Borderlands

[UCBooties]

So, it's out today in the States but I can't pick my copy up until after work. Anyone else have it yet or getting it today? I'd be very interested to hear what the early impressions are and how the online matchmaking is for co-op.

[Lagmonster]

Ditto on the request for initial impressions; I vastly prefer co-op gameplay of this type to any other style of online gaming and would simply love to hear, honestly, that this is a fun game.

[Losonti Tokash]

Been playing it for about 15 minutes, first impressions are good. It's got kind of a grindhouse feel to the presentation which I like, and the combat is nice and deadly without being frustrating.

[Gramzamber]

I'm on the fence about this, it seems appealing but character templates as opposed to full customisation annoy me greatly.
Blah decisions decisions.

[Stark]

I love this thread already - I hope to see even more 'we don't understand the nature of the game' style complaints.

I was talking to Los before, and the game seems to have a pretty good feel and he got out of the noobzone pretty quick. It's clearly MMO/Diablo play (which people still don't fucking get, which is hilarious) but I'm looking forward to someone breaking the date here in AU so everyone in the Vegas can jump on.

[Oskuro]

Wonder if the game will have LAN coop. Doubtful. Will have to wait for the PC release to find out.

And what is it with post-apocaliptic games lately (zombie games included)? Are they the new balck or what? What'll be the next trend, pottery games?

[Stark]

Well consoles have split-screen. Why wouldn't there be LAN on pc?

[Ford Prefect]

Well consoles have split-screen.

Seriously? That just makes it all them ore enticing.

[Stark]

Sherry and I are goingbto see if it allows split-screen + online, like Gears. I hope so!

[Losonti Tokash]

Wonder if the game will have LAN coop. Doubtful. Will have to wait for the PC release to find out.

And what is it with post-apocaliptic games lately (zombie games included)? Are they the new balck or what? What'll be the next trend, pottery games?

It's not post-apocalyptic, Pandora is just a backwater shithole of a planet overrun by treasure hunters.

Stark, I'll see if I can get Emily to help test that out.

[Stark]

Los, can you plug another controller in then join a multi game so I don't have to buy two copies?

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Spent a fair few hours so far today. (Rented a copy early this morning, preorderd PC.)

Combat is indeed very lethal. Although the enemies tended to be bullet sponges, and some odd things happened. For example, while trying to kill Bonehead (Very early quest, not really a spoiler.) I would duck behind cover to recharge my shield, and when I came back out he would be fully healed.

Not quite sure what the proficiency levels are for yet. Probably in the manual... But I imagine it's a low, all around buff for the gun as it gets higher.

The opening area is, of course, the desert we've seen, but it's subdivided into a few zones. (With moderately long loading times. Probably 10 seconds tops, haven't paid that much attention.) The textures kind of do that pop-in thing that was so prevalent in Mass Effect 360, but I've only seen it as I'm entering a zone.

Seems to be only the one vehicle, with 10~ monocolor paint jobs. It controls rather poorly, but only because you only have Forward and Reverse, which always move you in the direction you're facing. Front (driver) turret is useless, but if you don't have a passenger you fire the top turret with the left trigger. Though the machine gun it has is rather useless, the Launcher seems acceptably powerful.

It can also run things over, which has so far killed everything I've gotten under the wheels.

The quests are greatly simplified by a green dimond marker pointing the way to the next step on your HUD Compass, and also marking it on your map.

On major complaint though, is that a lot of the guns have useless iron sights. Yet every class of weapon (even shotguns) -can- have a scope attached to the weapon.

So far, my favorite gun is an SMG that fires four projectiles at once, making it a fully automatic shotgun. Though, sadly, I've had to long since ditch it to keep up the damage output. Which is kind or required, as enemies even a couple of levels higher than you become -severe- bullet sponges, even with criticals. That's to not even referring to the enemies who're bullet sponges at all times.

It'll definitely be more fun once PC hits, and I can play online with my clan...

[Pulp Hero]

The intro video is up there as one of my favorites in recent years.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

Curses, I was all excited that my copy would be delivered today... only to discover the PC version is delayed until next week?!

I now have to endure a week of you console muppets talking about how awesome it is. Unsatisfactory.

At least I will find out if any of the characters are buggered (?)

[Pulp Hero]

No, they all have minor differences, but play the same if your going it alone. In Co-op I can see some team up abuse though. I'm going with soldier now, and his turret seems like a good choice for distracting enemies to get good flank shots.

[Oskuro]

Well consoles have split-screen. Why wouldn't there be LAN on pc?

An alarming number of games lately don't have LAN capabilities, and force you to go online for Coop.

[Vympel]

This game sounds like the exact of opposite of anything I could ever possibly give a shit about. What is it, some kind of Diablo FPS?

[Stark]

What are you talking about? It's 'awesome' and has 'awesome' explosions. Isn't that what you like?

[Vympel]

What are you talking about? It's 'awesome' and has 'awesome' explosions. Isn't that what you like?

Movies != games.

And it can't look like shit. That's why GI Joe sucking fucked.

[Stark]

Whoa, let's not say anything we can't take back! :O

Blands looks pretty cool even on 360, on PC it'll be waaaaaaaaay better. Unless you just mindlessly hate the art style.

And come on, it has Crusader No Remorse-style death animations; you can burn people so that they slowly disintegrate except their ski-mask, which clatters to the ground.

[Losonti Tokash]

I have a sniper rifle that fires bullets which set people on fire.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

If you find a Double Anarchy SMG, I highly recommend giving that puppy a spin. I've found it twice now, once at 5 and again at 22. It's that shotgun SMG I mentioned.

I've passed mostly on the elemental weapons, although the DoT on fire is -beastly-, the other elements are somewhat lackluster, though they're each supposedly more effective on different things. Fire on Flesh, Shock on Shields, and Corrosive on "Armor". Not sure if that last one's refering to things like the front of Alpha Skagg and Antspiders or the Lance units...

The elemental weapons themselves have almost always had less -raw- damage than equivilent weapons though. In a lot of cases as much as half.

My earlier comment was based on about two hours of co-op, where very little cooperation happened. Spent a good while solo today, stuff is vastly easier to kill. Though a few items got annoying during the play time, top amongst them: Claptrap, after about the fifth time notifying me of "New Quests at ___," I wanted to break him and skatter his parts to the four corners of Pandora.

At the end of my play session, I went around starting those quests to get rid of the nag. As, I had them available at three different places, so about 5 minutes after he finished telling me about the last, he started the string over with the first. >_<

That, and Roland sounds like an Asthmatic Grandfather in a number of his jump noises.

[Ford Prefect]

Stark, it sounds like you have played multiple characters. Clue me in on what they're like.

[TheMuffinKing]

This game is a lot of fun! I can't believe it, I thought this would be total garbage, but so far I like it. I can't wait to get my friends on for some co-op.

[Stark]

Ford, the classes are pretty flexible. Sherry plays a siren and never uses the special move, just using the skills to increase elemental shit. Using the tank as a sniper works well too as you can reduce recoil and make him hells of tough. Emo guys hawk is surprisingly flexible too - but it's good redpec is so cheap because I'm not certain what works. Thing like the class specific mag size skills are pretty land compared to the really scalable stuff. In brief soldier has support, tank is tank, siren is status effects and hunter is hunter, but there's a lot of room to move in there. My main is a shotgun revolver tank, even though he's a soldier.

The idea anyone would play this coop and not cooperate makes me laugh. Running around in +3 areas getting mad loot and varying tactics with the good guns is mad. I just hope weapon skills don't max at 10 as they appear to.