion.

The violence is over the top but its a stylized look thats intended to be funny because its so unrealistic. Even so, its up to you to decide if thats appropriate for a child to see. IMO its not and they should be older to see peoples limbs, bodies, heads, and brains exploding.

Anyway, hope that helps. I was trying to find this information a while ago so I figure I would help you out.

The game is very fun, and even if you dont play it with your kids, playing it with adults is a blast. 12 year olds might be able to handle it, but I think you should rent it to get a feel for it and make a decision that way.

How is unrealistic violence funny? Both Fallout 3 & Borderlands had heads blow up unrealistically when you shoot the head.

But I don't find that funny, it's graphic that's all.

Not to mention, Fallout 3's slow-motion death view was just plain AWLFUL! Who in their right mind could watch slow-motion head explosions and still get a kick out of it after 100+ times?

I fear for what the definition of funny becomes....

True, it can still be quite shocking to see a human explode regardless of if they have a cartoonish appearance or not. Its really up to each person to decide.

One thing is for sure though, it would seem that the average tolerance for things like this seems to be increasing steadily as people grow more and more desensitized. When does it cross the line? How do you know when something has gone too far? It becomes more and more difficult to answer those questions as society becomes more and more accepting of things that were once completely unacceptable.

It can be scary to think about sometimes.

I think we grow, at one point people have had their careers ruined for making movies like the classic Freaks or Peeping Tom when the end result is we were never anymore evil today as we have always been. You say desensitized I say I am not, I will give you an example:

A friend of mine once sent me so clip about some guy getting hit by a car as entertainment, how do you figure anyone would enjoy someone elses folly? To top it he calls me a wuss(other word for it) cause I tell him never to send me that crap cause it ruins my day. So we move on past this, one day I ask him if he would like to see this really good horror movie, he tells me no, he gets scared of stuff like that. Really you're ok with watching hours of someone dying on RealTV or Highway chases yet you cant watch a fake horror movie? Once again we get it backwards, I can make the distinction between reality and make believe. I am perfectly fine with fake, but can't stomach seeing someone real actually hurt, whats wrong with me?

Without the evening news do we just think of new ways to hurt each other like the good old days?
http://www.oddee.com/item_96596.aspx

finally got to level 50 on the game(have to play from scratch with various friends), and it's still a blast.

Bring on Borderlands 2!

You've got the DLC to look forward to yet.

I got this game this weekend. SO AWESOME! I played all night on saturday and pretty much all sunday. Level 31 with the best weapons!

Whens the planned release?

I heard the 24th.

Hmmmm, It seems that everyone likes this game but my wife and I. For us, the game has way too much RPG in it. We like story elements and all, but mission after mission got old fast. We like to get in and start shooting and not have to constantly scour the map for ammo. Ooo, a lunchbox... with a bullet in it! Yay! Look, a mailbox... with a bullet in it, yay. And there is what looks like a smoking pile of trash, I wonder if I smacked it if there would be, yep... a bullet. Well at least there was a band-aid in there too for a change.

Then those dog things come at you and I end up reverse circle strafing to take them out? What's this thing shooting, marshmallows? I know I am supposed to be looking for weapon upgrades, but this is ridiculous.

After that we were told to go and kill eight humanoid characters that turned out to have numbers for blood which just looks dumb imho. Why can't I turn that off? And why kill eight? I think there was one guy left but we were only getting paid to kill the first eight so we let that last guy off with a warning.

It seems that the split-screen was tacked on at the end because the quite frankly, the menus blow. Trying to scroll side to side and up and down was a pain. Maybe I am just expecting too much since there is not as much real estate on half a screen.

I would probably have enjoyed it more if I had the full screen.

The game is billed as a Role Playing Shooter, but I think its really just an FP-RPG. It sure didn't feel like much of a shooter to me. I'm glad I only rented it.

sounds like you only played the first few missions - the game doesn't really kick off until later. That said, if you didn't enjoy those missions at all - you probably aren't going to like the rest of the game, even if it does get better.

Yeah, I thought about that but the game just didn't grab me. I mean I didn't think it was a bad game, it was just not my cup o' tea.