Borderlands

[Cusefan]

Re: Borderlands

any more impressions after playing the game more??? do you guys get into it more? how is it now to everyone?

that GT review actually hit the nail on the head for the most part. The Beginning of the game is kind of slow, kinda boring, but it picks up. I am pleasantly surprised with a few aspects of the game. I initially thought the gun play and the visual direction were not for me but both really add to the game.

This is a COOP game through and through, Get some friends to play with.

[Tiko7523]

Re: Borderlands

for anyone who has red faction and just got this game.... to me watching videos it looks very simaler to red faction.... is it?

[goh]

Re: Borderlands

I'm fairly sure I won't like this but I'm buying it anyway because I'll probably get $35-$40 trade-in at Blockbuster so if I keep it for a week it'd be profitable (adding in the tax).

Not having a 3rd person camera is my big issue before playing,hopefully the other stuff isn't that bothersome. It seems to have heart and style at least.

[Cusefan]

Re: Borderlands

I'm fairly sure I won't like this but I'm buying it anyway because I'll probably get $35-$40 trade-in at Blockbuster so if I keep it for a week it'd be profitable (adding in the tax).

Not having a 3rd person camera is my big issue before playing,hopefully the other stuff isn't that bothersome. It seems to have heart and style at least.

Play with friends, it should help the experience

[goh]

Re: Borderlands

Yah,that'll happen with Smackdown out this week. Be like trying to take a steak from a rotwiler and replace it with 75 cent dog food.

I didn't think there was offline multiplayer anyway?

Here's the Gamesradar review: http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/bo...15144955311033

8/10

It got the super-review treatment...

Is it better than…

Halo 3: ODST? Signs point to yes. We swear we're not reviewing games with a Magic 8-Ball - this is just a challenging comparison.

Fallout 3? Don't be ridiculous! …Though it might be nice to mash them up

Red Faction: Guerrilla? Maybe. They're both open-world shooters with vehicles, but they're immensely different.

You'll love

* Collecting weapons
* Splattering bandits across the sand
* Four player co-op

You'll hate

* Bland quests and characters
* Running out of ammo
* The repetitive repetition

[TheDutchDad]

Re: Borderlands

Watching casts of this game on JustinTV, and reading some of these reviews I just don't really get what is so good about this game. Maybe I have to try it to see, but I just don't get it. Look's cartoony, sounds like a poor story, and repetitive.

[Tiko7523]

Re: Borderlands

Yah,that'll happen with Smackdown out this week. Be like trying to take a steak from a rotwiler and replace it with 75 cent dog food.

I didn't think there was offline multiplayer anyway?

Here's the Gamesradar review: http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/bo...15144955311033

8/10

It got the super-review treatment...

Lol repeatitve repatition of what?

[mgoblue678]

Re: Borderlands

I don't know I may have to pass if it has a weak story and is too repetitive in certain aspects. Shooting things with over and over no matter how many guns the game has would get old to me pretty quickly if there isn't a good story and the quests are repetitive.

[TheDutchDad]

Re: Borderlands

I don't know I may have to pass if it has a weak story and is too repetitive in certain aspects. Shooting things with over and over no matter how many guns the game has would get old to me pretty quickly if there isn't a good story and the quests are repetitive.

I'm getting Forza for sure so I think I will pass since I recently got Operation Flashpoint, Uncharted 2 with FIFA and Forza coming within the next 14 days, not to mention MW2...I think I'll save my cash for those games.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Eurogamer Review - 8

Co-op is arguably how Borderlands is meant to be played. While the quests in the single-player are adequate to the task of keeping you occupied and entertained, the ludicrous ramping of enemy numbers and power when friends join makes the experience far, far more chaotic, and therefore more entertaining. Being able to keep each other going in that Gears-of-War-buddy-system way means that large fights can roll on without you have to beat a hasty retreat from heavy resistance. The way the game scales, the character types overlapping, means that any number suits the game. Two or three players is just fine, no matter what the task at hand. The soldier character can even act as a healer, shooting health into his team-mates, while plenty of other passive effects from each of the characters boosts the group in various ways.

With four players, it's a riot, and they can drop in and out as you go. Campaigns are set up so you can get three other people to come in and join your particular quest arc. As the host it's your storyline people will enter, but they still benefit from being there: levels, weapons, and missions collected in the online game transfer back to everyone's single-player game, with anything that's out of your level band simply inaccessible until you've got to a higher level. I suspect playing with strangers might be a bit of a task, mind you, as there's no loot binding, and anyone can pick up anything. So watch out for loot-hoovers.

By this stage in the review the shooter fans are probably screaming to know what Borderlands is actually like as a shooter. Well, it's a better gun-game than Fallout 3, and that's because it is in many respects an fairly traditional FPS. It's got a Halo-style shield recharge, and whether you hit someone largely depends on your personal skill, although there is some spread and wobble in the different guns, which I presume is defined by the accuracy stat. Headshots do more damage, although it's a "critical" in this case, and that may or may not be a kill depending the other factor the game introduces: level difference.

It's not the case that the game simply levels up with you, although it does to some small degree. Enemies will be higher or lower level than you depending on the area you're in and the mission you are doing. Fighting enemies at a similar or lower level than yourself makes the experience rather like a typical FPS, with enemies taking just a couple of hits to go down. Higher-level or "named" enemies, however, will need to be pumped full of damage to be defeated. It's not realistic, but it is highly entertaining. Weapons feel right: the effects are beautifully moderated so that when you get something more powerful, with a higher rate of fire, you really know about it. Fast-firing bazookas are a near-comedy mode of killing things.

Nevertheless, the repetition in Borderlands is basically unavoidable, because the game is so long and so huge. While most shooters are over in a few hours, Borderlands demands considerably more time to get through. Despite the pay-off of ultraviolent gun action, it does get grindy, especially in a solo game. I lost track of quite how long it took me, but I'd estimate 30 hours, possibly less. This is enough time to get to the mid-30s, at which point the game is reset at a higher level. It's quite possible, therefore, to keep playing up to the level cap at 50, against a much tougher gameworld. This should allow you to max out the skill trees, which define the focus of the special abilities you exhibit in-game.

There are some other problems too, such as the character design. The four archetypes really aren't different or interesting enough. Sure, they all need to be suitable for single-player, but they're not cut out for classic character status, nor do their powers extend much beyond simply pumping out damage in different ways.

Mordecai, the hunter, has probably the weakest special ability, which is a bird. Initially I found this useful because it deals a significant amount of damage, but as time goes on it seems relatively unimpressive and often fails to connect with a target. I abandoned it and respecced (yes, you can reset talents and spend your skillpoints again, like in an MMO) for a more sniper-focused build.

The soldier character, Roland, has a turret. That alone makes me think that plenty of co-op games are going to see gangs of Rolands (as you can play with any mix of characters) running around together. The turret can pump people's health and ammo back up, as well as acting as cover. Lilith's phase walk, meanwhile, where she becomes a damage-dispensing ghost, is an interesting idea, as you can end up electrocuting and burning people with an hybrid area-of-effect attack. It's an odd mode of play, however, and some players are definitely going to focus on guns.

The one character who genuinely seems to play differently in an entertaining way is Brick, who can smack the living s*** out of anything with his berserk mode. Pump this up as you play and you end up with a close-range punch-monster, or a tank. Either makes for an entertaining mode of play.

Borderlands is unusual, playable, and an artfully violent step in an interesting direction for Gearbox. The story aspect of the game could have been better - I'd love to have seen the role-playing influence extend beyond stats, levels and loot - and the ending is a disappointment. Even so, this should be a favourite game of the year for a huge number of people, since it plugs into gamer impulses at such a fundamental level. We blow things up and collect the goodies. That part, at least, Gearbox has nailed.

[Flawless]

Re: Borderlands

Rock Paper Shotgun review

Who wants to try to define the game in a single sentence then, eh?

Kieron: Hellgate in a desert, but not ****.
John: “Imagine if Far Cry 2 were fun.” That would be my pitch.
Jim: Cruel. I liked Far Cry 2. But Borderlands is more fun. A lot more fun.
Alec: I’m going to be ever so bold and say it’s more like Diablo than anything else. Even down to how you grind away at things you can’t quite do until you reach their level, then progress, with no real fear of death to prevent you doing so.

Alec: There is a slight afterthought vibe to the co-op. It’s essentially functional, but even down to things like how quests are shared (i.e. it doesn’t signify if any players have any quests in common, and there’s no way to give any to others apart from the host choosing a specific mission and thus forcing its objectives into the interface of others – who, while they’ll get XP, won’t receive any of the loot rewards once it’s completed) it doesn’t seem like it wants you to play much of the game in that mode.

John: There are walls. Kieron and I were playing, me level 20, him 16, and there was nothing we could do.

Kieron: John – that’s what I mean by “finding an area”. There were places we could go and play… but not there.
John: Well, we could play. But there were no quests available for us.
Kieron: Totally. You have to ignore the quests and go and kill baddies in an appropriate area.
Jim: Yes, it becomes grind at that point just killing dudes to level the lower person. We did that from 1-15 with KG’s Brick. But the level structure is weird anyway: it’s a freakin’ an FPS with levels! That alone is kind of bizarre to me. Usually i hate that approach, but it seems to work almost by force of personality here.

Kieron: Elaborate on that, Jim? I think I agree.
Jim: The force of personality thing: the game feels right as a shooter. The guns are meaty, the explosions boomy and that bads die in a satisfying way.
Kieron: That’s it’s strength.

Kieron: We really sound like we hate this game considering we all love it.
Alec: I think it’s more a matter of circling, unsure how to define why we like it
Jim: It’s genuinely entertaining, isn’t it?
Alec: Yeah, it makes that MMO/Diablo compulsion absolutely a virtue, in that you’re rewarded with something that has a visible and tactile rather than purely statistical improvement.

John: It’s a good shooter. That’s really significant. Name the last good shooter. It’s utterly beautiful to look at, you get stupidly powerful guns and after a few hours essentially infinite ammo, and you can just have a mad amount of fun running around shooting stuff.
Alec: Doom 2.
Jim: Kieron, Why is it a good shooter? I mean don’t you tire of shooters, traditionally?
Kieron: I do. In this case… well, one reason why it works as a shooter is that Gearbox have shooting experience. It’s why Hellgate failed on a fundamental level – it felt wrong, because when you go first person and/or direct control rather than indirect control, everything changes. Gearbox knew that, and levered all their experience with the genre into making it work. Hell, even look at the vehicles – it wouldn’t surprise me if they were repurposed code which they had lying around from the Halo PC Conversion. This is them putting all that experience they’ve got into a game which is actually still something of a new idea.
Jim: It’s very Halo in it’s combat dynamic – I mean the shield is Halo-like, but it has its own thing going on – it ends up being as important as any of the guns. The shield was something I didn’t expect or even consider really.

Jim: As a follow-up point, I don’t think the classes are distinct or characterful enough. Brick is the only one I’ve really felt stands out, if just for the screaming.
Kieron: I don’t know about Mordecai, Jim, but I’d say Brick and Lilith have plenty of personality when they level up. Alec and I were just playing now, with level 20 characters, and she’s running around with wings of flame while I’m a masturbatory screaming monkey-beast. I think the missing thing is that we haven’t played 4-player co-op at Level 20+.

Alec: Yeah, it started making a lot more sense there. Punchy and Flamey ride again. Which almost makes me wonder if it’s best played with two rather than four – more direct feedback to each other.
Jim: My problem with Mordecai is the bird often gets stuck, or just doesn’t seem to hit anything.
John: I have preferred playing 2-player over 3 or 4, too.
Alec: There’s less “wait for me, oh god no time to look at my new toys” panic with two, too. There’s just more space to stop and admire how ridiculous/incredible the other player is.
Kieron: Four can be a bit overwhelming, I’ll admit.

Alec: Does anyone care why we’re doing what we’re doing in this game? I can’t help but think of it purely as a sandbox, despite its sometimes overwrought attempts to really be a story game.
John: Nah, I stopped reading the quest text straight away. I don’t care why it’s happening. I just have fun. Please note: I don’t care about the story, and ignore it.
Kieron: It’s the game’s genius: It gives you a mechanistic excuse to have fun. FPS mechanics and fights are just more interesting – mechanically speaking – than trad MMO ones.
Alec: The story is the story of you and your guns. “Remember that bit when I had a shotgun that fired rockets?”

[Cusefan]

Re: Borderlands

wow I played until about 6AM last night with a bunch of friends. If there is one thing that bothered me is the lack of a cohesive story line. About 3 hours in last night, I asked my friends if they had any clue what the story was and no one knew.

But who cares about the Story, There are tons of quests, Tons of guns, and its a butt load of fun.

[mgoblue]

Re: Borderlands

Gamefly just shipped today, should get it by the weekend...Looking forward to playing, but not sure this is one I'd play enough to buy...

Seems a bit too limited in story/RPG for me long term, but as a fun customization game with tons of guns it sounds enjoyable.

[b1gwolt]

Re: Borderlands

I am getting the game right when I get off work today at 5 and will probably be on around 10 pm est.

Friend me if you want a partner:

GT: bigw0lt (thats a zero)

[Cyros]

Re: Borderlands

This game is going on a Christmas request list.