Borderlands

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Borderlands

Hopefully there is a demo or the impressions of the game are through the roof because I'm still on the fence with the art-style.

[jmood88]

Re: Borderlands

They've said that if there's a demo it's not coming out before the game.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Interview + some new footage

<div style="width: 480px;"><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=55047"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=55047" 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/55047.html" title="GC 09: Randy Pitchford Interview">GC 09: Randy Pitchford Interview</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></div>

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Achievements:

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/g.../achievements/

...

IGN Editor:

Preview builds are out to press right now, but we can't talk about it until the middle of next month, which is killing me. I don't think those worrying in this thread will have to do so much longer. I haven't wanted to play a full retail build of something so bad in a looong time. Mark 9/15 on your calendars; there should be lots of new, hours-long, hands-on impressions hitting then.

...OhgodIwannaplaymore.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Kotaku Impressions

The location was different. The characters I used were different. The powers I wielded were different. But my impression was the same. Accompanied by three other players, each using one of the game's foursome, I was enjoying a satisfying, grinding crunch through the game's cave. Every attack causes little numbers to spring and sweat off the enemies, to show the damage they're taking. Dropped weapons litter the floor, mad-lib-named with funny titles like the "Weaksauce SMG." the "Terrible Shotgun" and the much more useful "Violent SMG."

I didn't pick up much of the story. I barely had a sense of who my characters were. I was lost in the co-op frenzy. I've not been on a World of Warcraft raid, but I've played enough of that game to know a lot of what I was feeling is what it feels like to be in Blizzard's game. At one point, I had Mordecai punch my teammate's character so we could duel. An energy dome formed over us and we fought, the victor being the player who brought the other one down to one health point.

I learned a few more facts. The ammo and money that enemies drop are automatically shared by your co-op team of players. Health drops and weapons, however, are available only to whoever grabs them. Of course, if you play solo, which you can at any time, it's all yours.

People keep asking me what I think of Borderlands and the answer has no need to change: If you like playing WoW, this is the shooter version, with a four-player limit. If you're into racking up experience points, finding better loot, leveling up and not sweating whether there's a deep story you'd rather be following instead of chatting with your friends while killing stuff, then this game is one for you to watch.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

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[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

IGN: Roaming the Borderlands

In fact, as more players joined a party, the game would instantly scale the difficulty and adjust the location of some enemies to even out the odds, making a session much more treacherous when all four players were fighting side by side. (It would also scale down if a player dropped out for any particular reason, say if they decided they wanted to choose a completely different character or leap into a new game). Fortunately, there are some things during gameplay that can make exploring the Borderlands much easier. First of all, the game is designed to help you share the myriad loot drops from fallen enemies. I was told that during a co-op session, the ammunition and money that is collected by one player is shared within the party, allowing everyone a chance to equip any firearm that they come across with rounds, shells or whatever projectiles it fires.

What's more, the more you use a particular weapon, the higher your proficiency with that firearm becomes, making you more capable of using it in the field. Collecting ammo and cash was easy, as hitting the X button on a 360 controller allowed me to collect everything from a searchable area (which was highlighted in green) or red chests, which contained weapons and armor. It was always possible to check or compare the items that were around before you picked up the item as the game would compare its stats against the newly "acquired" spoil of war. However, health pick-ups, weapons and armor are not shared, so that can turn into a first come, first serve competition. In fact, Borderlands also allows for competitive play in the form of duels that can be instantly set up by one or more characters. If one player runs up to a party member and melee attacks them, the victim has a few seconds to strike back. If they land a blow, an energy shield is erected around the two players within the duel (and anyone trapped within its radius).

Once a duel is on, players can wield any firearms they own to "kill" their friends, landing as many strikes as possible. While the barrier can prevent monsters and other enemies from intruding in your face-off, enemies and colleagues within the barrier can attack at will. Although you won't die during a match like this, it will weaken the loser significantly, allowing an enemy to easily whittle away a character's life, bringing them to the damaged "last stand" state where they can either wait to be resuscitated or can kill enemies to regain their health. During friendlier sessions, however, it allows some players to turn into a pack mule, gathering items up and taking them back to a machine to be sold for extra money. Players can also pick up and drop these elements for those players that really need them.

Vending machines are essentially like stores within any RPG town; they provide you with a way to sell your equipment while gaining new items with a minimal amount of hassle. Players are provided everything from instant specials based on a specific item to armor and health refills. Unfortunately, instant specials seem to act like armor or weapons, because if one player picks the item, it's gone for quite some time until the game replenishes it with a like powered or stronger item. Anyway, shortly after unlocking the vending machines of the world for use by our party, we discovered the Bounty Board, a location where players could travel and accept side missions and plot driven main quests. While you would still have to talk to specific characters to trigger certain events, the Bounty Board was an easy way to earn extra experience and build out a character's skills, allowing you to customize your character based on your play style. Players could also queue up multiple missions with this board, taking on as many tasks at one time as they wished and returning for a bounty once everything was finished. Finally, players could also get a quick glimpse at the recommended level strength for each mission by checking the objectives they'd chosen from the board. This was an easy way to determine if you needed to level up by fighting monsters in the wilderness, or if you could risk going on a mission and survive the odds stacked against you.

As I mentioned before, part of the tweak to the game for each player was determining your character's skills. This could only be done once you reached level 5, you were provided with a skill point, which, for the soldier, allowed you to determine the specific method that your turrets deployed. Support turrets provide additional ammo, while infantry provided additional firepower and Medic allowed players to put down turrets that also projected a regenerative health aura. Pouring skill points into this feature was extremely useful, particularly because it allowed me to perform direct attacks alongside the Brick character while at the same time healing damage for the whole party when things got rough.

While taking on some of the missions and destroying the first boss was amusing, I also managed to get a sense of vehicular combat, which expands gameplay shortly after you defeat Nine Toes in battle. See, at one point, you're tasked with getting from the town of Fyrestone to another location, but you discover that your path is blocked by a large barricade that has been erected by marauding bands of enemies. The solution, of course, is your vehicle, a mix between a dune buggy, tank and the Batmobile. It has a rocket boost which allows you to leap directly over chasms or barricades, as well as punch directly into enemy vehicles to flip them over. For more direct assaults on groups of enemies, vehicles or structures, the vehicle also had a rocket turret that could be aimed and fired. While I never found out the specific name of the machine, I couldn't help but liken the machine to a Warthog from the Halo series; it felt like it had the same kind of control and suspension, but the rocket turrets allowed the gunner to cause more destruction.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Destructoid Preview

After spending an hour or two with the Xbox 360 version of Borderlands in a four-player, system-link setting, I’m a believer. And all I kind of want to do is shoot some more stuff.

It’s here I realize that Borderlands is, at its heart, a solid first-person shooter experience. Gearbox has puts its years of FPS developer to good use. The controls feel tight and my experience with console shooters has me feeling right at home -- pull the left trigger to aim down the sights, pull the right to start killing things.

Here is also where the game’s role-playing game roots begin to peek through. Unlike in other shooters where bullets merely result in blood splatters and explosions, damage dealt in Borderlands is visible as numbers, and a damage bar above enemy heads. Killing enemies gives you experience, of which I’m positive will later result in me being able to wield more than one of the game’s millions of guns. Oh, and there’s plenty of blood splatters and explosions too… sometimes a combination of both. This pleases me.

The four of us swarm upon the box, repeatedly pressing "X" to pick up everything inside. I grab not one, but two new pistols -- something called a "BLR Swatter" and an "RF Repeater." The "Repeater" is automatically equipped, so I switch to it; despite the fact that it does more damage than the "Swatter," it’s an unimpressive looking piece of equipment.

I swap it out for the "Swatter," which is more intricate looking, and even has a scope attached. I pull back to aim down the sights which brings up the scope (complete with a cool-looking skull with wings!), and I fire off a few rounds. This makes me feel good about my manhood, and I’m immediately sold on it. Seriously, I need to go find more things to shoot.

So we do. We’re shooting bandits and dog-like creatures that crawl out of caves, all of them dropping ammo and money -- sometimes even random guns -- as they die. We’re scavengers, and we want it all, pressing and holding "X" to pick up everything around us. We accept a few missions -- Borderland’s mission structure is relatively open, with a feel not dissimilar to some MMORPGs (go kill eight of these things, or find 12 of these things). About 20 minutes in, I’ve shot dozens of thugs and other strange creatures, picked up plenty of cash, leveled up a few times, and swapped out my guns multiple times.

By this point, I’m beginning to start to believe Pitchford’s "millions of guns" claim, and I’m also starting to get a bit worried for my own well-being. You see, there’s a lot of loot in Borderlands. It’s everywhere -- in boxes, in piles of waste you rummage through that’s scattered around the game’s wasteland… it even falls right out of enemies as they drop lifeless to the ground (these guys should consider fanny packs, maybe). So here’s the problem: It’s addicting, and with each gun I’m picking up being better than the last (with its own unique stats, look, and feel), I’m having a hard time knowing when this is going to stop.

"Okay," I’d say to myself every time I found a new weapon, "I need to go shoot something with this thing… immediately."

Before Gearbox pulled me off the units and sent me on my way, I had seen (maybe) 30 or 40 of the game’s "millions and millions of guns." Broken up into unique classes (like shotguns or rifles, for instance), each had its own unique look and feel. At one point, I picked up a gun that fired incendiary rounds, with a random chance that my targets would burst into flames. Let me tell you: when that happens, it's like experiencing an orgasm for the first time. I’m told some ammo has the ability to electrocute enemies. I want that, and I want to shoot something with it… right now.

[Vast]

Re: Borderlands

This game sounds awesome. Im definitely buying it for the 360. Who else is in??

[Cyros]

Re: Borderlands

I'm intrigued by the prospect of "phat loot".

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Nice parody of the Christian Bale meltdown.

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[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Destructoid's PAX 2009 Game of the Show: Borderlands

We nominated seven of the best games from the Penny Arcade Expo's show floor and let our community pick the best one of the bunch. Their pick? Gearbox Software's Borderlands. The upcoming PS3, Xbox 360 and PC title just edged out both Valve's Left for Dead 2 and Blizzard's Diablo III as the fan favorite, pushing ahead of Uncharted 2, God of War III, Mass Effect 2, and The Misadventures of of P. B. Winterbottom.

We had a lot of good things to say about the cell-shaded team-based first-person shooter/RPG this earlier summer in our preview, and many members of Destructoid's community echoed that after their hands-on sessions at PAX this past weekend. Words like "fresh" and "addicting" were thrown about heavily when talking about the game play and its twists on standard FPS, and just about everyone appreciated its funky cell-shaded visual style. PAX attendees were buzzing about the game the entire weekend, and the game's demo stations were always packed with lines. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing about Borderlands, so we weren't too surprised to see them take the prize. Congrats, Gearbox.

Borderlands will be released on October 20th.

...

Good quality video:

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[Sandman42]

Re: Borderlands

This game is nearing must buy for me now. It's nice to have something new and original this fall as most of the other big releases are going to be sequel.

I just hope that it catches on online. Hopefully it doesn't suffer the same fate as Shadowrun which was a great game, but had very little online following. I'm just worried that when MW2 hits, its going to kill a lot of the online base that bought the game.

[DXZeke]

Re: Borderlands

This game is nearing must buy for me now. It's nice to have something new and original this fall as most of the other big releases are going to be sequel.

I just hope that it catches on online. Hopefully it doesn't suffer the same fate as Shadowrun which was a great game, but had very little online following. I'm just worried that when MW2 hits, its going to kill a lot of the online base that bought the game.

Sandman, I'd not worry about the player base from this game leaving since it's going after the base of people that aren't really down with playing the same "war" shooters over and over again. It's a new and unique game. There will be plenty of people that want to play this game even after Modern Warfare 2.

I'm one of those people!

[Candyman5]

Re: Borderlands

Sandman, I'd not worry about the player base from this game leaving since it's going after the base of people that aren't really down with playing the same "war" shooters over and over again. It's a new and unique game. There will be plenty of people that want to play this game even after Modern Warfare 2.

I'm one of those people!

Same here.