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Post by mysterd on Oct 23, 2009 20:45:07 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 23, 2009 21:23:16 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 26, 2009 16:05:47 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 28, 2009 2:08:46 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 28, 2009 2:09:28 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 29, 2009 16:32:19 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 29, 2009 17:11:38 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 30, 2009 17:43:37 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Oct 30, 2009 21:46:41 GMT
More Screens
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Post by mysterd on Oct 31, 2009 15:39:17 GMT
My Impressions, So Far....
Intro I've got about 9-10 hours approximately thrown into this game since Thursday - and I've been playing as Lilith The Siren. So, here's my take on this outstanding FPS/ARPG so far (first-person shooter/action role-playing game). I have only touched the Single Player part of the game - I have not tried Co-Op Online portion of the game yet.
Performance & Graphics On my PC (See signature), I am running the game on 1024x768 on mostly High and Medium settings. The game has ran very well on those settings. I have NOT ran into any stutters, texture pop-in's, clipping, or any other nasty issues that have appeared in other games.
The cel-shaded look crossed with some realism here gives it this look that doesn't feel too cartoonish yet doesn't feel too real, either. Like the game blending the FPS and ARPG concept, it's an excellent blend and suits the game perfectly. The game might not be the technical-looking game around (no game looks as good as Crysis: Warhead technically), but Borderlands looks fantastic in the artistic department. Not only that, but the world is quite detailed, as well.
Loot, Loot, Loot, And MORE Awesome Loot If you loved series like Diablo and Sacred - or hell, any of those ARPG's with loot galore - you're going to love the amount of loot here. The amount of loot this game has is absolutely ridiculous - especially in the guns department. Kill an enemy, expect them to drop some sort of loot - even if it ain't much of anything. kill a tougher enemy, expect some decent to good loot-drops. There's plenty of chests and objects to find in the game to get some loot, as well. Kill an epic boss, expect to get epic amounts of loot.
The amount of guns is absolutely absurd - and so are the different kinds of weapons I've run into. For example, some of the stuff I've run into includes a revolver that does shock damage; a rocket-launcher that shoots 3 rockets fast one after another; a scoped rifle that does explosion damage upon impact; an acid-based gun; a machine-gun pistol; pistol that does fire damage and lights enemies on fire; and a shotgun that fires three shots rapidly one after another. That's not even scratching the surface here at some of the stuff I've seen and probably have yet to find, but that gives you a small idea of what this game has to offer.
There are grenades, as well. You can mod out grenades, depending on what kinds of grenade mods you pick-up or buy. So, you can equip mods for grenades that say explode on enemies, take their damage and give it you you; sticky grenades; bouncy grenades (that bounce of walls until they hit an enemy); etc etc. Again, this ain't even scratching the surface of what this game has to offer for grenade mods.
Also, vendors in the game have a sale every 20 minutes (in real-time) for some random piece of loot. Who knows what it could be - something crummy, something decent, or something insanely awesome.
Combat None of the above wouldn't be that hot, if the combat wasn't good. Given this is a Gearbox game (a company that has done shooters - see Brother In Arms series, Half-Life: Blue Shift expansion, and Halo: Combat Evolved PC port), the shooting mechanics better be good. And you damn right, they are good. Real good. The game doesn't let the RPG trappings kill you, either - so if you make a headshot, expect to do a lot more damage say than hitting someone in the chest; especially on humans. Don't expect to do zero damage, if you shoot someone in the head w/ your weapon - this is not Morrowind (in the early levels). So, if you like playing a first-person shooter - no dice-rolls will be taking over for you here. This feels like a shooter should feel.
Not only that, but there are vehicles here, as well. They drive very well on KB/mouse. Controls feels like how it felt on Halo PC - which is great, as mouselook turns the car left and right and you use movement keys (WSAD or whatever you change them to) for movement. Very silky smooth. Also, if you run over enemies with your car, you get WAY, WAY less experience. You want experience, you have a shootout with them. Only time you get good experience in a vehicle is when you are fighting other enemies that are in vehicles battling it out with you - and yes, there is definitely is some of that, when you get further along.
Story Depth - Or Lack Thereof Unlike Hellgate: London, the story and characters are presented very well here...when it's actually presented to you. The voice-acting is quite good and the dialogue is often very tongue-in-cheek and quite humorous. The dialogue is well-written, when there are actually these elements in the game. If you've played any of the Brother In Arms series, you know Gearbox can definitely tell a story and do write dialogue very well, when they really want to. So, if there is one small complaint I have with Borderlands, it's the story is lacking any attempt at any sort of depth - as expected, since this is primarily a FPS that definitely has a lot of emphasis on the ARPG elements of killing and loot-whoring. Anytime there is any sort of say character development and story depth starting to get going, the game pulls what Gun pulled on the player - just as it's getting good and you are getting hooked in, it stops and you get thrown right back into (the awesome) combat. There are some quests with audio logs to recover that give insight to more of the story and there are moments when characters contact you while you're playing to tell you more in-game about things - but, something still feels a little missing. What really would've helped was more optional ways for the player to get into the story and characters, if they wanted to. Other games have achieved this without getting in the way of single-player action-players and Multiplayer/Co-Op gamers by just supplying the player optional audio-logs to listen to (think Bioshock); optional video-logs to view (think Dead Space); or written-logs and Background/Codex Journal sections (think The Witcher or Mass Effect) to give players the chance to get more out of the game's story and characters if they so choose to. I'm sure that would've really helped the Single Player gamers stay hooked into their game, if they wanted more story and character elements in their game.
This is really a ARPG - so chances are, though - if you came to Borderlands, it's for the addictive action and loot-whoring, not the story and character depth.
Four Classes Four characters to pick from - Roland The Soldier (regular gun expert), Lilith The Siren (assassin/stealthy character), Brick As Himself (Brick type character - slang for melee and strong character; he has some berserker skills, as he can go into a rage), and Mordecai The Hunter (sniper). Each character has their own skill tree and their own special abilities that you can upgrade like crazy - like say Diablo would do.
Game-Plus Mode I have not finished the game, but there is a game-plus mode - where you can start the game over w/ whatever character you finished the game with and keep your levels and abilities. I should note - Level 50 is the current level cap in the game. A lot of games lately seem to be offering a game-plus mode, such as Prototype.
Outro If you love FPS games and always wanted some ARPG elements thrown into the mix to not get in your way of playing the game (i.e. you clearly shot someone in the head and you want head-shot credit for hitting it, not a dice-roll that could wind-up giving you little to no damage) - this is the game for you. No game does this better than Borderlands on the market currently. Borderlands is an awesome action game that is addictive, a lot of fun to play, and quite humorous. More than likely, this is going to be one of my nominees for My 2009 Game Of The Year.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Oct 31, 2009 17:09:29 GMT
From the sheer enthusiasm you have for it, D, I'd say it almost certainly IS your game of the year! You love everything about it, and it shows
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Post by mysterd on Nov 1, 2009 2:12:05 GMT
A little too soon to be calling my GOTY, when games like say DAO ain't even dropped yet. But, yeah - so far, this year, Borderlands is the best thing I've played. That's saying a lot, after just finishing another awesome game not too long ago - Prototype. Sure, I can nit-pick on other things about Borderlands - for lack of story and character depth lack; and lack of a hotkey to use medical kits. But, really - that'd be just about it, so far - until I come up w/ some other stuff. I heard the ending's very anti-climatic, too. I'll let you know, when I get there - I'm already almost 15 hours in since Thursday. Borderlands is absolutely amazing, Kane. Kane, if you love FPS's and you action-RPG's, you have to play this - it does both genres well. Borderlands is definitely the game Hellgate: London should've and could've been and then some - and despite Hellgate's extensive list of flaws, I really dug that game. Though, be warned about the Securom DRM here - you will have to activate the game online and it will do the release date control check, like it or not. No install limits (thankfully), but after an install of the game - it must be activated online as part of the install process. And if you don't shut your firewall or anti-virus off - as I found out the hard way - the activation part of the install will fail and so it will roll the install back (as if it never installed the game). Once you do successfully complete all that, you need only the disc in the drive to boot the game up.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 1, 2009 8:54:54 GMT
Online check with no firewall or AV?!? Um... I'll pass. I'd have passed because of the online check anyway (Still not a fan of renting games I've supposedly bought) but having to take the firewall down, too? Absurd!
Shame, as it does sound good...
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Post by mysterd on Nov 1, 2009 13:12:31 GMT
Kane, yeah - yeah, Securom activation doesn't get along w/ Online Armor's firewall. You can keep (the weak) Windows Firewall on, though - that doesn't interfere w/ the Securom activation process. WF does not interfere w/ running the Borderlands game. Online Armor does interfere w/ the game itself too, actually.
A lot of PC games don't like anti-virus and firewalls running their programs in the background, anyways - well, they often don't like Firewalls that ain't Windows Firewall. You normally can keep WF on with any game, as long as you add the game to the exceptions list on WF.
I remember oddly enough, Gothic 2 in the readme advised all anti-virus must be turned off to run the game - which is odd for a SP Only game. I had to turn Norton off just to run that damn game - I don't use Norton anymore, as it's not really as good as many of the other AV's out there now.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 1, 2009 14:16:33 GMT
The problem is that viruses don't tend to mind WF either, and nor do hackers... To be fair, Microsoft have never claimed it's anything other than totally basic. Most games, in my experience, don't object to Zone Alarm running. They just can't connect to the web, which suits me fine!
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Post by mysterd on Nov 1, 2009 15:04:08 GMT
The problem is that viruses don't tend to mind WF either, and nor do hackers... To be fair, Microsoft have never claimed it's anything other than totally basic. Which is very lazy on their half, if you ask me... Of course, for any game w/ a SP portion (that doesn't require a connection to the Net as necessary to play), you can always turn your DSL/cable modem/slow-as-sin 56K/whatever your connection is OFF. You can do that w/ Borderlands SP. I did that for Prototype - played the SP offline and shut my Net connection off, since there is no MP and since it ran better w/out XFire in the background. Yes, that game does have stiff system requirements - ran decent w/ the NVidia 190.xx drivers (for my GeForce 8800 GT) on my rig, though.
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Post by mysterd on Nov 1, 2009 16:05:28 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Nov 4, 2009 0:13:51 GMT
Finished the game last nite - after around 30 hours of gameplay. And no, I did NOT do every side quest, either - I skipped a bunch.
Anyways, after all was said and done, the game - for the most part - was great.
Though, the game lacks story depth, character depth, and also has a VERY anti-climatic ending. One one hand, the ending is quite brilliant - for what it is obviously taking stabs directly at. On another hand, there are a bunch of new story threads opened and some story threads are left dangling still...
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Post by mysterd on Nov 8, 2009 4:57:51 GMT
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Post by mysterd on Nov 10, 2009 1:04:37 GMT
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