Zero Punctuation: Borderlands

DrummerM

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Nov 24, 2008
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Nice review, loved the beginning.

One small observation: At 23 seconds in is that the Bonesaw from Team Fortress 2? (Someone may have brought this up already, sorry)
 

Anticitizen_Two

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Jan 18, 2010
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I didn't think Borderlands was at all deserving of the praise it received. It's good to see Yahtzee slam it into the ground. And although I hate to nag, I would love to see another mailbag showdown, which would be even more enjoyable than the last one because it would be about a game I don't like.
 

MasterSplinter

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Jul 8, 2009
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Don't anyone else think Yahtzee didn't finish the game? I think he would have been much more harder on the story if he did.


For me it was kinda cool to shoot people in the face ten thousand times and gain something in the way, not like in normal fps where the abilities you have when you start are pretty much the same than when you finish.

And yeah, I´ve been playing for like 50+ hours on single player, there must be something very wrong with me.
 

Aptspire

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Get ready for the massive wave of whine that is gonna be about reviewing Bioshock 2!!!
although most of it feels legit :O
 

Andaxay

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Jun 4, 2008
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I was definitely in need of a good belly-laugh. I was expecting a pretty scathing review, and he didn't disappoint.

Surprised he didn't mention the whole "World of Warcraft mixed with Fallout 3" feel to it. 'Cause that's exactly what it feels like. I'm a little tired of barren wastelands, too, bring back more environments like Oblivion's!
 

AlternatePFG

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MasterSplinter said:
Don't anyone else think Yahtzee didn't finish the game? I think he would have been much more harder on the story if he did.
Yes. The ending and final boss were probably one of the worst I've ever seen in a game.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Dec 6, 2009
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Hilarious that after all the pandering to review Borderlands most of these comments are something along the lines of: "Borderlands? Why not Mass Effect 2?"

I had fun with Borderlands, but in hindsight I was playing with my brother and I can imagine it would have been a lot less fun fighting hordes of monsters who are only vulnerable on their arse in singleplayer. For a game that sells itself as being all about co-op, Borderlands has no loot management system other than "free for all" so it's practically designed to make you hate everyone on your team. Also, I completely agree that the robot was designed to be as annoying as possible. Really this game's only charm is the humour (naming bosses "Helob" and "Skagzilla" gave me a brief chuckle) and the constant Diabloesque bait of more guns, and by the time I tried to start a second character I felt like I was already over it.
 

the1ultimate

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Apr 7, 2009
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I wonder if Yahtzee is doing himself any good in the long run by caving in to pressure? Sounds like the fans won out, and as a consequence will continue using their established strategy.

Also the guns were mentioned, but not the fact that most of the guns are very much the same gun with different stats.
 

Caiti Voltaire

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Feb 10, 2010
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Credge said:
I take it you haven't played Borderlands.

It also looks like you have a completely ass-backwards view of what random loot is.

Random loot doesn't mean "OH MY GOD I FUCKING HATE GRINDING THIS I GET NO ITEMS EVER MAN I WANT THE BEST LOOT EVER FUUUCK!" No, that's you. Random loot means that there is a percentage chance that an item will drop.

It doesn't mean that you're going to scour the wastes for a better weapon. In fact, you'll find weapons that are vastly better than the one you have once every 15 minutes. At least. Hell, I've had a boss drop a set of weapons all of which were better than what I've had.

Your idea of random is skewed. This isn't Diablo 2 where a Zod rune has a 0.000012% chance of dropping. This is Borderlands where *insert specific item with varied stats here* has an incredibly high chance from dropping from *insert specific monster found in a specific area*.

ON TOP OF that, you have 100% guaranteed drops from certain enemies AND on top of that you have the Zod rune style drops.

If your problem is that you want the best of the best, that's not a mechanic problem.
I really like the things I get to not be the same item copypasted till my processor melts but OH HEY LOOK THEY HAVE DIFFERENT STATS. It's poor design and if you like that sort of thing you really should be playing Warcraft 4 or whatever number the expansions are theoretically on if we used numbers.

And yes, if you actually made the grand step of actually reading my posts you realise that I have indeed play the game. I know, it must be terribly shocking that someone could play a bland game like this and not like it. Mind-boggling.
 

LWS666

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Nov 5, 2009
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i played BL single player, and it wasn't good.

i played it co-op, and the only guy i know who has this game was using modded weapons. it's REALLY boring when playing with someone 10 levels higher than you with infinite ammo guns that fire 5 rounds a second and kill anything in one hit.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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Am I the only one who has never heard of Borderlands?

Also, I would LOVE to see Yahtzee review Final Fantasy XIII, if only because he hates it so much.
 

Caiti Voltaire

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Sir John the Net Knight said:
The "MMO" tag doesn't apply to Borderlands, as I see it. It's Diablo-esqe, no doubt. But you can play BL in short spurts and aren't required to get 24 friends, 4 friends or even any friends to get things done. And these mechanics really aren't coffin nails because, when I last checked, Diablo 2 still had an extremely large player base. And comparing Borderlands to EVE isn't just wrong, it's sad.

But don't worry, Padawan. You'll get over your starry-eyed affection with Yahtzee. We all do, eventually.
Hi, my name is Maya, you can also call me by my forum handle, Caiti Voltaire, taken from the recurring name for my characters. My opinions are my own. Yahtzee doesn't need to defend him, he has his own scathing wit for that, if you can call it that. I don't always agree with him, but on the topic of Borderlands I find that I most wholeheartedly do. You can take that for the amount you want to believe it, I suppose, because if you want to believe I'm just hero-worshipping Yahtzee like some drooling Firefly/Buffy/Joss Whedon fangirl-zombie there really isn't anything I can do that's going to make you get a clue.

To address the point of not needing a legion to accomplish things in Borderlands, you can do most MMORPGs alone too, if you're an antisocial tard or some sort of masochist, but you're probably missing the point of them as you do, and really that seems to be the point of Borderlands too. So much of the game consists of vacuous matter you either won't want to do or don't bother with because it's a leftover level one quest and you're level GOD. Really you could probably remove half of the vaunted play time people get out of Borderlands if you removed half of this vacuous matter.

And to address the "Diablo made it" comment, I can only say, Ultima Online was doing tireless point and click grind with horrid interfaces long long before Diablo was, although Diablo at least had an interface that didn't feel like a swiss army knife with a child safety designed by Hitler.
 

Flying Dagger

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Apr 14, 2009
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After watching this video, i decided to go back to it.
6 hours later (excluding the time i was forced to go make everyone dinner) and i can say i played it solidly (single player)
things he should have mentioned :
Cartoony graphics that really do relay the vibe of the game.
Atmosphere and immersion - even if you are shooting the same few characters over and over (serious sam proved this isn't a fault) I felt drawn to the next encounter, and the firefights were always gritty - especially against the crimson lance.
BUT
Big bosses were usually easy, fighting against several smaller bosses was bloody impossible (this one time i suddenly found myself up against two badass bruisers, both with rocket launchers, one boss bandit, with a rocket launcher, and two huge rocket firing gun turrets, which all jumped out at me (i'm not sure how the gun turrets can jump out at me but they managed it. being lilith i phasewalked when i got hit by a couple rockets, took cover beside the wall, but rockets were exploding everywhere and i ran out of health behind cover with no enemies in my line of sight. which leads me to
"second wind" as a death mechanic. sure they needed to put in something that allows you to bypass being rescued by a friend, but this mechanic makes absolutely no sense. if you lose all your health by standing too close to some ammo crates that you don't expect to blow up, with no enemies in sight, you are a goner, but if there's a whole bunch of them around, you are fine.
Just having guns with different statistics doesn't make it a RPG, it's a shooter, and one that has less character traits to choose from then torchlight, which he bashed for not being customisable enough.

Though i'm still going to go back and play it some more, and the fact that you still level up the second time you play it does add point to replaying it, which is more then can be said for most games. I do get the feeling he hasn't played it in a while though.
Has yahtzee Lost friends since he reviewed L4D? i think he is just making excuses, and if he ever needs to find people to play with he should try getting a few people off the escapist to play with him.