Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ve been meaning to put up some Borderlands tweaking instructions all week, but I don’t think I could have done it better than this thread on the Gearbox forums. Thanks to Mr Berry for pointing that out to us. Crucially, one of the commands in there allows you disable the voice-comms for the game, so you can use something more sensible. We’ve had no word back from 2K/Gearbox on whether there will be a patch for that stuff, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough. If you are tweaking, don’t forget to back up the relevant files before you start editing, as there might be some problems with loss of keybinds and such. The other issue is port forwarding, the instructions for which are in this thread. If you’re having trouble hosting/connecting to co-op games then you probably need to get busy with that stuff. Sigh.

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.
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There’s still a week until the thing goes on sale, but seems Gearbox/2K are confident enough in their impending shooty-bang-bang/looty-grab-grab game that they’ve already confirmed its first DLC.

You’ll never guess what it’s about. I mean, it’s not like it could be zombies – that undead horse has already had a brutal flogging everywhere else.

It’s zombies.
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There’s been a lot of people asking questions about Borderland’s intricacies over in the Co-op impressions thread yesterday. Specifically, how much of an RPG it actually is. Well, the what-is-an-RPG always opens a particular can of debate, but in terms of character development, that they’ve lobbed the character skill tress online can give you a handle of the whole action/RPG mix. Here’s sneaky-lady Lilith , heavy-frenzied mouthbreather Brick, camping-bastard Mordecai and the hilariously inappropriately named Roland. And some further explanation follows…
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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.

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Bah: The PC version of Borderlands has been delayed until October 26th in the US and October 30th in the rest of the world. Why WHY? “Optimization”, that’s why. Perhaps even optimisation. Stupid PCs and their different cogs.

Hurrah: While talking to MTV Gearbox creative director Mikey Neumann said it took him a rather long time to get through the game. “It took me about 100 hours. More the second time, actually, and that was to find every single little mission. I wanted to do everything.” (How long until the 20-minute speedrun, eh?)

We’re probably going to get to play the game before release, and “preview” it. Soon thereafter: judgement.

The latest Borderlands trailer is turgid with game footage: terrain, buildings, vehicles, bad-dudes, ’splosions. It also takes an opportunity to introduce the four characters, with the soldier seemingly being all about guns, the siren doing stealth and area-of-effect stuff (possibly?), the hunter doing headshots, and Brick having some bolt-encrusted fists. Four-player co-op is the new two-player co-op, it seems. And I’m firmly in the pro camp on that art style. I even wrote an article about it.
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Gearbox have released the first in what purports to be a series of making-of clips for Borderlands, starring the comedy robot, Claptrap. In this opening skit it seems that Claptrap might be not-so-gently mocking the ill-tempered Christian Bale, while also revealing that monster stats in Borderlands will be procedurally generated, just like the guns. Go take a look…
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A montage of Borderlands footage has appeared at Games Trailers. It doesn’t look the most official of videos, but it contains excellent examples of the frenetic nature of the game, as well as showing off the concept art-style graphics at full speed. Borderlands is one of the games to brave the pre-Christmas storm, set to appear on the 23rd October, which is four days before my birthday and thus ideal. You can see the frantic action below.

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Hyper-stylised FPS-RPG Borderlands is shaping up to be one of the best action games of the year. In case you missed it, I previewed it here. A couple of days back, I also sat down with Gearbox’s garrulous bossman Randy Pitchford; I was there on behalf of a magazine, but saved some time at the end for something a little different – a few questions from our goodly readers, conveyed to me via our Twitter. Read on for this absurdly loquacious and infectiously enthusiastic veteran PC developer’s thoughts on PC vs Xbox Borderlands, what might be in store for DLC, the reasons for and problems with all those grey’n'brown shooters, and a ton of insight into the thinking behind Borderlands. Also: his verdict on who would win in a fight between CliffyB and Gabe Newell. IMPORTANT JOURNALISM.
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