BORDERLANDS - like Fallout 3 but with cars and MAXIMUM PWNAGE OMGWTFLOLNEWB FPS combat

at least the Pre-Sequel is Australians doing Australian humor

there was a reasonable conversation with the writer on twitter about whether Tiny Tina's dialogue is sometimes problematic

Would be interested to read that. I found her not particularly funny, but also went "well, this is basically how eleven-year-old white kids who think they're clever talk, i think," so combine that with references to explosions and ehh. Feel like it would have been funnier and less chancey to load her up with, like, l33tspeak and stuff, especially given as I understand the DLC takes her more into a gamernerd direction.

So long as I'm complaining, let me say that the whole "feuding clans" side quest had me wanting to post to Real ethics in unreal worlds: what will you not do in a game? . Just uncomfortable and un-fun, and seemed completely unaware that it was pushing far past the point where you, as hero of the game, are committing the exact sorts of atrocities that are periodically tossed out to define the villain. I get that it's a cynical, dark-humor kinda world, and they were likely going for a Fistful of Dollars deal, but couldn't I have like, rescued someone's dog or herded some chickens around instead? Or do one of those deals where you discover the person who's been stirring up the clans against each other, rather than be that person? It was just weird and gross, kind of like the jokes at the expense of Ellie.

Don't forget that Gearbox is the studio that finished off Duke Nukem Forever, it shouldn't really be surprising that they're terrible at stuff like this.

I think that's selling them short in some ways, they have a really scattered record as far as contract development goes but they bought that property a year before release after it'd been in "development" for what, a decade?

I never played the Hammerlock DLC because EZSnappin and jjjusten told me it was terrible. Now I see why.

I have no recollection of anything "problematic" coming from Tiny Tina. Psychotic, funny, and ultimately sad, yes.

I also had to look up exactly which quest line the feuding clans alluded to because I didn't remember it; after looking it up I remember it but nothing about it stood out as a memorable (positive or negative) moment or anything disconnected tonally from the rest of the game.

Keep in mind this is all coming from the viewpoint of someone who has read the description of every GTA game released thus far and said "nope, can't justify ever playing that".

yeah, I love Tiny Tina as far as it goes

Feuding clans thing - well, basically, at two points you advance the quest by 1) shooting up a whole bar of people who seem to be pleasantly minding their own business and then 2) setting fire to a bunch of mobile homes while people are peacefully sleeping inside. It's like you're suddenly playing as Handsome Jack (which I gather you do in the next game) and just really baffling. It's optional, of course, but that's weak sauce (see: GG'ers insisting that Sarkeesian's videos are full of 'distortions' because she includes optional content), and plus when you first start the quest it doesn't seem like it's going to be that kind of thing at all.

also terrible irish stereotypes

Working through the Torgue DLC. Pretty fun in places, wish it had mixed things up a little more with enemy types and the environments and stuff like that... most things just seem like reskinnings of the familiar bandits and robots...could've stretched things more. Just about tore my hair out today with this "kill all these helicopters in x minutes" deal, the helicopters just DO NOT lend themselves to be killed quickly in this game ("guess I'll fly off into the distance and hover behind a hilltop for a while"). Torgue has a few good jokes though.

turret is your friend helicopterwise

oh no question, that was ESSENTIAL.

B2 and the Pre-Sequel coming to next gen. And if you stay within the same brand you can port your characters over. Also, comes with all the DLC for both games.

probably will grab that on PS4 at some point

trying to use the cursed Base Bane gun in BL2 and can't play for laughing

I could never figure out with the "gag" guns whether there was some crazy-like-a-fox way to use them really effectively, or if they were just gags. I guess the internet could have cleared this up, but I tossed the bane almost immediately.

It's very effective vs robots but moving at a snail's pace invariably gets you killed.

the bogan gun in the pre-sequel usually is pretty good if you get it at the right time

I was browsing upcoming games and apparently the xbone/ps4 ultimate Borderlands collection thingy has an edition that comes with a remote control Claptrap that talks

It's also like $400 or something.

lol, not surprised

they're gonna make a crapload of money off that. if i were a bigger Borderlands fan I'd probably pony up

Will it have an auto mode where it just kinda wanders around the building singing/rapping to itself? Can that be hacked in?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjWAWcx4xdE

any progress on Gearbox fixing the framerate issues in the Handsome Collection?

Recently began playing the first game. Boy, it's hard*. Currently stuck on both the mission where you pick up the dude's seeds in the valley (keep getting eaten by those lizard-dogs) and the mission where you have to take out the bad guy just outside the safe zone.

* Also, I suck.

kill more lizard dogs to level up and suddenly hard missions become medium missions

yeah, I try hard to just grind straight through but the Borderlands franchise is really set up so that some side quests and killing random stuff is essential

I've been playing through true vault hunter mode on the pre-sequel and ended up using the matchmaking to make it past a quest, which may have been a bad idea since everything is now overpowered.

thanks for the hints dudes. i wish it were a little more like fallout and i could talk my way out of trouble sometimes, or be devious.

btw in the pre-sequel, if anyone hasn't done the SHiFT codes, do them! basically you sign up for gearbox's account system, then can just paste in codes they've dropped on social media and that chest in Concordia just spits out purples

SHiFT codes are ESSENTIAL

even if it gives you total crap you can grind them a bunch

I need to get better at this grinding formula thing

worst case scenario all the stuff from the chest sells at like $10k

haha I gave up on the grinder, really couldn't be bothered to figure it out

I have no idea how to use it but it gave me a sweet orange weapon. I think I am on my way to the "get five orange weapons" thing now

yeah the difficulty curve in borderlands 1 is something else ... i do all of the side quests religiously and am always clearing areas out, so i was up to level 19 by the time i got to sledge and it took me like an hour to beat him.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/04/borderlands-the-handsome-collection-reviewchasing.html

^^ brutal review!

so OTM :(

I think that review is fair/accurate for the presequel but undersells the appeal of BL2

the core dynamic of opening a zillion containers in every room really could use a change-up

Yeah, as addictive as I found this, the satisfaction of not playing it anymore is pretty compelling. Some of the core mechanics are good and have great "feel" but I think I diverge a lot from the standard review that's like "there's guns! lots of guns! BAJILLIONS of guns!" Like, maybe less guns would be better. Less boxes, less guns, and focus on how the combat difficulty could scale better so you're always facing a challenge.

The sad thing is I burned out right before I was gonna start the Tiny Tina DLC, which everyone here was repping for and which I'd figured "ooh, I'll save the best one for last!" The Torgue one had some fun bits and cool environments but somewhere partway through the pirate one I just really started to regret my choices in life (though the watery grotto was lovely).

the only thrill I get from seeing new guns is the possibility of finding a ridiculous special one

It's always such a drag when you find a gun that you really like the feel of, and then it's rapidly rendered obsolete by better stats on something else. Maybe they should consider more of an upgrade-your-gun model, where you could swap in a better scope or whatever, but keep the same satisfying ka-chunk noise. Sort of chasing their own tail at a certain point and I guess it's innate to the whole mechanic... after all, DOOM doesn't have to worry about the shotgun becoming obsolete.

I think it's the pre-sequel that has the Excalibastard and I was so sad when I realized you can only ever pick it up once and it's locked to the level you grabbed it at

It's always such a drag when you find a gun that you really like the feel of, and then it's rapidly rendered obsolete by better stats on something else.

this.

until i cottoned to the idea that Stats Matter, I definitely played with certain guns i had a fondness for much longer than I "should" have

That review is stupid

also, with the guns, it really works against one of the other recurring hype tropes for these games, which is the whole "oh man but wait til you're shooting a gun that fires rockets that split into other guns that shoot lasers!" or whatever. So there are these badass, fun-as-hell high-concept guns...and you use them for maybe an hour or two of play or something because they're level 38 and your more boring but effect level 41 gun just leaves it in the dust. It's hard to really have both, unless there's some way the guns can "level up" with you or get upgraded. Maybe the main damage stat should actually be based on ammo, and you're an alien who secretes ammo that gets better as you level up. (?)

Also the economy is just really silly - I basically never bought anything from the machines because the stuff you have is almost always way better. But meanwhile when you finally do hit a challenging part and die repeatedly, you see all your savings disappear very rapidly. Where I come from, dying over and over is supposed to happen in games! Oddly one of the parts I enjoyed most were the little "survive against wave after wave of guys" arenas, specifically because I died, a lot, and so it was DAMNED satisfying to finally make it through.

yeah i loved the arena battles, so much more satisfying that opening things

also i'd kinda like to run the numbers on how much more money a person makes in the course of the game by opening all the chests vs never opening any. like it FEELS like it should all add up over the course of the game, and that you're DEFINITELY going to MISS OUT on a SWEET RARE ITEM but, like, all the really good shit gets dropped by enemies it seems, and all the mission-related payouts seem to dwarf whatever you pick up.

basically, there's a perverse FOMO that the game seems to require and yet i bet is not actually necessary for fun/advancement. just don't open anything and kill guys and i bet you'd be fine

- opening all the crates gets you a constant stream of cash/things you can sell for cash that supplements the income from killing enemies that you were going to kill anyway; doing so removes cash as a limiting factor from the game unless you decide to make it a limiting factor by buying a ton of shit for a specific reason
- the "shifting goalposts for story conclusion" complaint is really complaining about the quality of the story, as every single narrative game does this exact same thing until you get to the end of the main storyline, otherwise what is your incentive to continue playing? the reason why the complaint seems overblown for BL2 and accurate for the presequel is because the storytelling in BL2 is much, much, MUCH better
- arena battles are terrible and people's enjoyment of them pushed them to make most of the presequel add-on content into arena battles, which meant that I hated most of the add-ons I prepaid for because I didn't know the presequel season pass would just be characters and arena battles, so thanks a lot you big jerks

haha

I wouldn't want the whole game to be arena battles, by any means, and in terms of environment or story they were definitely less engaging (speaking of BL2 here) than anything else the game had me doing. But they involved challenge and the possibility of failure, which so often seemed absent in the main game.

The Farmville comparison works I think because difficulty is streamlined out of the gameplay process. It's like, you feed it a coin and it gives you a peanut and two coins; with two coins you can buy gum and three coins, etc. At its best BL2 disguises this by making the story and environments interesting, and making the act of shooting and blowing stuff up just fun in itself. The story, to be fair, basically had me engaged, barring some bits that I just didn't give a shit about. Certainly the NPCs could have been better actors, visually, but that's secondary.

So hey, that's not bad! But I think the best games do involve something more, like a set of skills that you gradually master so that more and more complex challenges can be attempted, and you feel satisfied at having developed these (arbitrary and IRL useless) skills. This isn't impossible in such games: the skill set could be shooting precisely (in space or in time), dodging behind things, marshalling a limited inventory of powerups or ammo, some forms of platforming, etc., and the nature of enemies and environments could gradually shape encounters that test these abilities more and more. It's just not that kind of game. Maybe it's less Farmville, and more the difficulty track of a JRPG: you eventually will become a god and it'll be awesome that you can do 9999 damage, but the steady grind of getting there would be transparently hand-holding except for difficult battles/dungeons along the way, and a story/characters that you really get into.