Tyr
10-20-2009, 06:09 PM
With the release of Borderlands, I decided it was time to pay my local game retailer a visit. However, being that the game had no demo, Gearbox having never produced a role playing game, coupled by info about the game consisting of little more then, “87 billzillion guns!” and “this game is awesome, you should buy it!” I thought it was best to try the game out before I bought it.
After 45 minutes of play on the ps3 at the storeroom floor, I am glad I made that decision. Diving into the game I started with a soldier class, that is I would have started with one if I didn’t pick the Hunter by mistake. I restarted the game only to find I couldn’t skip over the opening movie. It was a minor annoyance, but not enough to ruin the game. After a brief introduction to the controls I was thrown into a fight with a band of bandits.
My first impressions of the first view minutes of combat were mediocre. It was very similar to Fallout 3, minus the vats system, and minus the cool and often gory slow motion kills. Instead I was treated to some cell shaded goriness. It was like playing a Level 5 game, with decapitations.
It didn’t take long to dawn on me that my starting weapon sucked, however this was to be expected as the game was touted as being “Diablo with Guns.” In Diablo you had to either find or buy better weapons.
Unfortunately, unlike Diablo, this is where the game let me down. The first guns I indeed up finding were variants of the same weaker pistol, as were the next 6 guns I found, also unlike Diablo, the game doesn’t grant you immediate access to a weapons vendor.
Again no big deal, that is until the game started to throw numerous bandits with a lot of health at me. Suddenly I found myself running out of ammo very quickly, not from necessarily poor aim, which I will admit is not the greatest , but because the bandits took 15 shots to bring down, many of which were aimed head shots. From there things quickly got worse when the game started throwing shielded bandits at me.
To give you an idea what this was like, picture your playing Dungeons and Dragons, now picture the DM suddenly throwing Ogres at your level 2 party the minute you walk out of the town gate.
Now I suddenly find myself not only quickly loosing ammo, but quickly losing a lot of blood as well. This may have been intentional by the designers, or the game expects you to find a better gun at this point, either way I felt it was poorly implemented.
In short what started out as a mediocre loot hunt quickly devolved into a frustrating mess. Now to be fair the game did have some endearing qualities, and 45 minutes may not have been enough time really give this game a fair chance, so perhaps I may give it another shot, however, not for the $65 dollar price tag. Sorry Gearbox, but it looks like Bioware will be getting my money instead.
After 45 minutes of play on the ps3 at the storeroom floor, I am glad I made that decision. Diving into the game I started with a soldier class, that is I would have started with one if I didn’t pick the Hunter by mistake. I restarted the game only to find I couldn’t skip over the opening movie. It was a minor annoyance, but not enough to ruin the game. After a brief introduction to the controls I was thrown into a fight with a band of bandits.
My first impressions of the first view minutes of combat were mediocre. It was very similar to Fallout 3, minus the vats system, and minus the cool and often gory slow motion kills. Instead I was treated to some cell shaded goriness. It was like playing a Level 5 game, with decapitations.
It didn’t take long to dawn on me that my starting weapon sucked, however this was to be expected as the game was touted as being “Diablo with Guns.” In Diablo you had to either find or buy better weapons.
Unfortunately, unlike Diablo, this is where the game let me down. The first guns I indeed up finding were variants of the same weaker pistol, as were the next 6 guns I found, also unlike Diablo, the game doesn’t grant you immediate access to a weapons vendor.
Again no big deal, that is until the game started to throw numerous bandits with a lot of health at me. Suddenly I found myself running out of ammo very quickly, not from necessarily poor aim, which I will admit is not the greatest , but because the bandits took 15 shots to bring down, many of which were aimed head shots. From there things quickly got worse when the game started throwing shielded bandits at me.
To give you an idea what this was like, picture your playing Dungeons and Dragons, now picture the DM suddenly throwing Ogres at your level 2 party the minute you walk out of the town gate.
Now I suddenly find myself not only quickly loosing ammo, but quickly losing a lot of blood as well. This may have been intentional by the designers, or the game expects you to find a better gun at this point, either way I felt it was poorly implemented.
In short what started out as a mediocre loot hunt quickly devolved into a frustrating mess. Now to be fair the game did have some endearing qualities, and 45 minutes may not have been enough time really give this game a fair chance, so perhaps I may give it another shot, however, not for the $65 dollar price tag. Sorry Gearbox, but it looks like Bioware will be getting my money instead.