Wolfire Games Forums

I nabbed Borderlands yesterday (I had to choose between Borderlands or Brutal Legend, I grabbed Borderlands first because of split-screen coop, more on that later), I actually got the store's last copy...I'd forgotten I had it preordered, apparently they were holding it for me and I had no idea.

The game has changed quite a bit since it was first revealed and from concept to release its a little dissapointing, but I'd still suggest trying it as long as you know what you're getting into.
For better or for worse, they went from gritty, realistic graphics, to cell-shading with brighter colors. It goes better with the humor in the game, and they did manage to keep the whole gritty feel, but it quite different.
Craploads of randomly generated guns. Still got that. I haven't gotten far enough to find the really exotic weapons, but I found some grenades that teleport to their target and explode when you throw them. Supposedly over 3 million or something, but they're obviously variations of each other instead of entirely unique guns (which was expected, trying to fit that many different models on one disk would be insane).
Vehicles seem to play less of a part in the gameplay than originally announced. Not having gotten a vehicle yet I can't confirm this, but you can't customize your ride anymore besides color and weapons. This goes for the player character as well, although I don't think they ever said that you'd be able to full customize the player, still more options like hair or tatoos or some-such would have been nice.
Doesn't seem to be any armor, just guns now. You can buy shields which pretty much act like the original Halo's shield but you can buy awesome upgraded ones with special add-ons (There's one I saw that shoots out an explosive ring of fire when your shields die, not enough money for it ).
Story has been shoved to the back in place of gameplay. Undecided on this one, you make your own decision.
The game seems to really focus on online coop.

Gameplay wise, the game is pretty fun. Think Diablo 2, with guns, and instead of behind the scene to-hit rolls, you rely on your own aiming skills. All the weapons do have damage stats and so on so don't expect to be able to one-shot enemies by capping them in the head (although you do get Critical strikes, which is nice). The way the game starts you out reminds me of an MMO or Hellgate London. After playing for an hour or so I'd done a few minor missions and was on my way to go kill the first boss (Nine Toes, he has three balls). There was no real story to speak of unless you spend the time reading the quest data. Really I found myself getting sucked into the game, not because of the awesome story, but because of the awesome guns I was finding. Yes, the guns. Finding guns is awesome. Anything that'll help you just totally destroy the enemy. The humor helps some and the gameplay is solid, but the story is lacking (so far).

Split-screen, unfortunately wasn't implimented that well. The game seems to be designed to be played with one screen per player, so being able to play online with (preferably friends you know) people is a must. When you play local, it cuts the screen down the middle, but doesn't shrink the graphics to fit, so you have to scroll around the menus because you can't see the entire thing on your half (if you have handicap settings on your computer, try turning the zoom feature on, then you'll know what I mean). It feels tacked on, fun and awesome with two people (better drops, harder enemies, more money gained), but tacked on.

Still, even with its flaws, this game is just a blast to play. As long as you're up for some mindless fun (even playing by yourself, its awesome) and you like games like Diablo and Hellgate. I'm going to reserve judgement on this game until I get farther in, but right now, its great.

funny I just got this today, was the last copy too, spent all day playing it it's pretty awesome has the same control scheme as CoD basically. I find that the teleporting grenades aren't as useful as the sticky ones so far. been playing it splitscreen all day only reason I got it was for co op. pretty good review though I had a lot of fun getting headshots with a sniper rifle with explosive rounds, kind of a geyser effect. have you gotten an artifact yet?

Are you playing the 360 version?
Naw, I've only gotten to Nine Toes. Didn't have much time to play it today.
Blowing limbs off is hilarious (they spray blood everywhere), you rip something off and you can't help but wince. I'm playing as a Soldier so I've been using this awesome combat rifle (I've been selling the sniper rifles, but I may try them out later) I got in one of those "deals of the day" specials that only last for 15 minutes. Its better than anything I have right now. Most of the combat rifles I've found only do 10-12 damage per bullet and are really inaccurate, this one does 31 damage per bullet, fires a double burst and has a scope.

Had a go at this game. Really didn't like it.

It's like they got a run-of-the-mill FPS, dumbed it down in nearly every way they could imagine, then chucked in all the grindy elements of an rpg.

The randomized weapons are sorta cool though. However, be aware that for every exotic or interesting one you find, there will be 10 yet-another-bloody-pistol type weapons.

I don't really have anything bad to say about the character-building system. It's pretty good. (Incidentally, I recommend playing as either the hunter (sniper) or the stealth girl.)

How did they dumb down the shooter gameplay? I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, they definitely didn't try to make the gameplay complicated (besides scopes and having to account for weapon recoil and ammo count, there isn't much more you have to worry about when you're spamming mad bullets), but how did they dumb it down?

Yeah, you won't find a brand spankin' new gun every time, and you'll find guns in odd places sometimes, Skags (native dog-like creatures) were coughing up pistols for a while. Kinda weird (when I was playing cooperative with my roommate they were coughing up SMGs and shotguns instead of pistols). Unless the Skags are going around eating guns. That is one thing that sometimes bugs me about games like this: why the hell is a man eating bear carrying gold? Why doesn't it have a spleen, but only when I'm looking for bear spleens? Why was the bear wearing an armored leather shirt?

I couldn't get into the Siren class, although the warping spell is cool, I suppose I was hoping to be able to throw energy blasts or light people on fire with my mind.

Grayswandir wrote:How did they dumb down the shooter gameplay?

a) Zombie-like enemies. They pretty much just run at you while firing. (Also, they can 'see' you through terrain and objects. So once you've been spotted, you stay spotted.)

b) You rarely need to use cover. Especially once you get a good shield. (Hint: go for shields with low recharge times.)

c) No need for precision. You just spam away at enemies as their health bar slowly depletes. (The sniper is the exception to this.)

Basically, they managed to make the combat feel like something out of an RPG. You don't beat enemies with tactics or skill, you beat them by having better equipment and higher stats.

(I found that the Hunter and Siren required a bit more finesse then the other two. That's why I recommend them)

Man, this game is addicting. I just played 4 hours straight with a buddy of mine over local split screen. I'm not sure about the storyline yet, we still haven't moved on past the first desert area. But we've completed a nice variety of missions (although yes, they mostly involve killing enemies and collecting items). There were some fun ones involving the vehicles. Playing by yourself is fun, but playing with two people just takes the cake.

Zhukov wrote:Basically, they managed to make the combat feel like something out of an RPG. You don't beat enemies with tactics or skill, you beat them by having better equipment and higher stats.

You need to play some better designed RPGs mate, not all that JRPG quaff.

Uberbeard wrote:You need to play some better designed RPGs mate, not all that JRPG quaff.

Never played a JRPG in my life. Don't really intend to either.

My statement regarding RPG combat applies just fine to western RPGs.

Well, the gameplay is simple, and I kinda like it like that. As much as I like the in-depth, complicated gameplay as much as anyone else, sometimes its nice to just be able to go in, shoot stuff, get cooler guns, complete missions, get money, get skills, and drive awesome looking cars around armed with machineguns and rocket launchers while getting even cooler guns.

The guns are a lot of fun, so far I've found a pistol that lights people on fire, a sniper that will occasionally blow up your targets on a critical hit, and a shotgun that does lighting damage and stuns targets. Still, the most exotic thing I've found so far is revolver that fires shotgun shells.

Still trying to figure out the storyline, but I think the first area is just that, an introduction to the world and the gameplay.

Basically, the game is growing on me, as I play it, I find more and more that I like and its beginning to outweigh anything I've found wrong with it.

I found a shotgun that shoots rockets.

Count Roland wrote:I found a shotgun that shoots rockets.

Does it fire a spread of rockets? Or just one rocket?
Also, you got XBL Gold? I've been wanting to try this online.

spread of rockets, I'm too poor to have gold though, it would be awesome online though I bet.

I went back and tried the Siren again...and she's insane. Her Phasewalk ability has huge potential for area damage and with some of her abilities is able to unload bullets into enemies faster than any other class at lower levels.

Iji has a shotgun/rocket-launcher. It's not actually that useful.