Borderlands 2 Announced

Today, after Eurogamer spilled the beans earlier than Randy Pitchford would have liked, Gearbox and 2K Games officially announced Borderlands 2, the sequel to 2009's well-received shooter/RPG. It's planned for sometime between April 2012 and April 2013, and will be available on the PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows. Gearbox plans to demonstrate the game in its current state during Gamescom and PAX Prime later this month.

Comments

Who cares!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's Half Life 2 Episode 3?

Re:Who cares!

[blair1q]

Where's Duke Nukem Forever?

That hoax release from earlier this year was a good laugh, but, seriously, when's the real one coming out?

Re:Who cares!

[interkin3tic]

In development at a different company. Possibly in the "To do" list right after left 4 dead 3 through 7.

Re:Who cares!

[bertoelcon]

Valve doesn't know what a 3 is, the next game they make will probably be DOTA2.

Re:Who cares!

[stillnotelf]

Left 4 Dead 4: The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

Re:Who cares!

[lostthoughts54]

if that was the name i would pre-order today with nothing else to go on.

Re:Who cares!

[DarthJohn]

Left 4 Dead 5: The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

FTFY

One, two, five.
Three sir!
Three!

Spoiler, don't read this

[vlm]

spilled the beans

I have some secret corporate knowledge about this game... Here comes my NDA violation.... wait for it... "you run around and shoot things and people."

My god I can't believe I gave away the secret. Sorry if I ruined it for anyone; can't blame me, I used a "spoiler" tag in the subject. Everyone act surprised when it turns out I was correct, mkay?

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

Most gaming mags/sites are nothing more that advertising drones for all the gaming companies. They're performing free work and telling everyone what the developers/publishers want most of the time.

The fact Pitchfuck got all pissy that someone actually did their reporting job for once, tells us all we need to know.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Peteroo]

There's a lot of truth to this. It's a trade-driven press -- not a news-driven press -- and I'm always happy to see a publication stop acting like a serf and break form. The challenge is going to be getting publishers and developers to accept that they need to be covered like any other industry -- and getting more pubs to behave like journalists.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PopeRatzo]

"you run around and shoot things and people."

I want to know why Borderlands was ever referred to as a "shooter/RPG". In what way can Borderlands possibly be considered an RPG?

I can tell a lot of work went into Borderlands, but I can't think of a game that was so well-made that I got tired of so quickly. Same thing over and over and over. No incentive at all to do the things you're supposed to do.

I see that there are a lot of these games out now. Games where you get dropped into a world of a lot of characters exactly like you except maybe dressed differently and everybody's trying to kill everybody.

Exhausting, really. I can't imagine what part of the brain a game like Borderlands is supposed to stimulate. Maybe the amygdala, except the amygdala figures out in about .5 seconds that none of it is real so it goes back to sleep.

I don't care for games where there is abundant running around and shooting and screaming and killing and your still waiting for something to happen. But it never does...

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care for games where there is abundant running around and shooting and screaming and killing and your still waiting for something to happen. But it never does...

I don't care for people who don't know the difference between your and you're...

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Quiet_Desperation]

All that being said, Game Informer is still great bathroom reading. Hell, they seem to basically acknowledge their nature these days. The review section is tiny and way in the back.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

I can tell a lot of work went into Borderlands, but I can't think of a game that was so well-made that I got tired of so quickly. Same thing over and over and over. No incentive at all to do the things you're supposed to do.

You're right, the hundreds of people who think it was an awesome mix of FPS and RPG are wrong, and your single, solitary idea is right. Even after YEARS of existence!

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[gman003]

I dunno. I enjoyed it. The shooting was actually fun, and the weapon variety was cool. Got repetitive at times, yeah, especially near the beginning. But I was always enjoying myself enough to keep playing - more than I can say for a ton of other games.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

Run around, shoot and loot is fun when played in co-op with friends.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Quiet_Desperation]

They called it a role playing shooter. It's basically an FPS with light RPG elements. You level up your character, your proficiency in various weapon types (just by using them), and there's a simple ability tree that grant various powers. Lots of loot in the form of weapons, shields, grenade mods and class mods which give you extras like boosted shields or ammo regeneration.

It was just a tightly coded bundle of fun with a breezy little story and a good sense of humor. Seemed generally inoffensive to me, but I guess some people thrive on being offended.

I loved the game, and I'm someone who also loves deep RPGs where the stats screens look like spreadsheets. I get bored of a genre if I play it too much, though, so I play all sorts of game types. I like RPG. I like FPS. I like platformers. Puzzle games. Whatever. Why limit yourself?

I don't care for games where there is abundant running around and shooting and screaming and killing

Well, some people do, especially in co-op with friends. Gosh, I hope that's OK, good sir.

I guess we should all be playing À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu: The Video Game.

Maybe the amygdala, except the amygdala figures out in about .5 seconds that none of it is real so it goes back to sleep.

Yeah, my brain figures out pretty much every game isn't real. It's good at that.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Colourspace]

Clearly, none of you have read gamesTM or Edge. Thank fuck we still have the British press for objectivity and integrity. Now go back to your copy of XBOXNOW!!!1111 iz aces.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[N0Man74]

"you run around and shoot things and people."

I want to know why Borderlands was ever referred to as a "shooter/RPG". In what way can Borderlands possibly be considered an RPG?

The same way that Diablo is sometimes referred to as an RPG. Now we both may not entirely agree with that categorization either, but it is seen as an Action RPG, and Borderlands shares much more with Diablo than it does with a typical FPS.

Both games include classes, leveling mechanics, hit points, talent trees, equipment, character stats, large amounts of random loot, and a simplistic storyline that provides the motivation to kill some monsters / bad guys and loot the bodies.

It may be hack 'n slash, but it's not really any more of a stretch than Diablo. Though many modern games have incorporated RPG elements into them, even if they aren't actually RPGs themselves.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Colourspace]

PS, not including the News of the World in this...

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PopeRatzo]

The same way that Diablo is sometimes referred to as an RPG.

I guess I take the "role" in "role playing game" too literally.

To me, "role" indicates some dramatic arc, some story, some goal. There is a lot that is good and interesting about Borderlands, but nobody can say there is a dramatic arc.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PopeRatzo]

It was just a tightly coded bundle of fun with a breezy little story and a good sense of humor. Seemed generally inoffensive to me, but I guess some people thrive on being offended.

Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to love Borderlands. The mechanics, the interface, the art direction were all very nice.

I just never got the answer to the question, "and why am I running around doing all this shooting?"

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Luckyo]

The world is DEAD! The DRAMA!

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Khyber]

You were running around shooting shit because shit was shooting at you from the very beginning! You wanna live or die?

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[nschubach]

Technically, you take on the "role" of a mercenary on a mission to find a great vault of treasure and fame (goal.) It's all explained in the intro (back story.) ;)

In order to find that vault, you are forced to work with the people living on the planet in order to get whatever information you can, all the while hearing their stories and helping them with their plight. (story)

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[SpryGuy]

I guess I couldn't disagree with you more. For me, Borderlands had more replay value than any other game I've played, save for maybe Fallout 3.

I played through with each character (very different play styles), and then did playthrough 2 with each character (actually, still have to complete one character). Not to mention the four DLCs (three of the four being outstanding).

I played through all of Playthrough 2 and three of the four DLCs with one character in co-op mode with a good friend. Had a BLAST. Laughed a lot too... it's just really fun, and even more fun co-op.

And I just love the collecting. I think it's the same area of the brain that "Diablo 2" tickled... loot!

Anyway, Borderlands is easily my favorite game ever, and I'm eagerly waiting for Borderlands 2.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PopeRatzo]

I guess I couldn't disagree with you more. For me, Borderlands had more replay value than any other game I've played, save for maybe Fallout 3.

I played through with each character (very different play styles), and then did playthrough 2 with each character (actually, still have to complete one character). Not to mention the four DLCs (three of the four being outstanding).

I played through all of Playthrough 2 and three of the four DLCs with one character in co-op mode with a good friend. Had a BLAST. Laughed a lot too... it's just really fun, and even more fun co-op.

And I just love the collecting. I think it's the same area of the brain that "Diablo 2" tickled... loot!

Anyway, Borderlands is easily my favorite game ever, and I'm eagerly waiting for Borderlands 2.

More proof that for every funny foot, there's a funny shoe.

Let's agree that it's a good thing if there are games to satisfy both our tastes. I'm glad that you enjoyed Borderlands so much. Having fun with a game that engages is one of my favorite things, immediately following raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and 2 girls 1cup.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Dreth]

There's no real reason, the storyline is borderline nonexistent, it's pathetic to try and pass this game off as decent. Horribly mundane, I would understand if it were a multiplayer-experience only but it's not, it's marketed also towards single-playing gamers and I'm one of those.

To me it's a shame this crap gets made and we still haven't seen Bionic Commando's sequel.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PopeRatzo]

Technically, you take on the "role" of a mercenary on a mission to find a great vault of treasure and fame (goal.) It's all explained in the intro (back story.) ;)

If it's trivial enough for the developers to allow you to skip by using the ESC key, it can hardly be called a "backstory".

[actually, I don't know if the developers of Borderlands allow the player to skip the intro, but it was such a good thought, I figured I'd go ahead and use it]

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

Tiny and way in the back? Sound like Rob Malda's pecker!

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been stolen to mean amature accountant bait.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[aXis100]

I agree, it was a very simple and repetive game that should have gotten boring quickly, but for some reason I absolutely loved it. I spent more hours playing it and all of the DLC's co-op than any other game I have every owned.

The rotoscoped grahics were cool, the characters were fun, the intensity of big shootouts was exciting, and I think the main part - the elusive hunt for better gear was addictive. Properly addictive - stimulating the reward centers of your brain, just like a poker machine.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[PopeRatzo]

just like a poker machine

That wasn't a very flattering comparison.

I'm not sure I want that kind of stimulation.

But OK, as I said for the first few hours it was a kick. I just couldn't see the missions going anywhere I wanted to go. The artwork was terrific, though. Very fun.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? It had up to 4 player online co-op. It's still one of the best co-op shooters out there.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[joocemann]

You clearly didn't play it. That's why it doesn't make sense to you.

Go play it.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[joocemann]

Now you're trying to hide the foot in your mouth. Come on, man. There is a story that builds and has drama. But what about having a 'role' and 'playing' it necessitates a 'dramatic arc' anyway? You're just trying too hard to say its not an RPG despite your blatant ignorance to having played it. (If you've played it, please get an IQ test and report back immediately.)

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[lostthoughts54]

Stats and leveling up. Thats all thats required to be considered part of the RPG grouping., Aside from that i love borderlands. Nice light fun, and Scooter cracks me up. No heavy story just hop in, grab a few missions, and blow stuff up.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[steppin_razor_LA]

Agreed. My wife and I have played through every character. I'm not going to say it is the best game ever made, but it has been one of the funnest games to play for us.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[Xest]

"In what way can Borderlands possibly be considered an RPG?"

Levels, stats, quests. You know, the key elements of an RPG.

I don't disagree that it was a bit boring though, I still found myself playing it a lot, but I think that was more because it was fun to prat around whilst talking to 3 friends, rather than because the game was inherently fun or had an enjoyable storyline. I think if I played it solo I'd have been bored after about 1 minute.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[AP31R0N]

In the world of video games, any game with stats is lumped in with RPGs. Counter Strike does not have stats (or classes or levels) and so is just a shooter. Personally, i wouldn't call it an RPG, you don't make your character or any real choices.

i'm going to let you in on a secret. People who aren't you are different than you. They like different things. Which of course makes them evil and stupid. Now you can both understand why things you don't like are sometimes liked by others AND enjoy that warm feeling of superiority.

Re:Spoiler, don't read this

[AP31R0N]

You forgot:

Shallow and pedantic.

Insists upon itself.

Hope they improve it

[Gr33nJ3ll0]

I was not a big fan of the respawning, or randomness of much of the game. In a lot of ways it felt like a MMORPG without the MMO. I would have like a lot more scripting, and more interesting opponents.

Re:Hope they improve it

[interkin3tic]

No, it felt like a primarily multiplayer game, which it was. There are a lot of numbers between "one" and "many." It's not a MMO, but it is a multiplayer game. The respawn worked well for that, and was a lot less annoying than the "revert to last save" most single player shooters go with. You only lost money and ammo, which both were handed out like candy on haloween anyway. I think it worked well.

Randomness? I'm not quite sure what you mean there. Random unique weapon drops with tons of different possible features? That was one of the stronger points of the game.

I do agree more scripting and less "read this text, that's the plot" would have been nice, and the opponents didn't have much in the way of character beyond what they looked like. Judging by the DLC for the first one, that's where they're going. Nearly every opponent had more character in each DLC than any in the main game. Plotwise, the original game's plot was serious and completely bland. All the DLC since then have had comedic plots. So they're moving in the right direction, the DLCs were all better than the main game. (Except for mad moxie, that one was a complete waste.)

Re:Hope they improve it

[PitaBred]

Mad Moxxi lets me store my extra guns so I can collect more... it's not a complete waste ;) Well... maybe in terms of it should have been in the base game, but...

Re:Hope they improve it

[Lanteran]

An MMORPG without the MMO? Around here, we call that an RPG.

Re:Hope they improve it

[wagnerrp]

He means a traditional RPG is story driven, and you progress your character through the story. In Borderlands, the story was ancillary, and served to tie one boss battle to the next. In that respect, it was more like a dungeon grinder (Diablo) or an MMORPG, where the goal is to become more powerful, explore, and collect cool loot, rather than to actually win the game.

It's a valid point, and if you enjoy that style of play, then Borderlands was an amusing game. It's just a terrible way to state it.

Re:Hope they improve it

[Anonymous Coward]

I can say that the lack of scripting helped immensely in the multiplayer aspect of Borderlands. I have played through both difficulties multiple times with different sets of friends. I had some friends who were interested in the story and read through every little bit of text and listened intently do every bit of dialogue. Yet, I had other friends whose approach was "finished mission, hand in mission, go kill things, woo" (although they were surprisingly slow at inventory management).

This game catered to all of them. The only people it didn't cater for were a subset of the single players that wanted scripted story.

Re:Hope they improve it

[Polo]

I *loved* the way you died. It was clever and made for a really fun game.

If you die during a firefight, a progress bar starts emptying and you can "save" yourself from dying by killing an enemy before it finishes.

Also, if you're not going to make it, your friends can come over and revive you.

And if you do end up dying, you lose like 10% of your cash, that's all.

All this makes you wade in hip deep into the mayhem.

The randomness didn't really matter. It keeps the game replayable, because we all know, a random reward is much more powerful than a predictable one. :)

Re:Hope they improve it

[gknoy]

Exactly. Borderlands is First Person Diablo With Guns. It is also Tremendous Fun when played with friends.

Re:Hope they improve it

[hitmark]

I think the more generic term is "action RPG". That is, story is secondary to beefing up the character via repeated combat and loot collecting.

Finally!

[kurzweilfreak]

Yay! And... fourth! *lol*

Not surprised

[Hsien-Ko]

Now if we get a nice wider FOV, some more weapon variety (like "throwers" of material, flame/ice/acid/etlectric throwers/tossers etc), movement and control that don't feel like ass, no "ONE TIME EVER CODE!" dlc, and actual community modding support, we'd be golden.

PC gamers want real options

[IronSight]

I just logged out of borderlands online play to see this, so it is a good surprise. One thing I hope they do is realize the PC version can be much better than the console versions. The pc version was defaulting to directx 9 mode with none of the special goodies the unreal engine can do in DX10 mode. Luckily someone figured out how to edit the config files to remove the console feel and make it look like a real modern game for the most part. I hope for their next game they put full detail options into the options menu instead of having to make us track down config file switches to make it run like a modern pc game, instead of a straight console port. Also, press to talk on the voice chat would be more useful than keeping my mic on the entire game while you can hear my kids in the background, or phone calls, or the sound of my shooting in the microphone. Hrm, also if you could, fix it so I can buy game of the year edition on steam after I bought it after it first came out, so I can get all the dlc for cheaper than actually buying all the dlc separately or making another steam account just for 1 game. Other than that, Borderlands is a good game for me, I like coop play, and i do like the randomness of weapon drops.

Maybe this time...

[druiid]

They won't use a crappy game network like Gamespy so, you know, I'll actually be able to play it online. I literally never got multiplayer working behind a firewall and I was FAR from the only person with this issue. As well, this was the only game I have ever had a problem playing online...

Re:Maybe this time...

[webheaded]

I cannot possibly agree with you more. Even when you got it to work it ran like complete shit. We have good internet out in these parts and this game was horrible. It had shamefully bad lagging for 2 people playing together with extremely low latency connections. We ended up having to use a program called Game Ranger and suddenly everything was wonderful. Hardly any lag at all. Gamespy sucks really bad. I'm still irritated I had to put up with that for so long before we finally found the hack way (Game Ranger latches onto you using LAN mode). Also while they're at it, the ability to have hosted servers like Left 4 Dead would be nice, but I'd understand if they didn't want to deal with that. It's probably expensive.

Re:Maybe this time...

[arth1]

By snooping on the traffic, I figured out that the problem appears to be that during the online initiation phase, if there is packet loss, the arbitrator opens up a new connection, which bumps up the port number. This causes it to not work through restricted cone NAT routers, but only through open cone ones. So if you have an ultra-cheap and unsafe router that doesn't maintain port tables for each remote host, it works, but if you have a real NAT router / firewall that only accepts return traffic from the port you connected to, it won't, unless you're lucky enough not to get a _single_ packet dropped during establishment.

Re:Maybe this time...

[stillnotelf]

If I had mod points, and if there was a category for it, I'd mod you up for "100% pure Slashdot".

Games Journalism

[Swanktastic]

Meh, mediocre games get announced all the time. I'm not sure why this merited any attention other than the perturbance regarding the story being broken early and Pitchfork's childish retort. It's sometimes interesting I guess to see what executives really think (Twitter) without their PR departments filtering everything.

The Ars article was right on the spot, but it's not a huge suprise that publishers and games "journalists" have a parasitic/symbiotic weird thing going on with their business models.

Re:Games Journalism

[interkin3tic]

It merits attention particularly because it IS such a typical example of "journalists" being punished for doing journalism. Treating unprofessional conduct like that as okay simply because it happens so often only ensures it continues, and that people who are supposed to be giving us accurate information about videogames are going to continue to be relegated to being part of the marketing machine.

Granted, if you can only handle getting annoyed at one failure of journalism, it's more important to focus on the travesty that is reporting on political news, but having consistently poor reporting on our hobbies is also bad.

Re:Games Journalism

[Hadlock]

I seriously doubt it was "accidental". Borderlands 2's main competition, Rage is getting shown to the public tomorrow at their big Quakecon media/fan event. Tomorrow. Announcing your product the day before your competition shows off a live demo of theirs? Well I never!

I'm excited...

[HumanEmulator]

That just by posting this comment, Randy Pitchfork considers me a journalist!

Need coffee...

[aussie.virologist]

For some reason I read this as "Gearbox and 2K Games officially announced Borderlands 2, the squirrel..." and thought wow! how random. But no, there is no squirrel. There never was a squirrel... ...Bugger.

Hardcore mode please

[CowboyHank]

Action RPGs are generally way too easy without a huge penalty for dying. How about adding Hardcore with some added rewards for the risk?

Re:Hardcore mode please

[stillnotelf]

We make a game out of seeing how much money you can lose at a time. The game penalizes you 7% of your cash (with some floor if you've got less than 100$). The wallet visually caps a dollar short of 10^6, but the internal counter keeps going up. I've lost more than 10^8 to a single death. Postgame, death is meaningless...

Re:Hardcore mode please

[RivenAleem]

At pretty much every point in the game, death is meaningless. Death just slows you down. Look at ALL FPS games and point me to one that did anything more than port you back to a spawn point or your last save location. Taking away some of your cash is actually the harshest punishment I've ever seen in an FPS game.

Re:Hardcore mode please

[bucky0]

I always had this idea (but never the time or the skills) for a survival-horror game that behaved like nethack. Once you die, that's it. I feel like that'd make the game pretty intense.

My Response

[realcoolguy425]

Look at me, I'm dancin', I'm dancin'!

Brown

[Squiffy]

I have one question: Will the sequel also be monotonously brown?

Between Fallout 3, New Vegas, the caves in Oblivion, and Borderlands, I've had just about all the grey and brown I can stand.

Re:Brown

[RivenAleem]

If it's still on Pandora, then it likely will.

Re:Brown

[sapphire wyvern]

The FA states that the new game will have "more varied environments" - and that it's still on Pandora.

Hopefully that doesn't just mean "brown and grey, in exciting new shapes."

Could anyone explain the appeal to me?

[Opportunist]

Or the hype?

Seriously, I bought it. And it was maybe one of the most disappointing purchases of my gaming career. What seemed to start out like a Diablo-in-3D turned into a boring, repetitive experience. And I'm not even mentioning the half-assed console port look-and-feel, the crippled and pretty much nonfunctional networking (unless you were willing to forgo any and all network security you might have) and the loading times from the age of the dataset.

Was it better and actually playable on consoles? Or, did anyone play it on PC and enjoy it?

Re:Could anyone explain the appeal to me?

[gknoy]

I played it on PC, mainly co-op with my best friend, with perhaps 50% more solo time too. Two playthroughs of the main campaign, to get to the loot-pinata mode.

Frankly, I liked it a lot. We could play the campaign as a duo, and that was worth every cent of admission (to me). Sharing weapon drops ("Oh, you like rifles? I found some good ones ...") wasn't bad. The main fun was in cooperatively tackling things. My partner was much more .... Rambo-esque than I am, and often would run headlong into things that would gib him, and then come for me, but that I think is a personality difference rather than a skill difference. (I play shooters very conservatively.)

Re:Could anyone explain the appeal to me?

[RivenAleem]

It was awesome on the PS3. I'm still playing it with my financee. It's one of the few games that we both enjoy. It has entry level simplicity with some cool character refinements that go beyond any previous FPS. Yes it might be a little repetitive, but what FPS isn't?

Care to name for me an FPS that doesn't just throw you up against the same 5 mobs over and over?

The really good thing about borderlands (for me) was the splitscreen campaign. The teamwork wasn't forced (you press this button while I pull this lever) instead it was build upon the strengths of the characters (and your customisation). I played the soldier on my first time through, my GF played a sniper. She get's a little panicky when surrounded by guys meleeing her, so I let her stand back shooting while I waded into the baddies with shotgun. On our current playthrough I'm the siren while she's the soldier.

The missions are simple, and standard. There's collection, kill and talk missions. You can find these in any game now. Many people are fine with this. As Borderlands was supposed to be a casual shooter with a smigin of RPG you don't want the missions to be complicated, just enough to drive along the action and plot.

There's also a bunch of stuff there for us completionists, like getting your Maliwan Hellfire and 50 SMG skill + firefly mod and going about spraying baddies with fire.

The DLC was worth buying, the zombie island being my favourite, with Knoxx coming second.

I didn't try it on the sony network, preferring to keep it splitscreen only. I am eagerly awaiting the sequel. I hope they do as good a job on it as they did on the first, and if they come up with improvements, then I'll be even happier.

it's a pretty good concept

[argStyopa]

It was a great concept - take the basic 'wander around and shoot stuff' ethos of Fallout, add in some lite rpg stuff, use the "randomly generated item of awesomeness" system of WoW (where the quality of the drop is determined by random seed for each drop, displayed for the character by color, and the quality then provides the budget from which the randomly-determined stats for the weapon are generated), rinse, repeat.

The only shortcoming was fairly characteristic of console shooters and that was the default 4 characters. IIRC it was designed as a console game and ported to PC.

It was a shallow, entertaining shooter. Personally I got bored with it, but it was executed brilliantly and deserved its success. I kind of figured it was a platform test for some concepts applicable to a WoW-style MMO set in post-apocalypse setting. They could have easily done so.

Maybe this is a bad idea.

[bucky0]

I'm still waiting for an ending for the previous game. Once I beat it, I called a friend complaining that my game glitched, and I didn't get an ending. They explained, "NOPE, THAT WAS IT"

Don't forget the artwork

[Quila]

These days I'm sensitive to crappy graphics, trying to look real but not doing well. There are a lot of games around like this, and usually after I see a game video or demo, I instantly dismiss them.

Borderlands got around this with the cool cel shaded look. I like it a LOT better than going anime.

I also appreciated the humor in the game, from Dr. Zed to Marcus to Claptrap. It wasn't contrived and forced like in Duke Nuke'm Forever.

Re:Don't forget the artwork

[Mr. DOS]

It wasn't contrived and forced like in Duke Nuke'm Forever.

Given the massive amount of awesome Gearbox pulled off with Borderlands, I was really disappointed with DNF. Then again, when you're given shit to polish, you're still polishing shit. I'm still really hopeful that, given their own IP to work with, Borderlands 2 will be just as enjoyable as the first.

Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant believe some people saying, "You run around and shoot things and people". WELL DUH!! But thats not why you play the game, its especially fun with friends.
Now you could say mario kart is just "You race around", but there is soooo much more to it, go ahead and dis mario kart, go ahead.
You could also say Guitar hero is just the same with different songs everytime, but thats the beauty of it, if your a musician then you know jamming is the best with your friends, you practically jam with guys you would never actually jam with in real life.
You could also say Call of Duty and Halo is just "Shoot people or aliens" but theres a great story usually and the online is addictive and really fun with your friends.
You could also say the NHL series is just "skate back and forth"(Thats why some people hate hockey but there idiots that refuse to know the game), theres so much more then skating back , you have to back check, get a big hit, play that good defense by getting the puck and moving it forward to get either a goal or highlight reel goal, its pretty great when u pull off an amazing hit or highlight reel goal, just saying.
Im disapointed in people..
One more example? Sure, why not.
You could say living is just "Eat, sleep, play and work"..Idiots..

MGS4

[Quila]

It has about as much time invested in story building as gameplay, weaving a very large and intricate story with an extensive history and character development.

You can skip those scenes too.