Draech said:
I am sorry but the game is mechnically different, aesthetically different and thematically different.
To compare it on bases it is not trying to cover while glossing over the bases it is covering is like going Appollo 13 was a crap movie because there was no aliens in it and the plot had a hollywood ending.
sunsetspawn said:
Well, if this guy were a fifteen year old telling his friends at school about Borderlands 2 then that would be fine. However, this man is actually getting paid to write "professional" reviews such as this and it offends anyone that understands the entertain medium in question.
Would it be okay the compare Killer Elite to Pulp Fiction? They're both movies about professional hitmen that shoot people, so they must be the same genre, right? To a twelve year old that just likes violence I could see how these movies might be similar, but to anyone with any familiarity with the art form, to compare these two is absurd.
Could we compare Opeth to Green Day? They both make with the distorted guitars, singing, bass, and drums, so they must be similar, right?
People ARE ALLOWED to be ignorant of things, but when they are they should NOT be getting paid to write about them.
@Draech: While I will agree with you that thematically and aesthetically BL2 may be slightly different to most other FPSes out there, mechanically it is quite similar. If a game is mostly a protagonist's eye view and he's using a gun to mow down a whole slew of enemies - it's an FPS. Just like Call of Duty, mechanically - they're similar.
I know you take exception to my way of classifying games, but we really should drop the matter at hand lest we get into a flame war.
@Sunsetspawn: Well, I wouldn't attribute the Wall Street Journal as professional games reviewers, that falls within the remit of games journalists at this website for example. (Although I had to giggle when this website gave Dragon Age 2 a 5/5 rating.)
The writer for the WSJ was asked for his opinion of the game and he gave an honest opinion. Just because he disliked a game and knew little about gaming doesn't mean to say he cannot be allowed to publish his opinion on it - especially when his employers had asked him to do it. You can compare Borderlands to games like Call of Duty - they're both FPSes. At the crux of both games - they feature a protagonist's eye view as they kill numerous enemies by shooting them.
If the Wall Street Journal wanted to fill some space with a games review, they are perfectly entitled to do so. There's no law saying that financial publications can only print financial articles - if this website were to start writing music reviews or even film - it would still be very much within it's rights to do so.