By Jim Rossignol on October 13th, 2009 at 9:00 am.
This week we’ve had a chance to play through the beginning of Borderlands, courtesy of 2K Games. What follows are some preview impressions of that co-op experience. We expect to unleash a full RPS Verdict on the game later this month.
Playing the single-player version of Borderlands causes one single game feature to stand out. When you are reduced to zero health you have some time in which you bleed to death. This gives you a chance to revive yourself with a “second wind” by getting a kill. In the co-op part of the game this makes perfect sense, as it’s also an opportunity for your buddies to run over to you and help you up. In the single player game, however, there are times when there is nothing to kill, and no buddy to help you. You simply kneel there, bleeding to death. And it’s kind of heart-breaking.
This feature alone, I feel, demonstrates how Borderlands is meant to played with friends. Once router port-fiddling is defeated that’s easily done online by making your normal game an internet game, playing your own campaign, and then inviting chums when they’re available. We’ve had a chance to do that, and we’ve just finished the opening section of the game known as “Arid Badlands”, by playing through as a team.
Arid Badlands very much an introductory experience, with the chirpy robot character and a mysterious static woman explaining everything after you pass the character selection screen. You’re asked to help out a ramshackle frontier town which is sparsely populated by redneck characters. You’re a treasure hunter, looking for a mythical vault, and lots of people seem invested in your finding it. Arriving via an armoured bus, you kill some bandits off and starting settling in. Once you open up the main hub town, Fyrestone, then it feels a little like the opening stages of an MMO. There’s a strong whiff of those starter area cues you get in games that are longer-term and slower-paced than traditional shooters.
There’s not much “worldiness” to it, with only a handful of friendly and rather characterless NPCs. In fact, from what we’ve seen there’s little general activity in the world, but there’s nevertheless some evidence of more complex infrastructure: wind-turbines, powerlines, and a neat vehicle system. All this bodes well for the rest of the game, which should hopefully expand on the idea of Pandora as a world. Although there’s constant combat from the start, Fyrestone and the surrounding area feels low key and preparatory, and once early missions unfold then that air of RPG is even stronger. The back and forth of minor quests, the mission dispensing characters and bulletin boards, the hit numbers bouncing from enemies, the stats and colours for weapon types – I almost expected the badlands to open up and reveal some kind of “World Of Guncraft” beyond.
And yet the best fun we’ve had in the first part of the game has been thanks to the focus on gunplay. Borderlands is embedded deeply in the shooter category, and it will send you running for cover and aiming for headshots. Some of the fights we’ve had have been ludicrous tooth-and-nail running battles, with a joyous chaos to them. In this opening area there are two main kinds of enemies: skags, a kind of mutant dog-lizard thing, and bandits, who come in various shapes and sizes of mean and mutated. Playing co-op hugely amplifies the chaos of a firefight because so many more high level enemies appear. You’re often dealing with multiple targets and trying to drag your friends to their feet while you yourself are under fire, as rabid midgets stab axes into you, and heavies hammer you with machinegun fire.
All this this drives the loot-hunger, of course, because co-op battles bring about more impressive enemies, and therefore even better drops. With millions of weapons, various shields and other mods to play with, there’s a whole load of tweaking to be done to your character, and swapping loot back and forth is going to become routine among friends. I suspect, however, it’s going to trickier to play with strangers: there’s currently no formal system for loot sharing, meaning anyone can run in and grab whatever they like from the hundreds of stashes that you uncover. A limited inventory space, however, means that the greedy run out of room rather promptly.
I’m coming to love the art style and general attitude of the game. The hand-drawn textures give the game a look that is clean and crisp while still being down and dirty. It’s comic book and playful, with a bold sense of thrills, and a good feeling for why we enjoy getting an even bigger gun. While Arid Badlands is a brownish desert it nevertheless has a bunch of interesting design going on in it, not just in the visuals, but in way the sidequests and the main story arc interlock. It’s structured so that you have plenty of opportunity to back off and level up a bit before taking on more serious tasks.
Having taken down the early bosses and fought our way through what I suppose constitute the first “dungeons” in the game, we’re certainly interested in seeing what comes next. And for that, you’ll have to wait for our next article.
13/10/2009 at 09:04 Vinraith says:
Does the world scale to player number or… how does that work? If I’m playing with 2 people, how is the game different than if I’m playing with 4? Also, would I be totally wasting my money if I expected to usually be playing solo?
13/10/2009 at 09:08 Jim Rossignol says:
There’s more badguys, and more tough badguys, and more loot, for each person that joins.
John will argue the case for single player, I think, he’s got more of a kick out of that than co-op. I’ve enjoyed the multiplayer best.
13/10/2009 at 09:10 piratemax says:
Great read, I pre-ordered it on Steam, and it looks this game will be a lot better than Hellgate:London.
13/10/2009 at 09:44 Jacques says:
It doesn’t really seem comparable to HG:L.
13/10/2009 at 09:46 Jim Rossignol says:
I dunno, there are definitely some parallels with Hellgate, but they’re tenuous. This is its own game.
13/10/2009 at 09:59 Jacques says:
Maybe as far as there being first person shooting and collecting better gear, but that’s about it.
I still miss my gun guardian character :(
13/10/2009 at 10:08 Kieron Gillen says:
Jacques: I disagree with Jim here. From what I’ve played so far, I think it’s incredibly like Hellgate London, just better.
KG
13/10/2009 at 10:17 Jacques says:
Does the player have skills and stats? To be honest, any game that lets me fool around with ridiculous guns is a no-brainer purchase for me, but from what I’ve seen, it’s more of a traditional FPS as opposed to an action RPG game, I’m probably wrong though.
Admittedly, HG:L failed hard, but there were quite a few very good ideas in there that I hope surface in other games, the loot system, for example, it seems silly for games not to implement a similar system that worked so well.
13/10/2009 at 10:27 Kieron Gillen says:
Jacques: It’s got skills you improve by use and also ability skill trees. Hellgate was a diablo-clone-maker decides to make an FPS. Borderlands is a FPS-maker decides to make a diablo-clone. I’ll probably have a lot more to say on that point in the verdict.
KG
13/10/2009 at 10:30 Jacques says:
Thanks Kieron, I’ve definitely got my eyes on this game now.
13/10/2009 at 10:35 Kieron Gillen says:
Jacques: Worth stressing – it’s not quite as RPGy as Hellgate, but being first-person, the sense of control matters more – which is where I think the FPS experience pays off. That said, each of the four characters, does have 3 (smallish) trees to advance down, which would lead to quite different builds. It’s pretty nifty stuff.
KG
13/10/2009 at 11:45 Dominic White says:
I always thought that Hellgate would have been a much better game if they’d just held off and released it six months later. The enormo-megapatch (it was a couple of gigs worth of content) they released just before the game died for good was rather impressive, and brought in a lot of content and features, as well as improving graphics and rebalancing a ton of stuff.
They rushed it, and it sank them. Here’s hoping that Borderlands can get the formula right, because it’s a really good idea in general.
13/10/2009 at 14:55 Jacques says:
The Stonehenge expansion was cool, but patch 2.0, would have been insane, they were in open testing for the patch when all the shit went down, and the patch content never surfaced for SP.
13/10/2009 at 09:15 The Fanciest of Pants says:
I must have it. Played it for the first time(on a 360, but I’ll take what I can get) at a convention a couple of weeks back, was not dissapointed.
Bring on the 30th!
13/10/2009 at 09:18 pignoli says:
So it's: "player has joined our world, Diablo's minions grow stronger, and er, more numerous too"
I find I can get just as much out of the single player of these types of games. In fact I usually like to get through at least a good portion of them in SP before diving in with other people as you tend to get whisked along as the blood-lust increases by way of being in a group!
13/10/2009 at 09:18 duel says:
i want to know how that guns feel, are they really graduated so the first couple of guns you get are pretty pants and do no damage? pew pew pew…
13/10/2009 at 12:35 The Sombrero Kid says:
the order you get the guns in is luck you can get the best gun in the game on the first drop if you’re really super lucky.
13/10/2009 at 09:21 Lobotomist says:
Really looking forward this game. And I am going to buy it on STEAM ;)
13/10/2009 at 09:25 Jim Rossignol says:
Duel: basically the guns start out okay and just get more insane. What we perhaps haven’t got across is that you’ve got guns everywhere. Hundreds of them. It’s the super-powered few that you’ll pick up and use all the time. And they tend to have mad powers like super-fast reload, or setting people on fire, or immense single-shot damage, or whatever.
Pignoli: precisely. I have been playing single-player too, but when someone comes online I want to play with them because the fights are more hectic.
13/10/2009 at 09:25 vicepresidentisamilf says:
Why would anyone want to play this? Modern Warfare 2 is twenty days out.
This game steals its graphics from Wind Waker and it’s gameplay from Halo.
Who wants to play Zelda with guns?
13/10/2009 at 09:36 Archonsod says:
Oh look, another pseudo-realistic shooter involving some american types shooting at nondescript foreigners with the odd scripted section to make sure the player isn’t having too much fun. Yawn.
13/10/2009 at 09:57 TotalBiscuit says:
Get out.
13/10/2009 at 10:13 Adam says:
@vicepresidentisamilf
Obvious troll is so obvious I can see it in my current swineflu addled state of mind
I’m very very excited about this game, and I can’t see how its even comperable to MW2, it’s like comparing Braid to Bionic Commando Rearmed.
13/10/2009 at 10:15 RogB says:
everything I come to RPS to avoid, right there.
13/10/2009 at 10:37 Adam says:
Also I’d bloody love to play Zelda with guns. It makes me sad how lacking the PC is in zelda style collect gadget -> complete puzzle type games.
13/10/2009 at 11:20 Dante says:
Wow, I’ve never seen such a series of wrong assertions bundled together like that, bravo sir.
First off, asking why anyone would want to play this when MW2 is on the way is like asking why anyone would buy Scibblenauts with Dragonage on the way, they’re very different games with totally different appeals.
Secondly, you do realise Wind Waker didn’t invent cell shading, right? And even if it had, Borderlands would be no more stealing from it than it steals from Jet Set Radio. And as for ’stealing’ from Halo, I am uncertain what mechanic you seem to beleive bungee have patented, co-op? Or perhaps the first person shooter itself?
Lastly, if you are going to lazily label a game ‘x with y’ at least do it accurately. Hell the phrase ‘Diablo with guns’ is used by nearly every preview of this game. Oh, and ‘who wants to play zelda with guns?’ Metroid fans, I suppose.
Lastly, if your point really is 'why play x interesting, innovative game when y big blockbuster is round the corner', boy are you on the wrong site.
13/10/2009 at 12:06 Bhazor says:
Reply to Adam
Arkham Asylum does a pretty good job on that front though it feels more Metroid than Zelda.
13/10/2009 at 12:20 Psychopomp says:
What Biscuit said.
13/10/2009 at 12:38 The Sombrero Kid says:
borderlands isn’t cell shaded.
14/10/2009 at 02:25 Wooly says:
We don’t like y’alls types round here.
13/10/2009 at 09:27 Jim Rossignol says:
There are some Halo influences, but Zelda With Guns doesn’t even make sense.
I’m sure MW2 will be great, but Borderlands does something different. *That* is why people will want to play it.
13/10/2009 at 15:40 Dave says:
I’m holding out for Dwarf Fortress with guns.
Or World of Goo with big trucks.
Or AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity with unicycles.
13/10/2009 at 09:28 sigma83 says:
Why would anyone want to play this? Modern Warfare 2 is twenty days out.
Because co-op focused. Modern Warfare is not.
13/10/2009 at 09:29 Sacred_flame101 says:
i will defiantly buy this game assuming i can run it
13/10/2009 at 09:38 duel says:
apparently, if you can run L4D and TF2 youl be fine ;)
13/10/2009 at 09:49 MacBeth says:
i will defiantly buy this
I do love that typo. Makes me imagine people marching in to a game store and slamming the box down on the counter saying ‘I’m going to buy this, and I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT!’…
13/10/2009 at 12:08 Bhazor says:
Thats exactly how I bought Sims 3.
13/10/2009 at 13:02 yhancik says:
According to some website
Processor: 2.4 Ghz or equivalent processor
Memory: 1GB System RAM (2GB recommended with Vista)
Graphics: 256mb video ram or better (GeForce 8 series or higher/Radeon R8xx series)
Which is a bit more than L4D (which runs on my ancient Radeon X1650 :p)
13/10/2009 at 09:35 Dustopedia says:
Is this a client/server based MMO game, or is it peer-to-peer style (like Diablo/Battle.Net, for example)? The comment around playing with routers makes me a little nervous!
How does team finding/matchmaking work?
13/10/2009 at 09:36 futage says:
This has made me rather more hopeful than most of the marketing material over the past 6 months or so. I’d almost given up on Borderlands but you made it look fun again.
13/10/2009 at 09:39 Jim Rossignol says:
It’s peer-to-peer via Gamespy login. Which is a lot less painful than it sounds, actually. Once you’ve got it set up the game logs in without your needing to sign on.
13/10/2009 at 11:00 robrob says:
Gamespy? Really? The last multiplayer game I played featuring Gamespy was Medieval 2: Total War. Trying to organise a game in that was awful. You randomly couldn’t see some people based on their country and getting two people into a game took at least half an hour of trying. The only sensible option was Hamachi. Does Borderlands allow for direct connect or LAN games?
13/10/2009 at 11:03 Jim Rossignol says:
Yeah there’s LAN support.
I did a little sigh at Gamespy, but it’s worked seamlessly so far. We did have to open some ports to get it working, however.
13/10/2009 at 11:48 Wurzel says:
Peer to peer? Well bugger. It’s going to be the same problem as demigod; a cool-looking multiplayer game that I can’t play due to university internet restrictions. Sigh, and I was looking forward to it too.
14/10/2009 at 02:30 Wooly says:
Peer to peer MP!? Shit! Bloody college internet security… And I preordered this… What am I going to do now?
13/10/2009 at 09:40 P7uen says:
Yay for Walker, hero of the single-player-preferring single-players.
13/10/2009 at 09:48 GreatUncleBaal says:
From the second gameplay pic: “Piss Wash Jumped”? o_O
The comments about lack of “worldliness” make me a tad wary – it seems like the perfect game for a strong cast of NPC characters wisecracking and interacting with the world and player.
However, it looks absolutely lovely, and fun co-op always pricks my ears up. And I don’t think I’ve played an FPS co-op game with loot drops before.
I’m fairly certain I’ll pick this up, definitely looking forward to more impressions on the game.
13/10/2009 at 09:49 Darkelp says:
I’ve had this pre-ordered for a few months now, but the closer its been getting to release the colder my feet have been getting.
Thanks RPS for setting a fire under my feet and getting me excited again! Can’t wait for the next article, and Walker’s view on its single playerness.
13/10/2009 at 12:42 The Sombrero Kid says:
likewise, but i’m still confident i want it, i just don’t have anyone to play with, so walkers take will be interesting to me.
13/10/2009 at 12:45 Darkelp says:
I’d be more then happy to play with any RPSers, as quite a few of my friends won’t be purchasing the game for a few more months, so I too will be alone.
13/10/2009 at 10:15 Digit says:
Forgive me as I’m up to my eyes in the development of my own game and have but a bare few minutes of allotted time each day to catchup on general gamey-news, but IS this an MMO, or is it a single player game, with coop? If the latter, my wife and I may need to check this out, as we do enjoy our coop goodness, oh yes we do. :)
Thanks for any info!
13/10/2009 at 10:31 Colthor says:
1-4 player co-op. Like Diablo etc. apparently.
13/10/2009 at 10:19 Po0py says:
I’d personally love to hear more about what it’s like playing with complete strangers. I have no Pc friends. None. Zip. Nada. Sounds like the lack of loot sharing support amongst strangers could be a patch job. I suspect you guys are using some kind of team-speak app. But is there chat available? How does it compare to, say, going on a raid with strangers in WoW?
13/10/2009 at 10:36 Kieron Gillen says:
Po0py: A complete stranger joined mine and Jim’s game, and we got on fine. There’s voice-chat as standard, in a straight “Talk to mike and people hear” way.
KG
13/10/2009 at 11:47 neems says:
Join us PoOpy.
I mean, not me, I don’t really like people, except for the members of my clan, who don’t seem to like computer games (I don’t get it either). But you’re in the right place, I’m sure you could find some people here to steal loot from. There’s a steam group as well.
13/10/2009 at 11:50 Dante says:
I’m sure there’ll be enough RPS readers without regular playing buddies to form up, I’d keep an eye on the forum.
13/10/2009 at 10:30 Colthor says:
Sounds fun. Looking forwards to it.
I just hope they don’t do something stupid like shove online activation on the retail version. If they said it doesn’t have it I’d pre-order.
13/10/2009 at 10:45 Mac says:
How does the coop work – is it from inviting people from your friends list (assuming there is a friends list), dedicated servers you jump into, or something else?
13/10/2009 at 10:48 Nootrishus says:
Just had to cancel my pre-order off steam as they have a 4 game package for £80, cheapest anywhere right now (As long as you have the friends for it). Can’t wait to get my hands on this mmmm
13/10/2009 at 10:50 Mac says:
shopto.net selling for £19.99 – which saves the hassle of getting 4 peopel together and sorting out paypal, etc
13/10/2009 at 10:58 unclelou says:
Sounds good, and seeing how I loved HG:L, this is most likely a day-one purchase for me. However, I’ll terribly miss proper armour. I can kind of understand why they left it out, this being a first-person shooter, but an optional 3rd person view and different armour would have pushed this far higher into the hype stratosphere for me.
13/10/2009 at 10:59 Jared says:
I have been following this game since it’s conception. I’ve been extremely interested in it, and judging by the reaction from the public, that interest won’t go unfulfilled.
So interested I decided I’d make a website about it, which will eventually have guides, forums, a personal blog, and probably more.
13/10/2009 at 11:05 armlesscorps says:
I am a bit dissapointed it feels like an MMO according to this article. I was hoping the open worldidness would be evident from the start and you could just get on with exploring rather than doing little inconsequential quests.
It sounds fun though, ill pick it up when i have the cash.
13/10/2009 at 11:07 XM says:
Is this the only way to play co-op by portforwarding the router? I can never get this to work without loosing my internet. I followed all the steps on portforwarding.com and just can’t get it to work. I hope there is dedicated servers like left 4 dead.
13/10/2009 at 11:14 JM says:
How does it handle character levels? If we play as 4 regular friends, and one person plays a bit more with their character, are they going to be way too powerful for the rest of a la WoW?
13/10/2009 at 11:16 EBass says:
Makes me think its an MMORPG, plot synopsis, “Find the Macguffin”, “Interested in what comes next.”, doesen’t really make me particularly interested in this game in any way.
13/10/2009 at 11:20 gulag says:
Hope it still has a big digger in it. I’ve had this on order for a few months now.
I notice it’s being sold through Steam, which leads me to wonder if co-op will be supported through the Steam friends list invite/join game functions.
13/10/2009 at 11:21 Tei says:
My real life friends have move to table top RPG, so I will probably try to do like in L4D, build a list of cool people with the friends system of Steam. This means that for half a year, I will probably PUG a lot. In a sense, I love Pug-ing. Is like another random element on a game. The game feel more varied with random people. On the other side, the loot is somewhat PUG unfriendly, as described here. Oh well..
After a lot of “Killing Floor”, It seems that I like the “sniper-o-matic” type of character. I like to pick mobs, one by one, in a letal way. But a bit of spray-and-pray is always fun. Is all about how the weapons will feel. And If theres something like “Spider Mines”, since PETS > ALL.
13/10/2009 at 11:26 Lilliput King says:
Cool story bro.
13/10/2009 at 11:27 Lilliput King says:
Meant to be a reply to the troll, woe is me :(
In other news, waiting for the verdict, but excited! Got a group together ready to get the 4 copy deal on steam, so really looking forward to the release.
13/10/2009 at 13:39 Post Maker says:
cool story bro
13/10/2009 at 11:34 Dustopedia says:
I wonder what the cheating situation will be like here.
Peer-to-peer is risky in that regard, particularly when (it sounds like?) there are persistent statistics and equipment carried over from game to game.
13/10/2009 at 11:43 Super Bladesman says:
I’m so looking forward to this still, just hope to god my PC will run it…
13/10/2009 at 11:53 Kieron Gillen says:
Re: Peer To peer. Worth noting that abstractly only the person hosting needs to open ports. I haven’t opened my ports and can join Jim and John fine.
KG
13/10/2009 at 12:03 Hentzau says:
I’m having terrifying Blood Bowl flashbacks.
13/10/2009 at 12:06 Kieron Gillen says:
Henz: Exactly.
(I could actually often join people in Blood Bowl before I opened my ports too)
I wish they’d fucking standardize ports on PC games. They did with the 360. I don’t know why they haven’t. I presume there’s a really good reason. There has to be, yes?
KG
13/10/2009 at 12:50 The Sombrero Kid says:
yep, you can only run 1 360 game at the same time, not so on the pc, why they don’t use upnp is a mystery.
13/10/2009 at 13:21 Tei says:
Ports standarization?
But you have to open ports on the router, that run some unknom “real time os” you have never eard of (or maybe a linux port). And probably protocols like upnp are not popular.
I don’t know why seems so easy on Xbox, I have never played one. I suppose the servers of XBox runs some discovery service, or something, so is not true p2p,.. if you are firewalled, the XBox servers redirect all the server trafic to you. Or something.
The real problem is USA. USA has almost all IPv4 adddress, so see no reason to invest time and energy to migrate to IPv6. The rest of the world need IPv6, but also need USA to migrate. So we don’t have IPv6. With IPv6, It would be easy to have a real internet IP for every machine on your house. So this shit “NAT” that routers do, will not bee needed. It seems that NAT is a horrible hack, that barelly works, so network games have to jump lots of problems and broken implementations to run.
13/10/2009 at 15:15 nutterguy says:
Roll on IPv6
No post sillyness to worry about then, or the finite number of dwindling IPv4 addresses! :-/
13/10/2009 at 19:57 Martin Edelius says:
Please ignore almost all of what Tei had to say.
IPv6 will spread all over the world as the hard- and software mature to support it. It is as of now a very young technology.
UPNP is unpopular because it is quite a security risk (applications opening ports in my firewall as they please? No thanks.)
NAT is not some “hack” – it has been around for ages and works very well, no matter if you’re one person playing behind a tiny home router or 100′s of people playing behind a corporate firewall. Port Address Translation is a bit more iffy but is not used as often.
(Not in reply to Tei but since the comment system now is crap I can’t see the poster I wanted to reply to:) What does it matter if you can’t run more than one 360 game at once? How do you play more than 2 PC games at the same time on the same machine in a peer-to-peer situation?
The problems with a firewall and NAT/PAT only shows up if you’re hosting a game where you need to publish a service (the game) outside the firewall but this isn’t a limitation of NAT but of how TCP/IP works; one port at one address equals one service.
If you’re trying to do this for standarized ports (i.e. not using peer to peer as you have multiple servers serving up different services) then it won’t work unless you happen to have enough IP-adresses for every game (not cheap). This is why there are different default ports for different games.
Good game servers allow you to set your own ports though so if you’re hosting a game behind a firewall you should be able to open up just one port and tell the game and your friends to use that one.
Ok, way too tired to go into more depth about this but these are the basics.
13/10/2009 at 11:54 pinbag says:
I hope the rpg part is realy solid. (storywise)
&
Bleeding numbers when you shoot something… bothers me also a litle…
13/10/2009 at 16:18 TotalBiscuit says:
You’re going to be disappointed if you’re looking for heavy RPG stuff here. It’s as heavy as RPG as Diablo by the looks of it.
13/10/2009 at 12:07 groovychainsaw says:
Must admit, this has long been a preorder for me, but on the xbox (sacrilege!), mostly because of the split-screen co-op and ease of matchmaking. Why they can’t implement either of those things in a pc game beats me really… think co-op sounds brilliant, me and my wife will have a great time looting the world….
13/10/2009 at 12:10 RLacey says:
Sounds like it’s well worth the £20 that one can get it for. Good good.
13/10/2009 at 12:12 Clippit says:
I’m interested in the actual game but peer to peer co-op and Gamespy are both a bit of a worry for me. Peer to peer is designed for console users with 21st century broadband, and doesn’t work as well on the PC, or in Australia where many people (myself included) are still downloading like it’s 1999 (i.e. slowly). As for Gamespy, well it’s like this middleware that doesn’t work, but keeps being used in big games – UT3 and BF2 for example – where it causes big headaches.
13/10/2009 at 12:17 Darkelp says:
Borderlands = £19.99 on Shopto.net
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 = £34.99 on Shopto.net.
That’s a pretty big reason.
13/10/2009 at 12:18 Darkelp says:
Borderlands = £19.99 on shopto.net
MW2 = £34.99 on shopto.net
That a pretty big reason.
13/10/2009 at 12:19 Darkelp says:
Haha, dammit!
Sorry for double post, and that was suppose to reply to the troll!
Lame.
13/10/2009 at 12:22 Heliocentric says:
I’ve seen mw2 for £25 so don’t quote me silly prices like its a legitimate arguement.
I’ll bet i can find hl2 for £20, does that make it the right price.
13/10/2009 at 12:27 Darkelp says:
Well they are hardly silly prices, and I have honestly only found the game at the cheapest price of £29.99.
I feel your missing the actual point of my post, which is to say that Borderlands is greatly cheaper then Modern Warfare on many sites.
It was merely linking to the idea of how people are looking for a cheaper game, which longer play time then a more expensive game.
I personally was made redundant recently, so I can’t afford to spend too much on a game. So for me, and I’m sure for others, spending £20 on a game that will offer far more playability then a more expensive game is just smart thinking.
13/10/2009 at 12:36 Mac says:
In fainess MW2 can be had for £23.99/£24.99 – so there is a fiver difference
13/10/2009 at 12:38 Mac says:
Ahh, they have put their prices up – £24.99 it is now.
http://www.coolshop.co.uk/catalog/product/58074-modern-warfare-2-%28call-of-duty%29–for-pc?utm_source=tradedoubler&utm_medium=cpa&utm_campaign=td_aff&tduid=895a4c5dd2128ad4e5d7be5766586a94
13/10/2009 at 12:40 Mac says:
This comments section needs an edit function.
Hopefully working link:
http://www.coolshop.co.uk/catalog/product/58074-modern-warfare-2-%28call-of-duty%29–for-pc
13/10/2009 at 12:41 Darkelp says:
Ah okay, well I retract my previous statements, I’m quite loyal to only a few shops (mainly Game as I can get lovely lovely points!)
But I still stand by my opinion that price will be a big factor in how many people are interested in this product.
13/10/2009 at 15:51 Dante says:
Interesting sidenote, if you go to the corresponding forum thread you can in fact edit your comments.
It’s cumbersome, but it works.
13/10/2009 at 12:35 Ian says:
I think I’ll be waiting to see more stuff from a single-player point of view as I’m not sure who I know that’ll be getting this.
Unless of course I try and join in with RPS folks.
If I jump into somebody else’s game how much of my stuff is carried across? I assume I’ll have my gear but does it also carry over what quests have been completed and that sort of thing? I mean, if I’ve beaten Quests A, B, C and D in single-player and then hook up with somebody else who is just about to do quests D and E, do I do quest D again? If I help them with quest E will I then have completed quest E if/when I go back to single-player?
I’ve not articulated that question very well at all so hopefully my meaning comes over okay. :-P
13/10/2009 at 16:59 HolyShitMatt says:
Characters are saved locally, you retained what you’ve earned in single-player while in co-op, and you can assist people with missions you’ve already done.
13/10/2009 at 12:56 Rive says:
Jim and Kieron, i got a question for you lot concerning the xp distribution. Havent found infos on that yet.
When you play with other people, are the xp distributed evenly or is it every man for himself? This kinda makes or breaks coop games for me since im playing games with the same friends for years now and it kinda spoils the fun if im getting ahead of the pack, which i usually do, the other lads arent gamers as long as i am.
13/10/2009 at 13:53 Kieron Gillen says:
Rive: It’s distributed XP. We’re still trying to work out the actual split, but we managed to powerlevel a level 1 character of mine to about 15 by playing with Jim’s Level 20 guy.
KG
13/10/2009 at 13:59 Rive says:
Thanks for making my day Kieron. Now its back to staring at that “not yet released” on my Steam Games Tab. Been looking for this game for so long now, and the only concern i had has now been nullified. Yes!
13/10/2009 at 13:12 Jazmeister says:
SON
I AM EXCITE
13/10/2009 at 13:32 Geoffrey Prout says:
I have a HUGE question…I read in a few forums the possibility of duel weapons..is that possible in borderlands? Like 2 pistols or even i noticed that the Berserker dude used the rocket launcher with only one hand; kinda makes me wonder if you could have duel launchers!
13/10/2009 at 13:36 Jim Rossignol says:
Quests: the game is at the state the host is in. If you join his game, you are at the stage of the game has got to. If you complete quests with him, they are completed in your game too. I’m not sure if this creates inconsistencies in the experience, we need to check it out.
Loot: whatever you pick up in an online game, you take back to single player on that character.
13/10/2009 at 13:47 malkav11 says:
Gamespy? Really? Shit. I don’t mean to say that this will prevent me purchasing the game, but my experience has been that Gamespy is a pain in the ass and an archaic relic of a service that’s not worth using in this day and age. Amazon’s got it listed as using Games for Windows Live, which I realize many people here don’t like but which has been much less problematic for arranging coop than Gamespy has been, for me. I’d also have taken Steam matchmaking.
13/10/2009 at 14:11 Rive says:
You can always use Hamachi if theres the option of Lan Play. We use it for every coop type game that we play and that does not need to connect to some master server because it works so perfectly.
13/10/2009 at 14:13 Rive says:
+:
It just occured to me that this only makes sense if you have a fixed group of people that you play all your games with like i do. Doesnt help at all of course if you just want to jump into some random game…
14/10/2009 at 03:16 malkav11 says:
I’m extremely likely to only ever play with one particular person, but I can’t imagine setting up and running a fake LAN with Hamachi will be more convenient than futzing with Gamespy. The advantage of GfW Live was that all I had to do was fire up the game, click my friend, click invite, and I was golden.
13/10/2009 at 14:01 Jim Rossignol says:
There’s no GFWL.
13/10/2009 at 16:05 The Sombrero Kid says:
is that like section 8 not having gfwl though, or is it a super definate never will have gfwl thing?
13/10/2009 at 14:01 Markoff Chaney says:
The wife and I are thinking of getting the 4 pack off Steam, but I need to find 2 more friends to go in with us. After my HG:L fiasco (Founder4Life! + 6 other copies bought for friends) and a child on the way in under 7 weeks, disposable income has become significantly less disposable. Glad to see the game is living out the promise and, as a loving Single Player Player as well, I hope I can grind out some good loot while the baby and wife are sleeping.
13/10/2009 at 14:40 scoopsy says:
GamersWithJobs have been running some “meetups” for Borderlands 4-pack, so I imagine that you could probably find your others there. Plus it’s a great community of folks who are pretty laid-back if you’re interested in grouping.
http://gamerswithjobs.com – in particular, http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/46150
14/10/2009 at 22:12 jackflash says:
my brother and I will go in on it with you. friend me on steam (nickname Boone) and we can work out payment.
15/10/2009 at 02:21 Markoff Chaney says:
Hrmm. Just tried to add a Boone as friend, but no love in Steam. Any thoughts? Maybe see if you can add me? Markoff Chaney in Steam.
15/10/2009 at 11:21 Markoff Chaney says:
Hrmm. Beloved has had a change of heart it seems. I better hold off on any 4 pack purchasing. Seems like it’s “Too much an FPS” for her liking… :(
13/10/2009 at 14:22 groovychainsaw says:
Quick question too – how does it scale when a low-level player joins a higher one? Does it bump up the skills of the lower player, sidekick style? Or does it just average out the bad guys (ie level 10 bad guys for a party of lvl 20+lvl 1)
13/10/2009 at 14:25 Kieron Gillen says:
Groovy: The latter, except it’s not that simple. The baddies in low level areas will still be low level. The baddies in high level areas will still be high ones.
(e.g. The first dogs you meet are lvl 1 playing normally. Playing with Jim’s level 17, they were only lvl 4).
In other words, while the cutting edge stuff will probably be out of bounds to begin with, you can go to a mid-level area and kick ass there together.
KG
13/10/2009 at 14:29 groovychainsaw says:
Ta Kieron, worth knowing – don’t want to get too far ahead of my wife, for my own health ;-)
13/10/2009 at 16:24 Jad says:
But it is a dice-roll-free FPS, right? So if I’m a bad-ass, crazy-skillz FPS god on Lvl 1, can I play with a mediocre Lvl 20 friend and still hold my own in high-level areas, or is leveling up really that important? Does it affect the damage your bullets do, or your movement speed or something?
13/10/2009 at 14:33 $wiftasaurus says:
I’m really worried that this game is going to be World of Guncraft. I was hoping it would be steering away from the “Go kill x amount of enemies” quests. I don’t like the sound of characterless NPC’s either. Still, fingers crossed hard.
13/10/2009 at 14:36 Jim Rossignol says:
““Go kill x amount of enemies” quests.”
Those seem limited to just a couple of intro quests, at least so far. Most quests are specific plot arc things, or tasks that make sense within the world infrastructure.
13/10/2009 at 15:03 jsutcliffe says:
Bah, now I’m all concerned that it’s designed for co-op play again, and playing it strictly single-player will be a half-assed experience.
13/10/2009 at 15:07 Kieron Gillen says:
Jsutcliffe: My gut feeling is “How did you feel about Diablo SP”?
KG
13/10/2009 at 15:14 jsutcliffe says:
I feel empty!
Because I never played it. I’m thinking my closest touchstone might be L4D, but I play that on the Internet so it’s not much of a touchstone.
13/10/2009 at 15:16 AndrewC says:
Oh great. So my complete lack of friends is now stopping me from enjoying the one thing that comforted me in my friendlessness.
13/10/2009 at 16:03 Gutter says:
Same here… For me “multiplayer” is my Wii. I never got the appeal of networked multiplayer, unless the other players are in the same room. My brother, on the other hand, only play games that have online features, which means that we will never play the same games together.
I hope that Borderlands SP isn’t shallow like every other multi FPS are.
13/10/2009 at 17:33 Lambchops says:
Snap. Multiplayer isn’t any fun unless you can see the enraged look on your friends face as you hit him with a green shell in Mario Kart or whatever.
Playing stuff over network is never as much fun for me.
14/10/2009 at 12:23 Jayt says:
you guys are crazy, its all about the MP ACTION
13/10/2009 at 15:08 Tzarkahn says:
Thank you Steam for your 4 Pack brilliance.
This and L4D2 with 3 pals means its pretty cheap, instantly available and damm easy to see when they are all playing Huzzah and Hooray!
13/10/2009 at 15:17 XM says:
Ok I’m going to pre-order this but before I do was the gunplay smooth as silk or was it clunky? Is it like Fallout 3 (slow) or UT (fast)? Or a bit of both? :)
13/10/2009 at 16:14 Heliosicle says:
I heard someone say “It feels like a console shooter”, which instantly put me off.
13/10/2009 at 17:06 Marcin says:
Fallout 3 is not a shooter :P And from the videos it seems that it’s definitely not the Stalkeresque, or Far Cry-esque slow thoughtful shooter.
Seems like L4D would be the closest comparison. Moments of silence, then shooty frenzy. Close?
13/10/2009 at 15:32 realsch says:
This does look awfully sexy. Now to convince the people around me to become pc gamers!
13/10/2009 at 15:47 Butler` says:
It sounds like they’ve got the basics right (that most devs seem to miss, despite the fact that it’s a simple idea copy/paste from Diablo) like difficulty scaling with multiple players etc.
But my main question is: does it play like a console-game-also-developed-for-PC?
13/10/2009 at 15:59 Dante says:
I just want to say thanks to the hivemind here.
Giving us your impressions on the game is one thing, reading through all the comments and giving specific feedback to each commenter is quite another.
Kudos for going the extra mile.
13/10/2009 at 16:29 Hug_dealer says:
is it bad for me to be more excited about this game than my wedding. im getting married on teh 24th, but i cant wait for this on the 26th.
Gearbox are some serious badass devs. they care about thier games and it shows. Go suck a fatty valve.
Gearbox is also working on colonial marines. So think l4d only with aliens and a much better survival horror game. Come on, zombies aint got shit on Aliens 1 mouth vs 2 mouths, and survivors aint got shit on marines.
13/10/2009 at 16:38 Tei says:
Getting hyped is one of the good things about the gameworld, but don’t get too high with this one, we don’t know enough, and lots of things can get wrong. The probability of something going wrong with this game is about 54.8%.
Also, congrats for your wedding :-)
13/10/2009 at 16:44 Hermit says:
Short honeymoon then, is it? :p
13/10/2009 at 17:17 Senethro says:
I thought COlonial Marines was cancelled?
15/10/2009 at 12:11 Stromko says:
Colonial Marines the RPG was cancelled. Colonial Marines the FPS seems to be in development right now, pretty sure I’ve seen screenshots / previews recently.
13/10/2009 at 16:39 Hug_dealer says:
well reviews are already coming in for the xbox version and they are 8.5 and up, and the complaints all stem from not rpg enough.
Also steam is selling a 4 pack for only $135. You get $65 off the price of 4 games. so its only about $35 a person if you have friends.
13/10/2009 at 17:00 CaseytheBrash says:
I want to make babies with this game. My expectations could be a little too high. How does it run?
13/10/2009 at 17:10 Hug_dealer says:
its pretty much all shooting frenzy. balls to the wall shoot em up, with combat coming fast and hard and but sticking around for dinner.
if you watch the gameplay videos, the fighting is constantly coming from different directions and is very prolonged in many cases as more and more enemies catch wind of the firefights and join in.
No honeymoon this year, i cant take time off from work atm, and she has school. so we will go next summer, when she had graduated, and i have some extra time off.
13/10/2009 at 17:16 invisiblejesus says:
I’m just waiting on one of my friends to get paid and then going in on a 4-pack. This thing looks ridiculously awesome.
13/10/2009 at 17:28 Chris R says:
I got the 4 pack off steam and can. not. wait. My g/f and I play all kinds of coop together (just finished ODST) and love 4 player coop when games have it. COD5: World at War was so great due to the 4 player coop ability, and of course the Nazi Zombies. More games need to do the 4 player coop thing, it’s so great when done correctly.
So many questions about the mechanics of this game, but also very excited! Thanks for this awesome preview RPS. This is why I love this site. Great stuff. Keep up the excellent work!
13/10/2009 at 17:36 Doctor Doc says:
I have to know something about the save system – how does it work? I assume this was on the PC, is there quicksave? Because I hope there isn’t, I understand that you will lose your awesome weapon if you die, but I would never ever do that, I would quicksave. It doesn’t matter if it would make the game less enjoyable for me, I’m a quicksave addict, I will always exploit it if I can.
13/10/2009 at 18:02 Dominic White says:
Well, time to break that habit. Might as well be turning on god-mode if you’re quicksaving your way through games.
13/10/2009 at 18:00 Dante says:
Something I meant to ask, which characters did you guys play? I see Alec played Lilith, what about the rest? And did you feel they all leant themselves to a particular style of play?
13/10/2009 at 18:26 Tei says:
Well.. since I like snipers and pistols, I suppose Mordecai is my thing.
Lilith looks interesting, and I would be really pleased to watch his back for hours. But also looks like a defender class, and I fear borderlands will be more about mobility and rushing. You can attack or defend, and everyone know that attacking is the best defense, so a defender class would always be a bad idea in a rushing enviroment. But maybe could be played differently,.. I don’t know.
http://borderlandsguide.com/wiki/characters
13/10/2009 at 18:23 Hug_dealer says:
i doubt there is a quick save. you probably save and when you load back into the game you appear in the nearest town.
Colonial marines isnt canceled. it is put on hold because for some reason sega wants Avp to come out first. Then based on AvP sales, they will release Colonial marines. But when they see how well borderlands does, sega will probably decide to move up the release for it.
Colonial marines is finished, it has been in the polishing stages for a while now because sega wanted to hold off for it. so they have simply been polishing it and polishing it for a while.
13/10/2009 at 18:30 Hug_dealer says:
there are alot of times when you need t defend an area for quest reasons.
Roland is the support class that doubles as defense. he has a tree that will allow him to deploy turrets, and another that allows him to fire healing bullets.
lilith is the damage dealer, allowing her to get into position to deal maximum damage with her spectral crap. alot of mobs have strengths and weaknesses that need to be exploited. like weak armor in the rear. but extremely tough from the front.
From what i have seen on the trees, they are all specialized to different playstyles. so your roland could be entirely different in play style from the next.
Sounds perfect to me.
13/10/2009 at 20:28 Inanimotioon says:
Does the FPSing of this game feel like Hellgate:London? Or is it a real FPS.
Cause I feel like this is a second attempt at what Hellgate failed to do. Though it’s looking much better at this point.
13/10/2009 at 20:31 Shnyker says:
Gonna do the steam 4 pack, odd that such a good deal is on a service pitchfork ain’t such a big fan of huh?
Anyways, been waiting for three years, about time they release it into mah hands.
13/10/2009 at 22:09 matt says:
http://www.reddit.com/r/BorderBundles/
13/10/2009 at 22:20 We Fly Spitfires says:
Sounds pretty cool. I’m looking for a decent co-op game at the moment to play with my buddy. Maybe this is the one.
13/10/2009 at 23:01 ImMadeofPoison says:
Who the hell wants to play a cartoon? It fucking stole it’s graphics from Comix Zone on the Genesis.
13/10/2009 at 23:06 Railick says:
Exactly what I was thinking ImMadeofPoison, this is just Comix Zone with gunz
13/10/2009 at 23:11 ImMadeofPoison says:
Exactly. How unoriginal. It copies Comix Zone, Call of Duty, Diablo and Halo.
At least try to be original please?
14/10/2009 at 03:23 yutt says:
Is this a joke post? I don’t get it.
14/10/2009 at 00:04 Nelson says:
Does the FPSing of this game feel like Hellgate:London? Or is it a real FPS.
Real FPS based off of a modified Unreal engine. It was kind of the point of creating the game. The devs wanted a shooter with RPG elements. If you hit something, you hit it. If you miss, you miss. There is no dice rolling for hitting things.
15/10/2009 at 02:26 Markoff Chaney says:
Mr. Pitchford re: Fallout 3 – “I liked the presentation of it — but frankly I hated the dice rolls. Like, “Dude, I shot that guy in the head. I had a 90 percent chance, and you rolled a freaking 7? Fuck you. I score a hit. I fucking shot that guy in the head. Fuck you,” you know?”
Taken from an excellent 5 page interview up on Gamasutra.
14/10/2009 at 02:05 JimmyJames says:
I’ve been a little worried that coop will go the way of Diablo 1, where griefers with hacks can destroy public play. Folks on the forums don’t seem too concerned but perhaps they weren’t around or don’t remember being instakilled and rezzed constantly by an invisible character who didn’t show as joining the game. I don’t really make online friends, and my co-workers can barely turn on their computers – maybe steam groups will become very valuable for this game?
Got it pre-ordered and can’t wait, anyhow. I have a feeling it’ll give me the same enjoyment that D1 did before all the hacking came about, at least for a while!
14/10/2009 at 04:34 DarkNoghri says:
Oh, the Steam Four pack looks so tempting. I’m just not sure about buying it there. I like having actual discs to put my hands on. Not just because I want something solid to hold, but because my internets take quite some time to download jigabytes of data. For instance, every time I reinstall L4D, I use the disc, because it goes so much faster.
I suppose I could backup my games and burn them to a disc, but then can I help my friends install with it?
I love the art style too, but I have questions about the gameplay. I never really played Diablo. Is it a single campaign you run through? How long? How replayable is it?
14/10/2009 at 09:05 Digit says:
I wish to venture another question is possible – how is your progress saved in the coop venture?
15/10/2009 at 16:12 Hug_dealer says:
have you used the "come on!" line yet markoff? Thats a winner everytime. If it doesnt work follow up with this "Come on!". And if that doesnt work i always use the last ditch effort line of "come on!".
15/10/2009 at 19:46 Markoff Chaney says:
I’ve tried a couple of the videos, and she liked the Claptrap ones, but I don’t think the gameplay ones helped my case. I did try a “Seriously?” since she’s been so proud that she’s the one that discovered the game for us a while back from an awesome ripper/mining shot with the old style. I’ve also tried the “But we can play TOGETHER!” route, but I’m not sure that’s working either, since she just tries to get me to play Runes of Magic when I go that route.
I think I’ll just wind up getting it, hopefully as part of someone’s 4 pack to save some money, and letting her try it on my box to see if she likes it. She keeps reminding me of the time HL2 made her slightly nauseous, but I remind her of the hours of Desert Combat and First Person Hellgate we used to play with no sickness. I’m hoping I’ll come home from work one day and I won’t be able to get her off my computer until I install it on hers (much like what happened with Age of Conan where I actually had to build her a new box to match mine own).
15/10/2009 at 19:53 amishmonster says:
Does the multiplayer system allow you to screen out non-friends, like when you make a “Friends-Only” game in L4D? I’d love the option to have friends drop in, but would at least like the option to screen out people I don’t know.
16/10/2009 at 05:49 Seth says:
30 mins of gameplay for you homps: http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-borderlands/17-1498/
17/10/2009 at 17:30 Gilly says:
Looks Tank Girl to me.
19/10/2009 at 02:50 Psychopomp says:
Now I’m going to play Borderlands with the Tank Girl theme on loop
19/10/2009 at 00:20 Digit says:
Can anyone tell me if you can play from 1-4 players, or is it like DoW2 Last Stand where you -must- have a full team of players?
19/10/2009 at 00:53 joseph says:
Pretty sure 1-4 is fine Digit. You can play it single player :)
19/10/2009 at 01:37 Digit says:
Ok nm, I just watched an awesome 30 min vid of coop in action. :)
19/10/2009 at 02:37 JKjoker says:
where ? the only video i saw was a walk through in youtube commentated by a douchebag who started teabagging the AI enemies and probably never played a rpg in his life, oh and he started badmouthing the commenters when they started to tell him to shut up (i can say that the impression i got from the game is not good, it seems slow, empty and boring with a lot of aimless running around, but im blaming the douchebag for now)
i could use a good gameplay video
19/10/2009 at 02:51 JKjoker says:
nm i had overlooked Seth’s post
19/10/2009 at 03:27 Hug_dealer says:
http://www.borderlandsthegame.com
the forums has an entire sticky thread dedicated to videos. they have tons of gameplay vids. pretty much the reason i trust them with the dlc. you can tell the game was given the tlc it deserved and the devs are actual gamers.
19/10/2009 at 03:37 Hug_dealer says:
http://www.borderlandsthegame.com
the forums has an entire sticky thread dedicated to videos. they have tons of gameplay vids. pretty much the reason i trust them with the dlc. you can tell the game was given the tlc it deserved and the devs are actual gamers.
25/10/2009 at 23:45 David Green says:
Can Player 2 in offline split-screen save their level, guns, upgrades? In Resistance 2 my wife (as 2nd player) always returned to Level 1 status whenever the game was restarted – which was rubbish.
26/10/2009 at 13:01 Werti0 says:
Yep both players saved fine on the 360 version when I played it.