Zero Punctuation: Borderlands

[Wulver]

Yahtzee hit the nail on the head.
When you aren't killing Vorhees wannabes on Steroids, you're killing Rakk whose only real distinguishing feature is that some are really big and others are really green. Same with the Skags.

Split-screen multi annoyed the HELL out of me!!!
If I wanted to access the fast travel-network in 2-player split, I couldn't see the whole menu and it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out!
The only thing that split-multi is good for is if you wanna level up a lower character quickly.

Borderlands has definately made me appreciate Fallout 3 a lot more.

 

[VaporFox]

This game was too cartoonish for me to reaally even take it seriously

Well, the funny thing is, in the early production of Borderlands, they were actually going with a more gritty/realistic look for the game, but I guess they thought they'd get grouped in as a Fallout 3 clone, and somewhere along the line they scrapped it and went with the more cartoonish cel-shaded game we see now. Hard to say if it was a good or bad move at this point.

 

[Wulver]

Also, I hope sometime soon we see some more games reviewed that are a little further off the beaten path. Perhaps a DS game? Perhaps a really old game? Something different from "kill everything" genre of games would be nice.

Unfortunately, it seems that the "kill everything" games are all that the market has to offer right now. Cooking Mama DS will probably have an unlockable Katana soon.

 

[antigodoflife]

What's BioShock 2's Australian release date? (and for that matter, No More Heroes 2)

Bioshock 2 has been out for 3 days ... i has the special edition =3 (me wanted the shirt from the rapture edition though =( )

No More Heroes is released somewhere this or next month.

 

[Chaotic Neutral]

Haven't played the game, but I notice that for all the people bitching about how Yahtzee's not a "real critic," he and I have fairly similar tastes in gaming, and he generally does point out quite a few legitimate problems with the games he reviews.

In this case, I can safely say that a poor story, lack of enemy and mission variety, and a poor menu system would bug the shit out of me. And I like my games to have a good single player option too; if I were the sort of person who got on well with my fellow man, I'd probably be drinking a lot, having anonymous sex in public places, and watching American football, perhaps all three at the same time, and thus I wouldn't have the time for long, grind-style gaming. The man also made it very clear that the game didn't appeal to him for months before he finally caved to peer pressure; the fact that he used the review to emphasize just how much everything about it (and you, fanboys) pissed him off is not a surprise.

But if we're badgering him into reviewing games we know he'll hate just so that we can see exactly how much he loathes something we love, how about getting a review of BlazBlue? It can sort of be justified as reviewing the original to see if the sequel is worth getting, his self-admitted hatred of fighting games will undoubtedly come into play (providing the lulz), and I want to see his reaction to ICE CARZ!!!!! And Nu-13. JESUS CHRIST NU WITH HER SWORDS OH GOD IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS.

Hey, not that you need anyone telling you how to do your job, but since you caved in to do a Borderlands review I'll go ahead and tell you that you could write a fine XP article about how Borderlands could turn its sequel into a proper triple-A title. Anyone could list the obvious stuff - fully voiced and animated characters instead of paragraphs, more varied settings, more than three different missions - but I think I speak for all of us when I make an appeal to your intimidating machismo and god-like prowess by saying that only a manly man such as yourself could satisfy our curiosity by sharing your unearthly amount of wisdom.

Do you really think appealing to his sense of humility will work? I mean, I guess it was worth a shot, but I really can't see him being moved by that sort of thing.

 

[happyschnapps]

I was waiting for this one!

I was seriously pissed at the end of this game - Hello story where are you?!

 

[TangoZulu85]

I agree that this game didn't have much for it. Two most significant moments:
1. The very beginning, which has one of the more excellent and fitting songs that a video game has outsourced as opposed to being made for the game, and...
2. The very end... Which I think I'm agreeing with Happyschnaaps above, is the biggest cock-block in the history of gaming.

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Hey, not that you need anyone telling you how to do your job, but since you caved in to do a Borderlands review I'll go ahead and tell you that you could write a fine XP article about how Borderlands could turn its sequel into a proper triple-A title. Anyone could list the obvious stuff - fully voiced and animated characters instead of paragraphs, more varied settings, more than three different missions - but I think I speak for all of us when I make an appeal to your intimidating machismo and god-like prowess by saying that only a manly man such as yourself could satisfy our curiosity by sharing your unearthly amount of wisdom.

Do you really think appealing to his sense of humility will work? I mean, I guess it was worth a shot, but I really can't see him being moved by that sort of thing.

No, I honestly don't think he'll give a shit. I bet he doesn't even read these threads entirely. But yes, it's worth a shot... Sense of humility, lol.

 

[Harry Slaughter]

That's something that's really started to frustrate me with games now-a-days. In my small group of carefully selected friends, only two of us have an XBOX 360. One person has XBOX live. 4 player split-screen is nice, but they shouldn't expect a game to be able to ride on multiplayer alone. They especially shouldn't when the multiplayer is "Online Exclusive". It's becoming rare now, that games have splitscreen at all--God forbid I may actually want to sit next to my friend while I snip him as he hoplessly zig-zags around the map trying to dodge my bullets...Anyways. Borderlands isn't my thing. It's an Roleplaying game with FPS elements. You probably could've done the same thing with lightsabers isntead of guns, Narnia instead of an empty, bland desert, and a turret mounted flying purple dragon instead of a solid hunk of steel with wheels.

 

[glencsiro]

Wish he'd reviewed this before I handed out money for it and came to the same conclusion.

 

[Verbal Samurai]

I sense another Mailbag Showdown.

I hope so. That episode was hilarious.

 

[Tomster595]

Hahaha, fantastic review, I totally agree with everything.

 

[MadBlueWinnie]

Played Boarderlands and pretty much came to the same conclusion. I was very bored - even with 3 other players. AND THAT ROBOT PISSED ME OFF.
I ended up going back to Fallout 3, coz thats what Boaderlands made me wanna play - a GOOD apocalyptic RPG shooter.

 

[Enkidu88]

I was a bit disappointed that he didn't mention the ending of the game, I mean it was just begging for Yahtzee to tear it apart. Maybe he decided it was just too easy, but I think it would have made the video great rather than just good.

 

[VaporFox]

I was a bit disappointed that he didn't mention the ending of the game, I mean it was just begging for Yahtzee to tear it apart. Maybe he decided it was just too easy, but I think it would have made the video great rather than just good.

Gut instinct tells me he didn't even play it long enough to beat it. =P

 

[VaporFox]

It's an FPS with roleplaying elements.

Fixed. =P

 

[psychowatcher]

Okay, for some reason, whenever I look at any video, all that pops up is a 5 minute video running through a good number of the series they have here. Anyone else being denied their Yahtzee fix, or is it just me?

 

[mptothedc]

I just played this a week ago at my friends. It was just like playing WoW but as a first person shooter.

 

[Nomanslander]

Sounds like Yahtzee isn't liking Mass Effect 2 either...lol

Well, he said it'll take a couple weeks for him to be able to review it. This could mean one of two things:
1) He's taking a long time to get through it because it's longer than most of the stuff he does.
2) He likes it so freaking much he can't stop replaying it. (Unlikely, but potentially awesome.)

Yeah, but he called the game a gelatinous cube, meaning to say a dense game that sucks you in and never goes anywhere. Plus, if you watch his ME1 review he didn't exactly like that one either.

Anyways as for Borderlands....going into a scrapyard to shoot Jason Vorhees sounds about right, as good as the combat was it was too repetitive, then again the AI also kinda sucked...=/

Interesting how he experienced the same thing from online play as I did, every time I entered a random game I'd find three other players running off with a 8 year olds attention span and completely missing the point of cooperative gameplay. Good thing I had a couple friends to play with or the MP for me would have really sucked...=/

 

[KDR_11k]

At least SOMEBODY who gets paid for reviewing videogames found Borderlands as freaking boring as I did. I even tried playing it with friends but that made it even more boring. Hellgate London wipes the floor with this terrible game and HGL was hardly a paragon of gaming.

And I WISH there was an option to shut those fucking claptraps up because bullets won't do that particular job.