The main problem with previewing a game like Borderlands 2 is that it’s hard to get a real feel for the thing in an out-of-context demo. When we spoke to Steve Gibson, the VP of Gearbox, he mentioned that one of things they wanted to really improve on was the core narrative, to help enhance the singleplayer experience. The segment we played through involved us hunting down some kind of animal, or something (not entirely sure myself), for some guy so he could help us do something else. Not the best of introductions perhaps, but Gibson would maintain they’ve done a better job of it this time around, and it’s interesting because you can actually look at the DLC for the first game to see where the team want to go with Borderlands 2.
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| Mwahahaha! CRY SOME MORE!! Mwaha- oh wait, wrong franchise |
Whilst they were restricted by the first game’s code base, and so couldn’t do everything they wanted to do, by the time the DLC started to roll out for Borderlands they had already seen how popular the concept was, and started to experiment with where they could go. Knoxx’s Armory especially, with the more involved story and a more involved protagonist, differing gameplay mechanics, etc… these were all experiments for the second game, and with any luck you’ll be able to see that when you get to play it.
At the moment, the best thing we can really say about Borderlands 2 is that it’s more of the same. There’s more guns, obviously, more customizable weapon systems, and a whole host of other changes that have already been documented, but again with such a limited demo it was hard to get a sense for any of them. Still, we had fun, and we got to play co-operatively with another person, which was good. Due to our prowess and imagination, we ended up both choosing the Gunzerker class (that and the new Siren were the only available classes). As basic as it is, it was quite fun to play – there’s no weapons you can’t handle, and the special ability is to dual wield any two guns for a limited about of time (Gunzerking). Find the right combination of weapons and it’s both ridiculously fun and effective.
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| Such a lovely night. Shame about all the monsters that want to kill you |
It was a real challenge as well, even with the extra person – the first obstacle we came across was getting into a complex, but before we could do that we needed to cripple a certain number of enemy robots so that the guys would come out to try and fix them – have you ever had to try and cripple a robot? Not easy, especially when they’re perfectly happy shooting back. An inventive and engaging way to structure a checkpoint, although that was the only such segment – after that it was pretty routine stuff where you need to clear out an area to move on. Still the variety of enemies was good and they dropped even more weapons for us to play with. Yay! Shame we didn’t get to fight the boss though – it was one of those demos where you see it come hulking along and then fade to black.
Borderlands 2 then. It’s game... and as far as we can tell it’s going to be an enjoyable one. We have a sneaking suspicion they may not have done enough to make the solo-experience that much more fun, but again, limited snapshot so we’ll have to reserve judgement for now. More of the same so far, but Gibson assures us the team is keen to continue experimenting and to try out new things, so perhaps they’ll surprise us again, eh? In case you couldn’t tell – yes, I have run out of things to talk about. Borderlands 2 is due out sometime in September 2012 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Most anticipated Feature: Finding the perfect combination of weapons for the Gunzerker.
