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Borderlands 2


Introduction

Often times it is said by some designers that open world RPGs are the bane of the industry often found to be extremely difficult and a very hard task to complete and deliver tremendously well. But to combine an FPS with an RPG is quite unheard of outside of fall out or borderlands. Today we are going back to a game that came out quite a while ago and Something I had never played the sequel to the infamous borderlands.

Borderlands 2 takes place on pandora, a world wealthy in resources, bullets, dead bandits, bandits, and monsters. It is controlled by a man called Handsome Jack who rules it with his evil coporation hyperion and holds it with an iron grip.

Handsome jack is an insane leader of hyperion a space born company from.... Somewhere. This games narrative focuses on big names that are memorable it is often a trick used by developers to get people to remember places rather quickly.

And everytime they introduce someone it is similar to this.



There are six characters you can choose and play as are
Axton: The Commando (Has a ranged Sentry Turret that can be upgraded with abilities that the commando can have access to.
Maya: The Siren (Has an ability that can lock people
Zero: The hunter, has a cloak ability that gives him power the longer he uses it
Salvador: The Gunzerker (can dual wield guns!)
Gaige: the mechromancer Has a giant robot that fights for here
Krieg : The Pyscho has a rage mode where he uses his axe thing to kill people.

These are the playable characters and they really don't talk that much to other characters and don't really converse as much as say as the main cast of NPCs. Who really don't do much other than sit around and let you do the work. Outside of the echo thingy they use to communicate you with.

Lilith (One of the Female Protoganists) and her costar Handsome Jack (The Antagonist) in terms of characters they kind of steal the whole show in terms of NPCs. As they were probably the most fleshed out characters in the entire cast by the end of the story.

They had a more interesting driving backstory than say the more marketable Moxxi. Which is basically a trademark of Borderlands 2... For some reason

The Pros




Borderlands 2 is the sequel to one of the games I found quite overrated (Borderlands 1) Finding its gameplay not as enjoyable as it's sequel. Where borderlands failed me in its first iteration the second iteration delievered on a compelling set of characters and a large variety of RPG elements. IT also developed its world far better and far faster than the previous world. The game became more interesting the more I played and had a curve and a difficulty curve as well. There wasn't many times where I had to grind an area to level. (not until late game)

The Game has a variety of enemies from the Hyperion army of robots, to bandits, to monsters, to pirates (DLC), to orcs (DLC), and bikers (DLC). The Variety of enemies is incredible in terms of how much you can do rather quickly in terms of gameplay and how fast gameplay is. It happens rather quickly with different types of weapons going off, the screen shaking when bombs go off and grenades shooting off effects.

Borderlands 2 has a compelling villian and a central story. Though it lacks in certain areas it delievers through its various gameplay and gunplay. The enemy varieties are quite vast compared to its predecessor, and its environments are upgraded to be a bit more spatious and more interesting. The sound developmentin general is probably one of the better ones I have heard in recent years. Borderlands 2 is a triumph of game design, where there are may things to do and provides many hours of entertainment. From Borderlands 2 I have played 50 hours of it. And I will continue to play it. Though it might not stand the test of time for much longer. AS the third game is fastly approaching in 2018 or 2019. The game itself seems to be what older games were like fun filled and not a gritty dark area of gaming. This era was very passionate and had interesting characters. I mean 2012 and 2013 was a great few years of gaming that still stands today as some of the best years of gaming.

Unlike Skyrim where the gameplay became quite old with no variety of weapons or the complete lack of a story. Borderlands 2 has a wonderful story. It has a simple one and it pays off. It is told in such a way that it makes it feel epic and interesting. Which was something many games fail to do correctly. This game tries very hard to sell itself in gameplay and from the trailers that is the major seller. This games success is mostly warranted by its preexisting IP and also because people saw the gameplay. They were lost in the visual look of the game which is rather unique compared to what was coming out at the time. (The Brown Era). This game appeals to sensationalists and those who wish to experience a world. Which is something not many games can do. In terms of graphics it looks like a comic book, with strong black lines and very colorful settings and characters. Though with a tinge of brown. (such was the era of graphics it was set in). The Graphics compliment the gameplay and the visuals are complimented by the gameplay. Where most games lack a true aesthic, borderlands 2 has its own unique aesthetic. And something that not many games have. This game delievers a setting in its own way and is an interesting and fun. The game's dialogue is clever and unique. Where there is alot of black comedy and funny intellectual comedy. The game becomes more interesting the more you dive into its optional quests which add depth to the world. The game becomes more and more interesting as time progresses. The quests lead to more interesting items and locations.

The bosses are all unique and interesting have their own styles to them, and feel like they belong in this world. And something that many games struggle to do. IT is said that boss battles are the pinnacle of games. To have a true epic fight we need to have a great villian and we have a great villain. Handsome Jack. The NPCs are fleshed out and have their own personalities and in this crazy world they do crazy things. And many of them are as blood thirsty as the bandits they face and as cunning as the corporation they face. Vehicles add what is needed in most games, exploration. Exploration is key to open world games, and is often a game pleasure people skip over. (I will talk about game pleasures soon.) Players want to explore, they want to find all the nooks and crannies that the developers have made, and all the secrets they have placed. Easter Eggs are quite common in games now. In every game there is an easter egg. And there will always be easter eggs, and some of them I stumbled upon and I found them clever. That is not something I would say to many other games and their secrets. (looks at Call of duty and shakes head in shame)

Borderlands 2 unlike many FPS's surprisingly has a health bar! If many do not know why this different it is mostly because health bars are the most gamy thing you can have in a game. And thats good. I will not try to go into details as to why this is a good thing, but most games have stepped away from health bars, and instead have resorted to the blood in your face technique instead of showing it on the character like Spec Ops The Line or even Dragon Age.

This game becomes more interesting the more I play it. But as I will cover later that is lost in many places.

The Cons




I do not know when it became popular to have certain boss sections to be near impossible solo, this is something as a trend in games that often I see as stupid and unneeded. As many people who do not have access to the internet and friends would find difficult. I am mainly looking at the finale boss fights. Which even at level 50 are still incredibly difficult. The game has many problems with it. Such is the bane of open world games. There are bound to be bugs. And niches that will not be filled. After finishing the main campaign I asked myself... What now? What do I do? There was nothing to do other than face terramorphus and buy the dlc. Though I will go into the DLC later on. The DLC itself is actually worth purchasing, but this is the negative talk here. So no more compliments....

In that after the main game was completed there was virtually nothing to do. There are no quests, there was no hunt this bandit group for funsises. There wasn't much to do other than hit the reset button and redo the campagin. Which initself was kind of dull. Its like someone telling you have to restart skyrim all the way at hearthglen, would anyone do that with the same character? No. Hell no. In terms of replaybility this game lacks in terms of that. Nothing changes, and nothing was different. there was no player choice there wasno reason to go back. That was something I enjoyed very much about other games such as life is strange, they are small choices but they have a big impact later on. This game does not have that player choice and as such the game suffers. You can't choose who gets to die and who gets to live. But such is life. Skyrim at least had a limited amount of choice but it still made your choices valuable, those small choices made up for many of the larger decisions.

I understand why they didn't do it, but as games progress forward the number 1 thing we as designers worry about is player choice, does a player have a meaningful choice in the matter? Does the player get choose their path? How does this affect gameplay? What should we as designers do to enforce this idea that the players are powerful or that they are weak. What are we going to do to ensure the player has meaningful choices? These are questions we ask ourselves as designers (Of course that is just a different outlook).

From what I have found a lack of characterization on the players we play. Other than audio logs that we find throughout the game. These characters should be more fleshed out unfortunately the game doesn't give a chance to have these characters actually be anything but a blank slate. Characters that are defined should be defined through gameplay and story. These characters are interesting it feels like they were going to but they just forgot midway in production about having to flesh these characters. There is also a lack of true customization outside of player color and what helmet you could wear. These characters are fully voice acted and have a unique look to them, they look like they were suppose to talk and make decisions other than go to point a to point b, which is what most of the quests come down to. The game does not get more complicated other than that. Also the fact that the skill tree is so limiting in that some skills are laughably more useful than other skills. Some skills don't even deserve mention. And that can be seen on many characters. The characters themselves feel like they should be a big part of the story and yet they are not. They are just as faceless as the enemies we face.

There is also the question of bringing life to a world and this just primary a gripe as a story teller and a world builder in order to give life to a world you need to have characters moving in the open world. Currently we see the Crimson raiders maybe once or twice throughout the game. And never actually firing their weapons? It might be that they lacked the time to put in this effort. But it would make it more interesting to see that happen to see the other characters interact in that way. The NPC's in particular don't do anything but stand around. In order to give life to a world just making them fight back gets rid of the immersion breaking features that this game has.

This game cracks apart once compared to an established IP like skyrim, or even Diablo. There are many great things about Borderlands 2. There are many problems akin to the first game. Where diablo 3 has fixed this error by adding in random locals and random corpses of people throughout the landscape. The World of Borderlands feels surprisingly empty.

I want to get involved in this world and characters, and I feel like I was just given a scoop and I want more of the characters and their interaction with the player. The gunplay does get boring after a while. As you face the same enemies over... And over... And over. It really starts to annoy you. Where borderlands goes wrong is that it lacks the variety of say diablo. Where each enemy is radically different from each other. With different abilities and a slew of other abilities that they can access. Unfortunately borderlands 2 fails in this regard in terms of enemy difficulty as you can stand at least a mile away and snipe the AI. Which is the way I beat most of the bosses.


As someone pointed out I needed to talk about.the guns... What can I say that has already been said? Other than they are unique? And change gameplay? That may seem big deal to some, but I really can't offer what is already been said. The guns are different they behave differently. And sometimes I was actually quite annoyed at how different some guns are, some guns do a ton of damage but the cooldowns are considerably high and shot darts. Darts... Not bullets. Darts.... I don't know if that was suppose to make the players powerful but overall I consider it to be quite weak compared to the other guns in the game. There are some guns that feel powerful and do powerful things and yet it doesn't . It may feel different to many but to me it just annoyed me. I know the differences between guns, but it became quite reptitive to actually to find that one gun from jakobs. Or that one gun from dahwls . Sometimes I didn't want that one gun that shot explosives, yes it might be better but it doesn't feel better. sometimes I wish it was like space marine were I could change it into kraken bolts or incendiary rounds. It just doesn't feel right to have these powerful guns that do all this on every single person. sometimes I would randomly die from explosive rounds, when I was hiding behinda corner all of a sudden thirty rounds of explosive bullets hit me and I don't know where the shots came from.

The penalty of death was asinine and dumb. Money? Money is incredibly stupid in this game. With three different types of currencies in the entire game this only makes it more useless to have cash other than to buy ammo. In my opinion they could of just combined the three into two. And the game would of been much better. The currency in the game was dropped so often that it is my same complaint with skyrim it was useless to collect gold other than to say I collected some gold. For what purpose? No idea. There is no money sink. There is nothing to spend this money on. There is no reason to buy from a vendor, and there is no reason to even collect cash.


To wrap things up, I enjoyed the game immensely and it still is a great game to this day. But it has many things that just break immersion. If you want to get immersed into a world deep with lore and history. Play the Witcher 3 (now coming to a store near you!). But if you want a game with excellent gunplay with some rpg elements, play borderlands 2. Borderlands is a series that will continue to improve and to be better, though I hope the next borderlands 3 delievers more on narrative and on the complaints I have with the series. As It may have great gameplay, not all great games just have great gameplay. FPS RPGs are a rare breed and something that I have little experience. I recommend this game completely to people who want a trip to the past.

Anyway I hope everyone enjoys this little piece before I dive into playing The Witcher 3 when it comes out.

How do you do a review on borderlands and not talk about the guns!!! It's like reviewing food and forgetting to eat it. I think I might have to call you out on this because you do it a lot in your reviews. Your very board and don't tend to tailor what you look at to the game.

nomotog wrote:
How do you do a review on borderlands and not talk about the guns!!! It's like reviewing food and forgetting to eat it. I think I might have to call you out on this because you do it a lot in your reviews. Your very board and don't tend to tailor what you look at to the game.

Well its similar to how I feel about guns in general. There are tools and weapons. They add a lot no doubt. But I could add that in.

I go in with a broad approach and I never specifically go after a single thing as that is often something that most reviewers try to do. I come at a broader point of view because in retrospect it is better to and I will not be to specific or else I go into it with a different frame of mind.

I want to remain as broad as possible to cater to a wider audience.

Ya you are too board and rather shallow. Your major failing is that you don't budget your focus well. A broad style doesn't work for every game. I would say it doesn't work for most games and that could be why most people don't do it. It's not just that your focusing your efforts on the wrong elements. Your also not spending enough time on the elements you are looking at. Your right that Lilith and jack are some of the more fleshed out characters, but you don't say why. I mean you barly describe them or their place in the world. (Fun fact. I played Lilith in the first game.)

A broad style doesn't appeal t a wide audience it appeals to no audience. You really need to give people something to chew on. People look for different things in a game and knowing your audience is important. You want to know what they want to know about and then give them that. Not everything. (My school teachers use to say everyone is not an audience )

Skipping over the guns though. That is an horrible misrepresentation of the game. BL is a loot game. It's a game where you collect loot. (see diablo and diablo clones) The big difference is how BL handles their loot. In a game like diablo, New loot means bigger numbers, but finding a cool new sword doesn't really change how you play the game. (The game changing stuff is left in skills.) BL is a almost inversion of this. Each gun you find changes how you play. You move in close when using an masher, but try to keep your distance when using a bulldog. (Your skills are more the number buffers, but some of them are game changers in themselves.)

nomotog wrote:
Ya you are too board and rather shallow. Your major failing is that you don't budget your focus well. A broad style doesn't work for every game. I would say it doesn't work for most games and that could be why most people don't do it. It's not just that your focusing your efforts on the wrong elements. Your also not spending enough time on the elements you are looking at. Your right that Lilith and jack are some of the more fleshed out characters, but you don't say why. I mean you barly describe them or their place in the world. (Fun fact. I played Lilith in the first game.)

A broad style doesn't appeal t a wide audience it appeals to no audience. You really need to give people something to chew on. People look for different things in a game and knowing your audience is important. You want to know what they want to know about and then give them that. Not everything. (My school teachers use to say everyone is not an audience )

Skipping over the guns though. That is an horrible misrepresentation of the game. BL is a loot game. It's a game where you collect loot. (see diablo and diablo clones) The big difference is how BL handles their loot. In a game like diablo, New loot means bigger numbers, but finding a cool new sword doesn't really change how you play the game. (The game changing stuff is left in skills.) BL is a almost inversion of this. Each gun you find changes how you play. You move in close when using an masher, but try to keep your distance when using a bulldog. (Your skills are more the number buffers, but some of them are game changers in themselves.)

Alrighty after a little bit of a thinking and brainstorming. I can come down to this. I mostly based it on game pleasures and what I found in the game.

To me the guns weren't the appealing part to you it might be the guns but to me I found the narrative and the sensation it brought me more compelling than the guns.

The guns were varied and did change gameplay but not to the degree that I was originally promised. And I didn't find it compelling enough. I found it more of an issue that it did change gameplay. It was too radical and sometimes too drastic of a change.

Episode 3 of Life Is Strange came out out yesterday, have you played it? That ending...

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Episode 3 of Life Is Strange came out out yesterday, have you played it? That ending...

Just got back!

Yes I played it and I enjoyed the helk out of it. Loved it and I gasped, I cried and Really wanted to play the next episode. Ugh episodic games are becoming problem currently. But man Chloe...... That story has become quite interesting and I have talked to alot of people about it. And many have agreed it has become quite surprising I might need to revisit my review at some point to update it.

but one thing.....





Also... I have been playing Witcher 3 Wild Hunt....

And well.... I am going to break a rule I am going to review a game and break it apart. And I am going to be focusing on open world immersion.

I think the game will end with Max learning the truth about Rachel and the Vortex club, but all the timeline breaking changes she's made will still destroy Arcadia Bay. Max will have no choice but to go back to the original bathroom scene with Chloe and Nathan where She'll have a choice.



And I make no claims to have come up with all that on my own, I watch Geek Remix. She has some great Theory videos.

https://m.youtube.com/#/user/GeekRemix

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I think the game will end with Max learning the truth about Rachel and the Vortex club, but all the timeline breaking changes she's made will still destroy Arcadia Bay. Max will have no choice but to go back to the original bathroom scene with Chloe and Nathan where She'll have a choice.

Spoiler:

Let Chloe go?
Or sacrifice herself to save Chloe by intervening directly?

Either way, Nathan is arrested for murder, and his associates in the Vortex club and possibly some of the Blackwell teachers, are investigated and the truth will come out. Rachel is found, and people believe Kate.

If it's Max, she's hailed as a hero for saving Chloe. Chloe enters one of Max's selfies in the Everyday Hero contest, and Max wins. Posthumously.

Sacrificing herself in the bathroom is Max's loophole, her way to change the future and save Chloe without breaking the timeline. Everything else she's tried has failed, and just contributes to Arcadias destruction.

And I make no claims to have come up with all that on my own, I watch Geek Remix. She has some great Theory videos.

https://m.youtube.com/#/user/GeekRemix

Yeah I have had that same discussion with people and we all believe it is heading down that direction. (And good thing too)

Its been abounding rumours about Rachael

So a bit of an update. Started playing Talos Principle here are my thoughts on the game as a whole and its philosophies it brought up.

Talos Principle so far has been a delight, asking me questions I do not know the answer to. Often times the best answer is saying I don't Know.



Now lets talk about the game!

Hurray!

Talos Principle is a puzzle solving game that feels similar to portal but isn't in anyway. Talos is basically a very dark look at life after humanities destruction. This game delivers lots of messages and very strong opinions on life, mortality, living, death, and philosophies in general.

It is no wonder that someone like me, who enjoys the philosophers of Kant, John Donne and several others to enjoy a game like this that makes references to these philosophers. The game mechanics in it themselves are enjoyable and fun, and interesting. So far I have beaten the game but I took my time, it took me roughly 12 hours to beat it. And I bought it the beginning of last weekend. I just played it for an hour or maybe two, but I haven't played it excessively. This game is incredible in that it asks you to be in a certain frame of mind, you have to think about the puzzles that you are doing. It continues and builds on what was previous. The game gets incredibly difficult in terms of puzzle solving but then again it is using mechanics you already know. It is just combining them interesting ways.

The visuals and story of this game are the heart of it. It asks so many questions that many would find hard to answer. Many of which I would share with people and ask them questions about life and death.

Though this game also brings to the table two very interesting characters, Eli ohm, and Milton. Elohim is a god like character in this world. As you delve into the story and into the game further, you will learn more and more about it and these characters and why all this is happening.

You will find throughout the game letters and voice logs. In combination that sounded interesting and also very peculiar. As the game progress, you start to learn more and more about the world you are in. You are asked questions you are tricked into thinking about things and you learn more about philosophies and ideologies of the world. And what happened to the human race.

This game asks difficult questions and is probably the greatest example of a truly dark game.

Now this game be forewarned is all about reading, understanding, listening, patience, and problem solving. This game is not for those who want to play a game because it has action. This is not like portal, but it does have its similarities and several secrets that hint a greater relationship to portal....

Though I think I have talked enough about it and I recommend this game to anyone that needs a good puzzle game or for people that just want to sit down and read philosophies.




Update




Anyway this is an update. Sorry I haven't been to write something up and talking about these two games. I know people actually read what I write. And in all honesty I am glad I have some people reading them.

So I just completed the Talos Principle again. And I would like to talk about it! AGAIN!

Yeah.... So I was playing the game I thought in order to capture what is going on in this world here is a brief taste of the audio logs. You can tell alot about a game by the use of its audio and its story conveying it does. Either Indirectly through audio logs and/or the written stories we read throughout the game. I found all of them after many trials (These audio logs and written logs). And I started to cry. Yeah. I am admitting that to everyone. I cried, I realized something and it shook me to the core. I hope you guys really did take my recommendation to heart as there is a spoiler ahead. If you would not like to hear these audio logs. Then don't listen to it. And just play the game. Find them, they are pretty easy to find, and one of the best voice overs I have ever heard.

This game specializes in something call indirect story telling or nonlinear story telling meaning, the story telling is optional. You have a choice to read through it. It is all choice. If you do you can play it like a normal puzzle game.

This is where I begin to say. That I have never read a more put together storyline than this. I cried, and i wept, I read through things that were so absurd that it stopped me, and caused me to have a crisis of idealism and where my place is in the world. It sucked me in and turned me into the person I am now. It is a journey of you, if you let it. A journey to let you learn about the world and philisophies. If you let it. Talos is a teacher, you are the student, you may think you know everything but in reality, you know nothing. Other than you are a small insignificant other.




But I will reveal something else.

The main point of talos principle. Ready?



Give it a try. And if you don't thats up to you. I can't keep talking about this game enough, but it is one of my most favorite games to come out in the past decade. I hope you guys enjoy this game. And this is asherian's last time writing about Game Design for a bit. I have other projects and a book I have to get to. And my regret in all this is that I can't devote to both here, my blog, and my book. But my book comes first, that, school work, getting a job, and my family. It is sad but I have to devote time to what I need to do.

So I promised I would talk about Wolfenstien the new order and Witcher 3.

Here is my summary of those two:

They are fantastic. I don't need to tell you what they did right in terms of game design, because it is evident by how great the material is and how interesting; thought provoking those games are. Either it be with Ciri or Geralt's father and daughter relationship. Or just the way it protrays women in a positive way. I don't know what I could say that would improve on that.

Wolfenstien on the other hand, solid first person shooter. one of the best I have played in a long time. It reminds me of Fear 1. In terms of pacing, and characters. There is a singular villian and your back up, the choices menial to the main storyline. I played it on the hardest difficulty and enjoyed it. These two games really reminded me of what I wanted to do as a designer, which is design games and have people enjoy the worlds I make. I don't think I should reveal why I wish to make games, but lets just say its very personal. Something I don't tell anyone, unless you happen to be a girl I am trying to impress.


If I have disappointed anyone by 'wussing' out by sorta quitting just know, I would love to talk about games, but these things take quite a while to think about, to write, and to think of a subject matter. I think I have covered enough in here to fill a short novel. And I believe I should stop talking about games and start making them. And start making the stories I wish to tell.

Lets just say playing this game (Talos) revealed to me my own sense of mortality. How finite my life is, how I can't devote the resources I have to be able to see the things I want done through. There has to be cuts somewhere. Especially after a discovery I made a few weeks ago. Anyway I hope someone can take my mantle until I get back, hopefully improve what I started. Going about by writing about games and showing the love we all have for them. If someone volunteers that would be great, as someone like me it would be interesting to see a new prospective from someone else.