Borderlands

[Flawless]

This was a cover story for GI last year and it sounded awesome. Now we finally see it in action.

If you're wondering what Borderlands is: "Borderlands is the newest first-person shooter and Diablo-esque lootfest from the creators of Brothers in Arms, Gearbox Software. As colonists on Pandora, a planet at the edge of the galaxy, you and up to three friends must traverse the untamed land -- on foot or by commandeering vehicles -- filled with hostile creatures and other humans who aren't very nice. The ultimate goal is a secret vault holding vast amounts of alien technology that will help the colonists better colonize the planet."

Check out the walkthrough.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53723

[KENYON06]

Re: Borderlands

I was excited when I read that GI, but if I recall, I didn't see a mention of offline co op and that bummed me out. I like the concept though. I'm surprised there isn't already a thread on this game, it seemed pretty epic.

[Candyman5]

Re: Borderlands

I remember reading about this game and it having about 1 mil guns. Any Updates on it?

[Catch28]

Re: Borderlands

I remember reading about this game and it having about 1 mil guns. Any Updates on it?

check out the link for vids of an extremely early build

looks sweet, can't wait for this

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Borderlands now with new art style

In a post on the Gearbox forums, community manager Ennui writes, "We do care about all our fans, no doubt, and the decision to alter the art style was assuredly not one taken or made lightly... Though there's always the chance some people could be turned off by the style, it was decided that, overall, it fits the game and creates a more visually interesting experience."

Gearbox adds that this new look retains detail and style that's usually lost during the move from concept art to 3D. ""The entire world has life to it, from the creatures to the very rocks and dirty walls," Ennui continues. "The game world is no less gritty, dirty, or harsh — all of the detail is there, and the environments have even more atmosphere. We solicited feedback from our focus testing initiative, which consists entirely of a very large pool of gamers from all walks of life, and in the end, the choice was clear for us."

Really like the new art style over the original generic look.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

[LionsFanNJ]

Re: Borderlands

I like the look. I've been waiting patiently for this game, i get more excited as time passes.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Screen

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

New screens - this looks awesome.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Pre-E3 2009: We Head Into the Borderlands

IGN: What lead to the decision to alter the art style and what how much did that delay the release of Borderlands?

Randy Pitchford: Borderlands is a big, huge game and it was decided earlier that it would be best for the game to move it into later in 2009. With the time, the artists had been itching for awhile to see if they could render their concept art style in real-time. So a bunch of them got together and put a prototype together. When they scheduled a meeting to let me see it, I went in there thinking I was going to have to shut it down for being too risky. But when I saw it on screen, I was blown away. They did it! Quickly, I shared what we had done with our amazing publishing partner, 2K Games, who found a lot of value with the creative risks that were taken with BioShock, and I was excited that they saw the same value that we did and supported us. In fact, the art direction turned out to be bonus value that came from artists effectively using time that the project needed anyway.

IGN: This is a game built for co-op. But a lot of people who buy Borderlands will end up playing the single-player mode. How do the two experiences differ?

Randy Pitchford: The single player experience and the cooperative experience are very similar, except that with cooperative play friends can work together to fight and win. Single player and cooperative play mingle seamlessly and your character is totally persistent, so you can get some way through and invite a friend or you can join a friend and bring everything you've earned along with you. It's amazing technology and there isn't a single other game on the consoles that offers the kind of persistent character development in cooperative gaming that Borderlands does.

IGN: You can choose from four different characters, correct? Tell us about them and the advantages and disadvantages that come with each.

Randy Pitchford: You can pick from one of four different character classes and each personalized character will grow as you play the game to have different skills and capabilities from others of the same class. There is Roland, the soldier. He's an expert with all weapons, though he prefers shotguns and assault rifles. He can deploy a shield turret that can be upgraded throughout the game. He can also buy other skills and augmentations that befit the soldier class. Mordecai is the hunter. He's agile and is equipped with a sword as a melee weapon. He's expert with sniper rifles. He has a pet Bloodwing, which is, like, a hundred times more deadly than even the best trained falcon. He can send that thing at enemies to rend them apart. The Bloodwing can get tougher and grow in skill too as you play the game. Lilith is a Siren, which is a mysterious, mystical type that has been touched by alien technology. She has strange powers such as the ability to Phase Walk, which is kind of like when Frodo puts on the ring, except that when she takes it off she can kill everything around her with a shock-wave like nova effect. She's awesome. Finally there is Brick, who is the tank bruiser of the group. He's just as comfortable smashing you to a pulp with his fists as he is blowing you to bits with a heavy rocket launcher. Among other traits he can improve and grow, he has the ability to go into a berserker blood rage which makes him super powerful at close range with his meaty fists.

IGN: Last I remember hearing there was a claim that Borderlands features more than 650,000 unique weapons. Are you sticking to that statement? And if so, how is that even remotely possible?

Randy Pitchford: Actually, 650,000 guns is the safe number. We've now got some other new types of weapon classes and a lot of different weapon manufacturers and we have created a bunch of super rare and unique epic weapons and other gear, so the actual number of different weapons in the game is quite a bit higher than that. There are more weapons in Borderlands than in every shooter on both the 360 and PS3 added together. It's an absurd number of guns to the point where talking about it isn't really relevant any more. What's relevant is to realize that you'll be able to find lots of varied and better weapons and gear as you play to become more and more powerful.

Theoretically there is a "best" weapon in every class and type, but some of that will be up to taste as some traits are mutually exclusive with others. Some players will get there and find some of those "best" weapons, though. It feels pretty good to go back through and just completely own some bosses that were tough when you were weaker.

How is it possible that we've created so many guns? We've created technology, as sort of AI for all of the different weapon's manufacturers that we've created, that uses all kinds of different raw materials and components and parts and other content to procedurally generate the weapons for us within the styles of each manufacturer and the nature and general specifications of each class of weapon. It's amazing stuff. I'm still being surprised by it!

IGN: How big of a role do vehicles play in Borderlands?

Randy Pitchford: The runner vehicle is your mount. Some of the bad guys have them too. They're a great way to go from point A to point B more quickly and since the world is so big, you'll want to use them whenever you can. You can also get runners with weapons and nitro boost on them – lots of fun!

IGN: Can you customizes vehicles or is it a pretty much a what you see is what you get sort of tool?

Randy Pitchford: There are some customization options with the runners and other surprises too, but I don't want to spoil it.

IGN: The world is said to be pretty massive. Is this a completely open-world game then and if so how are you going to be pointing players in the right direction?

Randy Pitchford: It's a big, seamless and really interesting and exciting world to explore. I haven't quite seen it all yet, but that's because it's getting bigger and better and more rich all the time. There's a narrative that drives you when you want to stay on track, but you can consume that at your own pace. You can take odd jobs, get core missions or just go off track and see what you can find. When you want to follow a path, the game does a great job of showing you the path. You can also just go off about your business. If you want to grind for loot and experience, you can do that too. When you want to just explore and discover, the Borderlands are a great place to be.

New Screens

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Teaser:

<div class="gametrailers_embed_container>"<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=49925"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=49925" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/5366.html" title="Borderlands">Borderlands</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/player/49925.html" title="E3 09: Exclusive Trailer">E3 09: Exclusive Trailer</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/platformlist/xb360/index.html" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/platformlist/ps3/index.html" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/platformlist/wii/index.html" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div>

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

1UP Preview

What's the game about? Borderlands is Gearbox Software's open-world, sci-fi first-person shooter with RPG-like leveling elements. Collecting loot and completing missions on the way to unlocking a vault packed with alien tech/knowledge is the name of the game, and Borderlands you can play alone or with three other friends in local split-screen (consoles only), over a LAN, or online.

What's new for E3? The last time I saw Borderlands (at E3 last year), I lamented the game's "bland" art style and lack of info about the character customization possibilities. As you can tell from the screens, the game has undergone a radical visual overhaul since its last appearance, swapping the muted "realistic" visuals for a vibrant world that looks cel-shaded, but appears much more detailed than the games that usually carry that tag. I only got to watch the game, but Gearbox explained a bit more about the RPG elements and other features added in over the past year.

What's our take? Borderlands looks pretty swell in motion. Aside from some shaky animations over the LAN-connected co-op, the game ran smoothly and delivered a rich visual aesthetic that is miles ahead of what the team showed off last year. Not only do the characters and vehicles pop off the screen, the game just seems to carry a bit more panache that in the past. Leveling up delivers a bold "LEVEL UP!" message on screen, elite enemies carry a "Badass" prefix, and the ability progression tree uses cool, comic-like icons. Borderlands showed promise before, but now it has a fresh and original style to match what looks to be a large amount of substance.

Gearbox president Randy Pitchford enthusiastically narrated the sample mission, which two players started over a LAN but that easily expanded to four with little hassle. According to Pitchford, the team drew inspiration from Blizzard's classic loot-hunting dungeon crawler Diablo, but rather than offer separate single and multiplayer experiences, Borderlands seeks to combine the two via a number of connection options. And the allure of ultra-rare weapons (the game boasts over 650,000 weapons in total) and 160 missions packed with randomly generated enemies should be enough to lure loot seekers back again and again. I'm interested in getting a true hands-on test with the game before its official debut on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC this fall.

New Screens

[allBthere]

Re: Borderlands

i want this...this whole emerging genre of fallout3, mass effect1,2, this game, and alpha protocall...although they're all unique, they share a lot in common and i find myself wanting all of them. These games offer more than any game can that attaches itself rigidly to one genre...even gta4 the sandbox game lacks serious depth when compared to these types of games.

[goh]

Re: Borderlands

This looks like something I'd like if it was 3rd person. Too bad consoles don't have mods like PC does.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

This game sounds so awesome.

E3 2009: Borderlands Impressions

Well this game looks pretty cool. Gearbox is basically building Borderlands as an open world loot game mixed with a first-person shooter. Like in loot-heavy role-playing games you'll walk around, accept quests from NPCs and kill creatures roaming around, get experience for draining their life bars, then pick up the loot they drop after death. Gearbox is claiming there are tons of different varieties of weapons to pick up and use in the game, which should make for some pretty interesting pickups.

Gearbox says the game was first built as a first-person shooter, then had RPG elements layered on top. We didn't get to play, but we were treated to an extended demo showing off a few quests as well as the character development system. Before starting out you'll need to pick a character class, of which there are four. The demo focused on the Brick class, which is basically the tanking type. Each class gets a few different branches for its skill trees, which you can power up with points earned by leveling up. So for instance with Brick you can choose to focus on his melee skill set, earning special abilities like an adrenaline rush that allows him to run around like a madman pummeling enemies with fists. When selecting a class you'll also have the opportunity to customize the appearance to a degree, as well as slapping on a custom name, so not everyone who picks Brick is going to appear to be the same, and they'll be further differentiated depending on what skill branch you decide to follow.

The game can be played co-operative with up to four players, and it lets you utilize your character you've been building in any game. This means if you're playing solo and want to join up with a friend who's further into the game, you can do that and jump in with all your skills and items already earned. If you happen to pick up something really cool while playing with the friend you'll be able to hold onto and bring it with you afterwards into other games. Joining other people's games will see the enemies scale in power and number, so the challenge level will be dynamic based on who's playing and what level they're at.

While out in the world questing you'll get objectives like kill X number of Y enemies and boss characters, and you'll find loot sprays off your kills like in Diablo-style action-RPGs. UI windows will pop up when you approach the loot, letting you know the approximate value, special effects (electrical, fire, acid damage, etc), type of weapon (shotgun, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and many more), as well as rarity, indicated by a Blizzard-esque item color coding system. Weapons are generated by the game based on a number of presets, so you might find something like a fiery sniper rifles with a rotating chamber of three high caliber bullets.

A number of enemy types, from monsters to human bandits, are walking around the game's large open world, and similar to World of Warcraft's elites, you can find some enemies of a higher power level, referred to in the game as 'badass' enemies. These things are harder to kill but also yield better rewards, and while killing anything you'll be working toward upgrading your proficiency with certain weapon types as well as amassing experience and items. Combat can also take place while in vehicles, which you can outfit and jump into at special stations around the world to allow for easier travel across the terrain as well as some added firepower.

Like in action-RPGs or MMOs the game also assaults you with statistics as you fight, with damage totals floating up over enemies' heads as they get shot, and a 'critical' notice popping up after a particularly damaging hit. Console players who have no interest in playing online should be happy to hear that you can, if you want, play offline in split-screen co-op.

Hopefully everything goes well for Gearbox's Borderlands, as it's certainly looking really good right now. It's expected to be released this holiday season for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.