We’ve played Gearbox’s fancy-lookin’ “role-playing shooter”, Borderlands, and we’re ready for a verdict. What will we have to say?
Jim: Who wants to try to define the game in a single sentence then, eh?
Kieron: Hellgate in a desert, but not shit.
Alec: There’s some sort definition involving the words “Diablo” and “guns”, but I can’t work out how to stick them together.
Jim: Diablo with first-person perspectives, with guns, with vehicles. And bloody. And co-opy. Actually I think WoW is a more appropriate point of reference.
Kieron: Why?
Jim: I mean Diablo is the root of the tree, but so much of it feels like the starting areas of an MMO. And it’s 3D, obviously. It’s almost how I’d imagine a MMOFPS actually working, were such things made by men.
Alec: Absolutely. Even down to the starting area being a bit nob.
John: I’d start with Far Cry 2, as it happens.
Jim: John: speak of Far Cry 2.
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: Sir, you speak of the impossible
John: It’s a wide open sprawling shooter where you gather many guns and shoot many men, who respawn and the like. Except with an inventory, quest variety, and funny robots.
Jim: An inventory would have made all the difference to Far Cry 2, wouldn’t it?
Kieron: Where it differs from Far Cry is that what drives the game is the character development and the loot collection. That’s a fundamental difference. I’m not even reading the quest logs in Borderlands. (Which is one way it is WoW like.)
Alec: Yeah, it adds purpose, even if it’s the most basic of gaming purpose – MMO-style, as you say.
Jim: Yeah, I’ve had to read logs a bit more in the later game, because it becomes so sprawling.
Kieron: That’s why I say it’s not really like Far Cry at all – the core of the game, why you’re doing it is Hellgate (i.e. Diablo Re-jigged as an FPS).
Jim: Structurally, in terms how how you move around from place to place, it’s rather like Stalker, in that you do a back and forth to hubs from various “dungeon” areas. That said, it’s nothing like Stalker to play, so perhaps I am being irrelevant.
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.
Jim: And it’s more fun co-op
Alec: Yes, the co-op/single-player distinction is important. It’s certainly compulsive played solo, but I didn’t catch myself ever thinking “gosh, this is fun” unless in a group.
Jim: I had a few hours where it really made sense solo, but the repetition of the baddies basically ended that.
Kieron: John differs on this, doesn’t he? (I also find it interesting that we’re doing a spectacularly bad job at explaining the game, which is probably to Borderlands’ credit.)
John: Yes, I have the opposite-o-pinion. But this might be because I’m a sociopath.
Alec: I’m looking forward to hearing this…
John: I far prefer soloing, and for all the reasons I’ve always given before. I hate being beholden or dependent upon another player. It ceases to be playing, and starts to be obligations. I thought this game might be different for me, but it is not.
Jim: Kieron, you mentioned that co-op creates an uncomfortable pace too?
Kieron: Yeah. But, like John’s, it’s a standard problem with co-op games rather than a specific one with Borderlands. It’s that if you want to sit and have a think about your build or selling shit, you can’t. You’re slowing the game down for everyone else. I do actually think Borderlands has specific co-op problems worth talking about.
Jim: Yes, it’s an important topic, because this is not co-op like Left 4 Dead, despite the FPS pace through combat. This is much more sprawling, with varied pace and objectives. I mean just contrast the battles inside punk bases to the racing around in vehicles – it’s quite a spectrum of co-op explosioneering.
John: Yeah – I hate that sorting through the 900000 bits of loot I just picked up becomes something I feel guilty about.
Alec: I agree there – perhaps it needs to increase your inventory size during co-op.
Kieron: Yes. At its best, it’s Gauntlet – everyone on the same level-ish… but playing with a bit of a gap, finding an area which is actually okay for the lowest person can be trickier than it should be.
Jim: The lowest person does level fast though.
Kieron: Yeah, totally, but only when you go to an area where it’s vaguely working. At other times, no-one’s killing anything and we’re basically sitting and waiting and trying to work out what we can actually do.
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 that 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.
John: Yes – we’re in danger of sounding negative by complaining about co-op problems before we’ve all said why it’s such a fun game.
Jim: It’s a healthy action game.
Alec: I still find the shooting feels a little light.
Kieron: It feels arcadey more than light to me.
Alec: It’s a spectacular light show, but there’s something very intangible about the enemies – but the sound and fury of it all is rarely less than joyous.
Jim: Really? the enemies seem to get smacked about by the bullets at least. It doesn’t err on “fall over dead”.
Alec: They seem fairly non-reactive until death, and even then you usually don’t see it because a) the screen’s covered in particle effects and b) it’s busy spawning half a dozen guys on top of you so you can’t hang around.
Jim: All the enemies have knock-back routines from the guns, especially the midgets.
John: I only experienced it over-spawning once. Most of the time it managed that well.
Jim: Actually I think there’s a difference between the fundamental characters in how you experience the combat. Mordecai’s sniping regularly gives you incredible BIFF weapons where you can take someone out in a single shot.
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.
Jim: Which is a neat trick in itself, given that we’d all said how we were fed up with that stuff. It’s like the linear shooter – everyone says they’ve had enough, and then you get a Modern Warfare. In this case it’s a good shooter that does something else clever.
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.
Kieron: Yeah, totally.
John: We should each explain our class.
Jim: I’m playing Mordecai, the hunter, and his special power is a falcon-thing, a “bloodwing” that does single hit damage to enemies. He can be specced for that, or for pistols or sniper rifles.
Alec: I’m Lillith, the Siren. I can turn invisible, but that’s more about layering on a bunch of damage over time effects than preserving my own hide. Though I only just found out that apparently I grow wings of flame at certain times. That’s something you don’t realise if you’re playing alone, you need someone to tell you.
John: I’m Roland (which Kieron thinks is the funniest thing ever) the Soldier. He gets a special shield that’s sort of like a buddy in a way. It’s a temporary stationary item that when leveled up can restore health and ammo to all nearby. And oddly he’s the healer class – you can level him so firing bullets at friends will heal them. Which is never better than when firing a rocket launcher at someone to make them better.
Kieron: Me! Brick. Enormous Heavy-esque thug who can be speced for explosive weapons, soaking up damage or just activating his frenzy power at increasing ludicrous frequency. During which, he puts down his weapons, gets out two fists and just starts punching PUNCHING! PUNCHING! while screaming all the while. It is very much my life.
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.
John: We should stress that level 20 is only about six or eight hours play, right?
Jim: I think it’s more than that, if you actually logged it. I was trying to record my time, but lost track of it. I think it took close to 30hrs to level 35, with lots of sidequesting. The 100 hours thing quoted by Gearbox seems very optimistic though.
Alec: It depends, hugely. If you’re pretty skilled at FPS, you can stick close to the core quests and hit the big XP to level fast. Or you can amble away at subquests, getting vaster quantities of smaller XP. But it’s hard to do purely the main quests, as you can get spanked pretty quick.
Jim: I really think the game hits its stride from about level 20 onwards. And boss fights: they’re largely poor, aren’t they?
Alec: I wouldn’t call them poor, but they don’t really hit the heights of imagination they require to offset how annoying their mega-attacks and enormo-HP is.
Jim: And sidequests generally? The main quest line doesn’t give out enough XP to keep up with the curve… you pretty much have to do some sidequests every 3-4 levels.
John: I’m too meticulous with games to not play the side quests.
Alec: I did a big stretch where I stuck purely to late-teens core quests. Involved a few more respawns, but you can whittle away at them even whilst a couple of levels below. That said, my magic running away power probably makes Lilith a bit handier in that regard.
Jim: Random: I don’t think you can dismiss quests. I’ve got loads of low-level ones stuck in my list.
Alec: You’re right. There’s also a fairly finite number of quests in each zone, it seems, and they don’t seem to level with you. So you end up with vast areas you’ll never visit again clogging up the quest log.
Kieron: I think this is where Gearbox’s lack of RPG experience shows – just bits of RPG-standards we’d perhaps expect. The canceling quests – the lack of a storage box to keep extra loot, etc. Tiny bits of interface problems.
John: I think the interface problems are much bigger than tiny.
Jim: And none of the quests are very interesting, but the fireworks seem to make up for it. I don’t mind the robbing. I mean, the entire world is broken in that regard – everything is full of money, even the giant bats (which are awesome, incidentally).
Kieron: I do love the giant bats. The first time they swooped in was a heart-in-mouth moment.
Alec: Yeah, the pinata-shower of happy things when you take ‘em down
as they fly over is hugely gratifying.
Alec: And, as I’ve bored everyone with whining about, robbing people’s houses in front of them. It’s not so much that I mind as just not understanding why the level designers just didn’t say “hey, let’s not put two boxes of cash in this guy’s front room, as god knows there’s a thousand million other ones in the world.”
Jim: Oddly, in the main shop in Newhaven there’s loads of stuff lying about that non-interactable, like the beardface man is the only person you can’t rob from.
Kieron: The best thing about the cash boxes is that they respawn. So there’s the idea that he’s refilling the boxes with cash every time you walk out the door.
John: “I’m sure they won’t steal from me AGAIN.”
Jim: It’s not realistic in any way.
Kieron: But, really, didn’t bother me at all. It’s Diablo.
Jim: It’s not even aiming for “worldiness” despite being an interesting world.
Alec: Yes, it’s important to state its roleplaying begins and ends at loot and leveling.
Kieron: The NPCs are broadly drawn comedy dark future types. I didn’t take it seriously enough to worry about verisimilitude. Literally and figuratively.
Jim: In this case we can say bollocks to realism, it’s very much a cartoon in its attitude. Speaking of which: any thoughts on the “look”?
John: I adore the look.
Kieron: Fantastic, generally speaking.
Alec: It looks great, for sure. Reminds me most of XIII.
John: Has there ever been a game before when you’ve thought, “Wow, look at that ROCK!”
Jim: Ah yes, XIII – and there are loads of games with good rocks. Terrain is a gaming artform.
John: There’s something more artistic about the rotoscoping in Borderlands.
Alec: Borderlands doesn’t star Adam West, and that’s a shame. I would have to deduct at least 98% from any score for that reason.
John: You know that Gearbox are kicking themselves as they read this. “Dammit, I SAID there was something we were missing. Adam West!”
Jim: But they don’t detract from it being grim – headshots are grisly shit.
John: Exploding someone is awesomely disgusting.
Jim: Actually, there’s a bit later in the game, a sidequest, that is genuinely shocking. I won’t spoiler it, but you’ll know when you get to it.
Kieron: The violence is impressive. It’s actually one of the best violent games in recent times.
Alec: Brick on full face-crushing rampage is quite the thing
Jim: Although the people burning is weird, I like some of the elemental death effects, like the skull of people being electrocuted to death.
Alec: Genuinely psychopathic and graphic.
Kieron: As Alec said, when I punch a dude’s head off it’s a thing of joy, especially when it says CRITICAL! (Like, no shit)
Jim: Yeah, the little chuckle from Mordecai when someone’s head explodes is splendid.
Alec: By about level 20, Lilith is simultaneously setting someone on fire and electrocuting them, so I’ve added in a poison shotgun for good measure. It’s quite the thing, in terms of screaming and satisfying big, colourful numbers floating from mens’ heads.
Kieron: That’s a thing – I like Brick’s talking. I don’t like Roland’s.
John: I could really do without Brick’s laughter. We should mention how bad the voice chat is, and how stupendously stupid it is to have a character who literally SCREAMS for over 30 seconds at a time.
Kieron: Yeah – I suspect the Brick will annoy certain players by his mere existence. By which I mean – it is annoying and happens a lot. But John didn’t like Ode To Joy in Peggle, it’s worth stressing.
John: When it makes communication impossible, I’d say the issue is greater.
Jim: The issue with voice chat is that it doesn’t dip volume when someone is speaking, and there’s no push-to-talk option. That has to be patched, asap. [It can't currently be turned off in the menu, and we're chasing Gearbox about that now - RPS.]
Alec: Oh – did you three get a chance to try the arena at a higher level? Because when we tried it around level 10, it was massively imbalanced in favour of the Hunter’s insta-kill Hawk
Kieron: I’m not convinced it can be balanced, the way the builds work. I mean, when I had my frenzy available, I won. When I didn’t, Mordecai won. But I can’t believe it’s the main lure for the game.
Alec: And Lilith couldn’t win, because her magic-o-power only does trickle damage. But it’s possible there are subtler strategies there that we’d have to learn.
Kieron: Yeah. It’s not as if we delved… and why would we? There’s a world of loot out there.
Jim: Yeah, the arena seemed like very much a sideshow, especially cos you can duel in-game at any time. But: loot!
John: My favourite moment playing was when Kieron and I duelled when I was five levels above him. We were both laughing so much at how unfair it was, but it was genuine fun.
Kieron: That was amazing. My desperate punching at your head.
Alec: Most of the loot you won’t use, it’s important to state. You’re not constantly picking up something and doing a little happy dance while eighteen mutant dogs explode into tiny chunks. But every couple of levels you’ll find something that seems EXTREME for a little while.
Jim: I suspect i threw away some good shit by the end – there’s just so much stuff.
Kieron: Which links back to its lack of a box to keep your malarkies.
Jim: And it’s often really good shit. I really like the way weapons work – that the brand name of the weapon roughly corresponds to its stats.
Kieron: There’s some weapons which are so agreeably oddball, but totally useless by the end.
Jim: There’s an odd sadness to parting with a weapon – it was like the incredible giant blue hammer I had in WoW. I kept it long after it was no use.
John: Yeah. “Goodbye old friend. You served me well.”
Alec: I had a low-level revolver which grew bullets.
Jim: Grew bullets? I didn’t even know they did stuff like that. Although the weapon vending machine boasts that weapons can heal you, which I’ve never seen either.
Alec: I also had a shotgun that fired rockets.
Kieron: That – with the leveled weapons – is where the oddness of the level structure throws it. I mean, it’s the classic RPG problem – but seems odder in a game which doesn’t deal with the tropes. I mean, why don’t the high level bandits from this region invade the place where the low level ones live?
Jim: I should mention at some point in this verdict that the ending of the campaign is rubbish. It’s not so much the story – which is just so much fluff – but it’s a bad ending mechanically. Oh and Claptrap’s announcements get more and more insistent as you go along, it gets to be excruciating.
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?”
John: I must have my rant about the interface. For a game that boasts it understands that PC players use the mouse, and that it’s PC first, something went wrong. The game opens with “PRESS ENTER”. Mmm hmm? Then there’s so much that’s insane. You can only invite people with “i”, and you can only get out of the invite screen by pressing “ESC to cancel”. Comparing weapons can be started with the mouse, but only exited with the keyboard. And here 360 control icons appear in the inventory. You can’t click on the keyboard shortcuts to activate them. You cannot scroll through quest text when being given it without using Page Up and Page Down, despite there being a triangle button for the mouse… It’s not good.
Jim: Okay. The interface has botched itself between mouse and keyboard…
John: It’s not pretty. It’s like an all-encompassing tribute to the inability to close the VATS thing in FO3.
Alec: It’s certainly a mess, but I wonder if it’s just general RPG interface inexperience rather than specifically console-port-fail?
Jim: VERDICT! OPTIMUS THUMB STATUS?
John:UP!
Jim: The thumb is aloft.
Kieron: Yeah, up. UP +2 versus scarabs.
Alec: UP! But with a tiny wart on it.
John: Mine’s up, and regenerating your up thumbs.
Jim: OK, close post-ramble. We’ll post about port-forwarding and deleting the uncuttable intro skipscenes at some point too.
John: I’m going to see if my skill for shooting Kieron with a gun to make him better works outside of the game.
Jim: And I am going to throw my bird at some mutants.
Alec: I’m going to see if setting fire to myself makes me better at killing people in the street.
Jim: Heh.
John: Kieron, you should give screaming and punching people a rest.
Kieron: :(
Related Stories:
Are there uniques/set items in this game?
i dont think any sets, but there are legendary items to find randomly, and alot of named weapons dropped off set bosses.
Just realized this is out for PC a week after it is for X-Box 360 and PS3.
I thought I’d be playing this on Friday… Now I must wait till the 30th… Nonsensical delays are Nonsensical.
I think it comes out for PC on the 26th, Out Reach (at least that’s when it unlocks on Steam). So, that’s a little better!
Says unlocks on the 30th on Steam to me.
Localization maybe?
Well it's scheduled for a 30th Nov release outside of NA both in shops and on Steam (for the UK at least).
I like the review but lemmie sum it up for you all…
Serious Sam + Fallout 3 + Diablo + Any mmo = Borderlands
Frantic shooter, mindless missions, random loot generator, injected with fun!
:)
Yummy. Pre-load complete. :)
<po faced>With the pre-load now available on Steam, one has to wonder what the next 8 days are going to afford Gearbox/2k in terms of "localisation" and "optimisation".</po faced>
“Any XP or items they gain in that time stays with their character when they go back to their own game, but quests completed and areas unlocked do not.” – John Walker
So you can level up from 1-50 in someone elses game doing every single quest… then later host a game and none of your quests will be done? I’m guessing that means there are no +X to max health quest rewards like in diablo then…
Is there anything to do at level 50? I guess there would be a bunch of quests and then the lame ending you speak of… and then roll another class if you want more.
Oh and cheers, good review. I am sad to hear about the lack of inventory space and consoley interface, but happy to hear it will be awesome fun like I hoped! :D
Now downloading at 38Kb/s. Have I mentioned how much I despise Virgin Media?
@Myself: Wow I am such an obvious drooling addict already. :O~
@ Jacques: Wow bl. Is that because they throttle steam traffic?
No, I think it's just because they're shit and there aren't enough wires in the area. It doesn't just slow Steam, everything else is running at that speed too.
@Joseph: I think they clarified this a few times in the comments, unless I’m reading it wrong – it SOUNDS like quests completed in Coop will count as completed when you go back to SP. Alec and Markoff said this in the comments, even though I’ve seen a few conflicting statements to that effect.
I’m not sure where quest rewards actually stand at this point – Alec says that in coop, only the host gets them, but that would mean that playing coop would lock people out of getting certain rewards, I would think.
I know it’s a while after the article, but could we get a sure-fire clarification on these questions (before I recommend this to friends):
1) Do quests completed in co-op count as completed for non-hosts?
2) If they do count as completed, does that mean the co-op will make you miss out on quest reward items?
3) Could you comfortably play through the whole game in co-op without the non-hosts missing out on various aspects? Or is co-op more for short bursts rather than actual progress through the game?
Sorry to repeat questions, but I’ve seen so many conflicting answers that a restatement would be wonderful.
Lack_26: I’m gonna suggest that what you do to L4D is not, precisely, an intended feature.
I’m playing it on the 360 because my friends all have weak PCs. It is hellaciously entertaining.
This review thingy actually makes it seem a lot worse than it is. It’s like a good action movie. Yes, the plot’s a bit silly. Yes, you can totally tell that’s CG. But Neo just shot like 200 guys. It was totally awesome.
a very light co-op shootery diablo/wow clone, with loot whoring and all.
Good job Rearbox.
Bye.
It’s a good game; a quintessential 8/10 if there is such a thing.
Randy Pitchford isn’t half as clever as he thinks he is though.
The team dynamic is the most fantastic aspect of the game, in my opinion. If you can find a group of players intent on working together, the game is as fun as any I’ve played in recent memory.
So apparently some stores have broken the PC street date. Those who snagged a copy can't actually play it yet thanks to Securom Timelock preventing activation, but still, one must marvel at 2K's/Gearbox's optimisation guys… to be able to actually alter code already printed on disk is a damn impressive feat.
Oh, wait, that's right, the "optimisation" line was a load of bull. Yet they're <b>still</b> spouting it on the forums.
I wonder how long it'll be before the scene cracks the Timelock DRM at it starts appearing in places. The irony of people pirating it because they want to play it now instead of at 2K's arbitrary release time is certainly not lost on me…
Quite a while, since important bits are distributed encrypted and cracking encryption isn’t really doable. (DRM doesn’t work when the user can ’see’ the content, but there is nothing to see here. Infallible DRM!)
Surely a shotgun that fires rockets is in fact a rocket launcher?
:-/
All that aside, good verdict and as entertaining an article as always – ignore the haterz, if indeed you weren’t in fact doing just that already.
As others have already commented, it is nice to have a slightly different take on the standard “review” format.
As for the game, I have played for about 2-3 hours on the Xbox 360 version (stores here in Dubai care not one jot for release dates) and have enjoyed myself so far.
Looking forward to my friend picking up a copy so we can try co-op.
Oh great, the spam bots have found us. To the shelters!
Saving $100’s by sticking with the great STALKER series! about 140 hours into STALKER 1 and 2 and No 3 due out in a couple weeks! When you add up the 100’s of great gameplay hours with the fact I didn’t have to buy the 12 hour gameplay Dead Space or Mirror’s Edge, and won’t have to buy this cartoon shooter aimed at teenage console owners, I am $100’s ahead of the game!
“Length=Value”
Thats what she said.
What an odd post.
I put in roughly that amount of time on STALKER Clear Sky, only becuase it crashed so much forcing me to replay that damned bloody swamp level 13 times!
It was actually psychologially draining, having to quick save all the time to avoid losing progress when it crashed, but also trying to avoid quicksaving too much incase it saved AS it crashed corupting my save file.
I loved the STALKER games, i really did spend 70+ hours on SoC before my friend begged me for his game back to which i went and bought the collecters edition and carried on playing. But I just want something that is more polished and wont crash every 5 seconds.
Patched up and with mods, Clear Sky is fine. Buy the time I finish the new STALKER I am hoping Fallout New Vegas will be out, that it will be a proper RPG and that it will give me another 80 hours or so over the 20 odd hours for Mass Effect 2, Alpha Protocol and Bioshock 2 will give me for the same money (and only 60 odd hours!)
Sure in a week there will be lots of posts, just like with Far Cry 2, saying how repetitive Borderlands is…!
@Moot:
What an odd reply….
@UK_John: Did you buy Borderlands?
I will elaborate then!
1) I don't quite understand your logic, but you <i>seem</i> to be saying "I already own an apple, so I didn't buy an orange and now I am rich"?
2) When you played then game, what made you feel it was aimed at "teenagers with consoles"?
3) Seems more comic book inspired than cartoony to me, but hey – that one is a moot point and something very much down to personal taste. I really like the art-style myself, but I can understand not everyone would.
:-)
“3) Seems more comic book inspired than cartoony to me”
Not to mention that Colorful Shooter #5>Brown Shooter #4164890769023024137906
Why can't I quote UK_john without the hive mind automatically branding him an "Anonymous Coward"
Seems a little mean and that is not my intention…
The anonymous coward thing is some legacy code from the forum. I need to get around to fixing it.
It’s funny how everywhere you go on the web nowadays, you get comments along the lines of ‘if you haven’t bought/played the game, you have no right to comment’.
I thought the reason for all the video trailers, programmer interviews, screenshots, previews, reviews and general hype was so a gamer could make a knowledgeable, informed buying opinion? And surely, if that opinion is ‘I don’t want to buy/play this game because….’ is a perfectly entitled opinion?!
Is gaming getting so Stalinist, that you have to buy a game before you can say why you don’t like it? Because if that’s the case, bad games will sell so well that the quality of games will drop like a rock! So, as far as I am concerned, by not buying this I am helping games get better!
And Moot, I don’t blame you for the ‘Anonymous Coward’ – it’s not just games software that is buggy nowadays!
@ UK_John.
Is there a Godwins law equivalent for Stalin..?
;-)
I don’t think anyone is saying that one doesn’t have the right to discuss or to pass comment on a game that one hasn’t played, or at least I am not.
it is however a little presumptuous to infer a game is bad/poor/not as good as game X, without having played it though!
That aside, I still don’t get how playing STALKER directly saved you from “having” to buy several other unrelated games that you may well have enjoyed?
I understand UK_John’s point, I think, which is that Stalker represents both the style of game and length of game he wants and expects to play on the PC. However, I think it’s based on some misconceptions about Borderlands – which is long, a good shooter, and very violent.
I prefer Stalker, obviously. SOC is probably my most played game of the past few years, but that hasn’t stopped me appreciating Borderlands for what it is.
Clearly it’s a product of taste, not game content. I got better than a thousand hours out of Morrowind, I expect I’ll get hundreds of hours out of Borderlands, I’ve gotten perhaps 15 hours out of my various STALKER: SOC false starts, simply because despite my best attempts the game has never grabbed me.
UK_John’s error isn’t “value = length,” because value very much does correlate to how much you enjoy a game, which usually translates to how long you spend playing it. His error is in assuming that everyone that isn’t a “teenage console owner” has the same taste and acquires the same value he does from the things he enjoys.
Well I put in another few hours last night and hit level 12…
Still enjoying it – indeed even more so now.
Some random thoughts:
1) Loot! Loot! Loot! I do indeed have loot fever. The thought of picking up some rare purple sniper rifle that fires hedgehogs is driving me ever onward.
2) I like how levelling genuinely does make you feel like you are progressing and becoming significantly more powerful. I got my buttocks handed to me by a boss. I went away and tried again 2 levels later, loaded up with better gear and creamed the hapless fellow. It is also good fun one-shotting those critters that previously caused me know end of grief.
3) I hope the game keeps up this steady rate of introducing entertaining new weapons and mobs, but I fear it must surely plateau before too long. Assuming appearance of “Generic Fire Sniper +13″ through to “Generic Fire Sniper+100″ and “Huge henchman with a different coloured hat” to become the norm after a while. As it stands though, the variety and steady rate at which it is introduced is very enticing.
4) Pretties! I have been playing the Xbox 360 version (yeah I know) and it looks lovely and runs well. Nice character design, pleasing animations and the art design choice is an all-round great way to make a generic, brown, dusty landscape seem vibrant and interesting. Makes me think “comic” rather than cartoon.
5) Screaming midgets. Brrrr.
@moot
“know end of grief”
Sheesh
Ok, so I’ve clocked a couple of hours into the game… and I’m gonna try returning the game tomorrow. What a sorry excuse for interactive entertainment. Granted, the graphics are really nice but apart from that there’s not really anything separating it from Hellgate. It’s just a little more “next gen”, you know. It’s a grind with all the fedex quests it could muster. Money and objects, mainly weapons, with names in different colors fall out of dogs that live in holes in the ground(!). And in abundance.
I’m sorry, I wish I could write something more coherent to express my disappointment but… I’ll just say that I’d rather go back doing Baal runs again than to play this regurgitated repackaged piece of uninspired “entertainment” again. Gah!
The skags having random items is explained in one of the loading screens–apparently they eat everything they can and spit out whatever they can’t digest.
Doesn’t really explain why they still have those items, but whatever.
In other news, one of my friends has said that Borderlands is a rip-off of Crackdown. Yeah, I don’t know.
I think Borderlands has the most messed up release ever. I mean the countdown timer on the steam website said the game would unlock today but merely 60 minutes before the unlock they pushed the date back for another 3 days.
Now people are going apeshit over this:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=998129&page=10
Also it seems Australian customers received a wrong version of the game and are now forced to d/l the whole thing again. It's kinda sad that such a promising game starts off so badly.
Which is precisely what I am enjoying about the game…
Out of interest, what were you expecting from it? Having read the various reviews, the RPS verdict and the lead up blurb, I pretty much got exactly what I was expecting!
2k’s response to this crazy delay has been crazy to say the least. There is a whole thread down at their official forums where people are ripping into the community manager because she promised some things but never delivered (especially since 2k is now pleading innocence, which always is nice like oil on fire)
I can’t understand why 2k didn’t learn from the botched up Bioshock release. Also; a staggered release and not an international release is just silly. It’s so 2004.
I had my first chance to play last night and it was a blast. Picked up Mordecai for the gunslinging aspects, with a side of sniping. It starts off pretty slow (damned forced tutorial disguised as normal gameplay), but by the time I had taken out the first little boss, I was completely hooked. Didn’t have much to play, so I’m only level 8 or so.
I think much of the draw for me is combining some of the more enjoyable things about both RPG’s and FPS games well. In RPG’s, I really enjoy micromanaging equipment and watching as my stats gradually go up. Sometimes, the stats go up ALOT and you get a nice rush. In single player FPS’s, being introduced to a new gun is always fun. Like getting your hands on the Shotgun for he first time, or finding the first rocket launcher, etc.
So far in Borderlands, I go through -both- every few levels. First I find a pistol that soots pretty fast. Then I find a pistol that shoots through a scope. Then a pistol that shoots two bullets every shot, doubling my damage! Watching this gradual improvement of stats, while still getting the joy of finding an actual new gun is really addictive so far.
Playing also feels great. It actually feels like an FPS, unlike Hellgate: London. That had a bad habit of being really slow and uninteresting in combat and the weapons felt like pea-shooters with shiny effects. Borderlands manages to get the FPS feel right, where enemies are actually threatening, guns have some bite to them and things don’t drag out too much due to huge HP bars. If they do, then it’s usually a scary boss kicking your ass.
I’m interested to see how long this will last. But so far, thumbs up.
I have managed to have a bit of normal play… hurra!.
After testing lots of weapons, i am extremly happy with a autopistol that put things on fire, and mostly happy with riffle-sniper and SMG, but not much.
The sire power seems usefull, because It doubles as a short “sprint”.
Vehicles seems easy to drive (why limit to 2?) and fun, a bit op.
I am making something like a “Siren-Tank”, if that thing exist.
Blimey this game is brilliant. It consumed an entire night that should have been devoted to chemistry homework. Instead I was running around, foaming at the mouth, screaming, and punching things to death.
1) Do quests completed in co-op count as completed for non-hosts?
Yes they do.
2) If they do count as completed, does that mean the co-op will make you miss out on quest reward items?
No you do not, you get all quest rewards even if you are not the host.
3) Could you comfortably play through the whole game in co-op without the non-hosts missing out on various aspects? Or is co-op more for short bursts rather than actual progress through the game?
First question is invalid, since the non-hosts don’g miss out on anything.
Single-player is fun, but Coop is where it’s at. I think you miss out more by not playing coop with some friends. It’s like playing D2 single player vs on B.net with friends. You’ll have fun in Single player, but CRAZY CHAOTIC STUPID FUN in coop. Plus better loot due to more players. 4 player coop is what Borderlands is all great at.
Fun to read, good job RPS !!
Also, the game sounds interesting. I think I’m sold on this one.
Borderlands is absolutely brilliant. I especially love the graphics, and the comical quality they have to them without being… foolish.
I started a series on my blog called “The Borderlands Chronicles”. The inspiration is from Alec Meer’s recent “The Risen Report”.
You can find the first entry here: http://arewenewatthis.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/the-borderlands-chronicles-part-i-zeds-red-baby-or-skag-skirmish/
I would love some feedback on what you think of it. I enjoy writing tremendously, so I always wonder if what I write is fun to read.
I will be updating this series approximately twice a week till I am done with the game.
AIN’T NO REST FO’ THE WICKED