Gearbox=genius
Aside from the obvious that borderlands this one of the most amazing, well put together games ( with a few negatives) of all time, gearbox has done a few things that to me are genius.
No cloth you say?
I dont know if this is a widely used technique or what but Ive never noticed this before. Instead of using actual cloth models for cloth they use stationary geometry with animated maps. I thought that was pretty ingenious, a little sketchy when you look at the corners of the geometry but, genius, nonetheless.
Weapons
There may be some that argue the weapons werent as diverse as one might hope, but the truth is the weapons were great. Who cares if you get the same shotgun with better stats? Its not the gear in between, its the good drops that make it worth it. The problem like I said wasnt the weapons the problems were the unpredictable and unrewarding nature of the gun crates. Theres no way to know wether or not your going to get something worth getting excited over. It sucks opening 12 crates in a row before finding something you want to keep. Then again, if you didnt have to wait and those awesome weapons came constantly it would be less fun and leveling would be all screwy. Youd be walking around one hitting enemies beyond your level, so really its the way it is apparently for the functionality.
Also, it seemed hard sometimes to judge the worth of gear. Some SMGs I picked up had x4 corrosive at level 25 hitting for 60 damage, then pick up an smg without any special damage and just walk through enemies. Maybe a little tweaky but it didnt hinder enjoyability.
(Spoilers!!)
The Vault
It was dissapointing that the Vault was just a boss. It would have been nice to fight the boss then pick through an actual "Vault" of predetermined weapons. The first time I beat the game on solo I think I picked up a pistol at the end and money and that was it. Kind of unfullfilling. I could reason the game was that way because its full of awesome weapons but thats no reason to end on a low note. Still though it was great for the experience.
The characters
One of the weak points of the game for me (although theres a very good reason for it) was the character customization. Its a first person game I understand theres little point for armor and visual upgrades but still it would have made it that extra bit cool. If you can add color choice you can add armor and clothes, especially since theres four character co-op and four soldiers can enter a game and play through, it would have made sense to be able to change the armor. A friend of mine said the characters werent deep enough, but, they only have to be so deep, I thought their personalities spoke volumes, I felt like each character was individual and "Ready to take on the pandora challenge" But it would have been cool to read a backstory, or have some sort of bio attached to each one. I thought Brick was hilarious the first time I used his special ability I laughed so hard! At one point a friend and I were both playing brick, it was early on at the bone head battle, and we had defeated bone head and one of his badass raiders, we were both level six and they were level 11. Everyone knows how the bone head fight is, but we were struggling with that last raider, so I said, "Hey Drago, lets both hit him with our specials at the same time" So our specials charged and we counted down "3,2,1 go" We beat the crap out of that poor defenseless raider, it was the funniest thing I think Ive ever seen, just the sounds were histerical. lol lol lol!!
Why dont you cry about it Trebek?
This may be a touchy subject since this forums is full of employees of various companies and titles, but I think you should if your not already, you should be honored. What am I talking about you may ask? Im talking about the few things in the game that seem to have been taken from other games. The vending machines (bioshock) The claptrap being illustrated in different ways for different things much like the Vault boy from fallout 3. Which, shoot, now that I think about it, is fallout in reverse! In fallout 3 your coming out of the vault, in Borderlands your going to find the vault, interesting, I N T E R E S T I N G !!! But there are a ton of parallels in borderlands between other games. I think its pretty cool, I enjoyed saying "Ha! check that out, thats cool" IM sure there may have been some "Hey guys can we use this idea from your game for ours?" If anything a good idea is a good idea and its hard to be original, for instance I never model in pen and ink but Ill try it because it has a fresh look, doesnt mean Im copying borderlands. I thought it was cool. So basically if the vending machines from bioshock were a good idea, and vault boy was an interesting concept, and COD has a great controller setup etc etc, then all of that in one makes for a great game. Although, theres a lot of good ideas they DIDNT use.
Lets go again
The playthrough system is awesome I love the idea, instead of just picking a difficulty. I had no idea what PLaythrough 2 even meant until I tried it. All my characters stats carried over, all the gear and the enemies were all stronger, much less of a challenge seeing as I started playthrough 2 after reaching level 42. Still though its a great and intuitive way to improve on difficulty.
In Conclusion
Overall though the game was amazing, I think Its a strong contender for game of the year and it been said before "Modern warfare 2 might have something to worry about" Someone told me "MW2 will take GOTY by sheer sales". I would hope its not based off sales. Yes, Mw2 is gonna be great but I dont know, we will see. I feel that Borderlands catered to a wide variety of players, Rpg, MMo a little bit, Fps of course its the kind of game dreams are made of. I give it a 9-9.5 out of ten. Simply because its my kind of game.
P.S.
Also I think theres gonna be a second game. How do you know this you may ask? At the beginning of the game the bus driver says something along the lines of "I dont this will be the last time we do this" meaning the bus ride. At first I thought "Maybe thats the way we go from region to region later in the game, and obviously it isnt so it can mean only one thing. Even though its entirely too soon, Borderlands 2! Then again, maybe the character was referring to the playthrough system.
Quacken out!
No cloth you say?
I dont know if this is a widely used technique or what but Ive never noticed this before. Instead of using actual cloth models for cloth they use stationary geometry with animated maps. I thought that was pretty ingenious, a little sketchy when you look at the corners of the geometry but, genius, nonetheless.
Weapons
There may be some that argue the weapons werent as diverse as one might hope, but the truth is the weapons were great. Who cares if you get the same shotgun with better stats? Its not the gear in between, its the good drops that make it worth it. The problem like I said wasnt the weapons the problems were the unpredictable and unrewarding nature of the gun crates. Theres no way to know wether or not your going to get something worth getting excited over. It sucks opening 12 crates in a row before finding something you want to keep. Then again, if you didnt have to wait and those awesome weapons came constantly it would be less fun and leveling would be all screwy. Youd be walking around one hitting enemies beyond your level, so really its the way it is apparently for the functionality.
Also, it seemed hard sometimes to judge the worth of gear. Some SMGs I picked up had x4 corrosive at level 25 hitting for 60 damage, then pick up an smg without any special damage and just walk through enemies. Maybe a little tweaky but it didnt hinder enjoyability.
(Spoilers!!)
The Vault
It was dissapointing that the Vault was just a boss. It would have been nice to fight the boss then pick through an actual "Vault" of predetermined weapons. The first time I beat the game on solo I think I picked up a pistol at the end and money and that was it. Kind of unfullfilling. I could reason the game was that way because its full of awesome weapons but thats no reason to end on a low note. Still though it was great for the experience.
The characters
One of the weak points of the game for me (although theres a very good reason for it) was the character customization. Its a first person game I understand theres little point for armor and visual upgrades but still it would have made it that extra bit cool. If you can add color choice you can add armor and clothes, especially since theres four character co-op and four soldiers can enter a game and play through, it would have made sense to be able to change the armor. A friend of mine said the characters werent deep enough, but, they only have to be so deep, I thought their personalities spoke volumes, I felt like each character was individual and "Ready to take on the pandora challenge" But it would have been cool to read a backstory, or have some sort of bio attached to each one. I thought Brick was hilarious the first time I used his special ability I laughed so hard! At one point a friend and I were both playing brick, it was early on at the bone head battle, and we had defeated bone head and one of his badass raiders, we were both level six and they were level 11. Everyone knows how the bone head fight is, but we were struggling with that last raider, so I said, "Hey Drago, lets both hit him with our specials at the same time" So our specials charged and we counted down "3,2,1 go" We beat the crap out of that poor defenseless raider, it was the funniest thing I think Ive ever seen, just the sounds were histerical. lol lol lol!!
Why dont you cry about it Trebek?
This may be a touchy subject since this forums is full of employees of various companies and titles, but I think you should if your not already, you should be honored. What am I talking about you may ask? Im talking about the few things in the game that seem to have been taken from other games. The vending machines (bioshock) The claptrap being illustrated in different ways for different things much like the Vault boy from fallout 3. Which, shoot, now that I think about it, is fallout in reverse! In fallout 3 your coming out of the vault, in Borderlands your going to find the vault, interesting, I N T E R E S T I N G !!! But there are a ton of parallels in borderlands between other games. I think its pretty cool, I enjoyed saying "Ha! check that out, thats cool" IM sure there may have been some "Hey guys can we use this idea from your game for ours?" If anything a good idea is a good idea and its hard to be original, for instance I never model in pen and ink but Ill try it because it has a fresh look, doesnt mean Im copying borderlands. I thought it was cool. So basically if the vending machines from bioshock were a good idea, and vault boy was an interesting concept, and COD has a great controller setup etc etc, then all of that in one makes for a great game. Although, theres a lot of good ideas they DIDNT use.
Lets go again
The playthrough system is awesome I love the idea, instead of just picking a difficulty. I had no idea what PLaythrough 2 even meant until I tried it. All my characters stats carried over, all the gear and the enemies were all stronger, much less of a challenge seeing as I started playthrough 2 after reaching level 42. Still though its a great and intuitive way to improve on difficulty.
In Conclusion
Overall though the game was amazing, I think Its a strong contender for game of the year and it been said before "Modern warfare 2 might have something to worry about" Someone told me "MW2 will take GOTY by sheer sales". I would hope its not based off sales. Yes, Mw2 is gonna be great but I dont know, we will see. I feel that Borderlands catered to a wide variety of players, Rpg, MMo a little bit, Fps of course its the kind of game dreams are made of. I give it a 9-9.5 out of ten. Simply because its my kind of game.
P.S.
Also I think theres gonna be a second game. How do you know this you may ask? At the beginning of the game the bus driver says something along the lines of "I dont this will be the last time we do this" meaning the bus ride. At first I thought "Maybe thats the way we go from region to region later in the game, and obviously it isnt so it can mean only one thing. Even though its entirely too soon, Borderlands 2! Then again, maybe the character was referring to the playthrough system.
Quacken out!
Replies
on a side note. Does anyone know what exactly they did when they changed the graphics so drastically? Was it just the use of a new shader or were most or all of the textures redone? All of the rock textures (which are EVERYWHERE) look as if they were drawn with a pencil. Anyway just kinda curious as to the process that was used here.
On the other hand I didn't try the game yet, so I might never come to know what I'm missing.
just hit level 8 last night, don't have too much time to play this right now.
The textures were all redone. The only solution on the rendering side is the black outline that you see around the silhouette of objects.
I couldn't push the game much further on a 9800GT but it was nice to have more options.
I'll bear this in mind for when I pick this up, as I have the same card.
Notice anything strange?
yes, why are you still in a rocky environment at level 20?
I guess we're getting shitloads of value out of our game then
I wanna love you, but I can't because I dont have the game to play because I dont have the money.... soo </3.
Just you wait until a month is over and I will be wif you.
A few niggles
1. way too many intro movies, really dont want to wait that long before getting to the menu its rediculous. So glad we can edit the config files but thats no excuse.
2. the join game screen doesnt tell me if the games are local(UK) or what the ping times are so Ive joined a couple of games and had a horrible time due to lag.
3. no vsync and also the game is quite hard when played in singleplayer
I dont have any friends that have bought this so I cant say Im getting the full experience but hopefully I can join in with some fellow pcers or something.
You can enable it through a config file.
http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=79043
It is? I have only been playing offline, and have been tromping through it. I played online, and people would join the game and run ahead demolishing everyone and taking MY LOOT! So I moved the 360 to the bedroom where I can explore on my own. The game is not to difficult for me. :thumbup::thumbup:
A few nitpicks here and there (some to do with consolisation I'm afraid, such as lack of options), but overall a very nice game. Feels like a mix of Diablo2, Fallout3 and Hellgate London (don't take that as an insult, I thought that game didn't deserve all the shit it got, just some of it
Congrats to those who worked on it, hope it's selling ok for you guys.
This is what I noticed playing pre-release: If you do all of the available side missions before doing the critical path, the game can actually seem too easy at times. If you try to only follow the critical path and skip the side missions, the main story missions can be exceptionally difficult. It's been interesting to see the disparity between people who say the game is "too easy" vs those who say it is "hard."
Again, thanks for the kind words. I am really glad to hear that so many people seem to be enjoying it despite the obvious flaws and game bugs.
I also love how my lower end PCs at home are able to play the game too.
So I am able to run LAN here in my house with my workstation and the lower end family computers. My wife is playing on a 3 year old nvida 7600 with 1 gb of ram and a shitty processor...lol. The game being in a stylized art style still looks great on lower and medium settings! Also plays very well too no lag or anything.
Just another little thing I love about this game.
The path I am taking...
I brought cookies to your office when I focus tested Thursday(29th) for you...Did you get one?
Yes sir...
Im still getting used to the game and when I took a mission that said tough - collect flower seed, I expected it to be a bit difficult to complete without dying but what I actually found was skags that were 2 levels above me that boxed me in a corner and killed me over and over again. Now that Ive done a few "normal" missions those tough ones can be done with a bit of effort but its a steep learning curve I guess.
Agree about playing online, I keep ending up on some random german server or something where people are all chatting to eachother in a language I dont understand running ahead and finishing objectives before I can even catch up. I just want an option to find UK servers.
I don't think the comparisons to Fallout are justified at all - they definitely feel like completely different games, and not just artistically. For a start, actually managing to pull off head shots from the word go was a very nice surprise! At times it feels a little like Red Faction: Guerrilla rather than Fallout, and so far it's been great fun.
And Claptrap is still making me laugh with his 'hey everybody, check me out - I'm dancing!' lines.
Awesome.
It's just a tiled, panning bump offset to give the tarps the illusion of movement
No split-screen and XLB at the same time?! WtF?! Seriously dropped the ball on that one with my group of friends.
I like the Claptraps but they are a bit too close to GIR from Invader Zim in their expressions, voice and attitudes at times.. -_-;;