Really as bad as the Crew are saying?

So I'm a big Borderlands fan, having adored Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel. I'm not a massive Moba player but have been trying the likes of Smite lately.

But boy, hearing the crew talk about Battleborn on the latest Bombcast made it sound like a bit of a dull mess and I don't think they said one good thing about it. To be fair Jeff admitted he's probably not the target audience but that were super down on the whole game. Been thinking about getting Battleborn cause I enjoy Gearbox's style but wanted to wait to see how online turned out.

So, what's some of the communities opinions on Battleborn. Hearing what Jeff and company had to say about it as really put a stop to my purchasing decisions.

Is Yoshi's Island really as bad as Jeff says it is?

Take their opinions with a grain of salt. That said, I played the Beta and thought it was super forgettable. I did only try the single player but it just didn't seem like there was a ton of depth to what I was doing and as a melee character the stuff that was happening on my screen was quite frankly a mess. That said there are people in the comments saying they're having a lot of fun so who knows, it didn't click with me anyway and I liked Borderlands 2 quite a lot.

Ain't actually played it myself, but I do want to point out that it's sitting on an average steam rating of 86 %. No vested interest in it myself, as I'm basically just wringing my hands until Overwatch launches, but everything I've seen or heard of it, from any other source than this site, seems pretty positive.

This ^

Judging by that UPF where they played it, I can 100% believe it is that bad.

I only played the betas, but I thought it was pretty awful. Kind of a mess on all fronts.

I don't think being a Borderlands fan will have any bearing on your appreciation of this game.

Try Paragon instead.

Everything about Battleborn seems right up my alley. I even like the slightly weird art design. But, from what I've seen, it's way too much screen filling color noise going on during combat. Even during smaller battles I had a hard time following what was going on. Maybe you don't think about it as much when you play it yourself. But, man, I would actually like to see the players and the surrounding area, not a constant goop of colorful effects.

Exactly. If I only listened to Giant Bomb I would have nothing to play. They hate a lot of games I like. They think some of my favourite games of all time are mediocre. Opinions.

Always look and try things for yourself. If you can't, or don't have the time, see how their previous opinions have lined up with yours. The goal of these sites isn't to find any truth, it's to be able to realise what their opinions are and translate it to how you feel.

The story stuff sucks, but the multiplayer is a lot of fun. It has a learning curve due to how distinctive each character is from the next, but once you find at least one that works for you it all falls into place. I thought it was all ridiculously chaotic at first, but after a while you get used to it. Though when you've got a bunch of those giant thrall enemies on screen it can still prove to be difficult to follow what's happening in the midst of it all.

EDIT: It also need be said that this is most certainly a ''MOBA-lite''. It's not nearly as complicated as a full-fledged MOBA and is much more accessible. Dying isn't the end of the world for example, and the maps are designed to generally funnel everyone into clashing at the middle, with some potential alleyways to flank a bit. Speaking for Incursions anywhoo, which is the most MOBA-esque mode of the three.

Is all a matter of opinion, is any game that gets below 2 stars on this site or any other site for that matter chisel the said quality of game in stone? No.... Remember it all comes from a personal bias or however you want to paint it, I've been a member here for a number of years and don't really agree with most of the reviews that the guys post or the games they praise or stuff I think they shun from game of the year, because it's all taste not fact....

I'd say, for me personally, it seems ok mechanic wise, it is not Borderlands and pretty much a MOBA with a Shooter base, Like Destiny is a MMO with a Shooter base.... the Overwatch is kinda of an unfair compare because based solely on the beta, Overwatch is a prettier Team Fortress with more characters to choose from... Battleborn is ok from the beta I played but much like the Division I choose not to pick it up cause I did not feel the appeal being worth a $60 price tag for something that I'd play short term , not to say it wasn't fun...

It's all opinion at the end of the day, you should not take anyones personal view or collective metacritic as your meter of what good or not.... Hell lots of people like Justin Bieber but that shouldn't automatically make you a believer... or should it?

Without wanting to start an argument about whether or not you like the guy or his work, Totalbiscuit did a 50 minute video giving his thoughts on the game and showing plenty of footage. He notes a bunch of things he'd like to see improved, but overall seems to be rather positive about the game.

I think it was pretty obvious from the start Battleborn was a game none of the Bombcast guys would like. It doesnt speak to the quality of the game but their personal preferences. For the record that game doesnt interest me the slightest either.

They also confuse the games whith each other on constant basis (including in the last bombcast) which only speaks to their total uninterest in the games.

@yummylee: Dying isnt the end of the world in a Moba as long as you did something useful before you died.

When they were showing off the Battleborn beta during UPF a few weeks ago, the general reaction in chat was that it looked like garbage. I mean, until that day I sincerely thought Battleborn was a F2P game, and not a very good looking one at that. I was shocked to learn it was a $60 game. I'm really not surprised that opinions from the Bombcast were negative.

Also if the SteamSpy numbers are to be believed, which normally they are within 10% or so, the first day sales of Battleborn are abysmal. Under 60,000 owners on day one is a problem.

Fair enough. I haven't played a 'proper' MOBA before but I feel like I've heard so many anecdotes of people getting really mad if you died or something.

In any case my point still stands that Battleborn is considerably less daunting to just jump into than something like Dota or League. Even though the story missions are pretty boring they do also at the very least serve as some place to try out new characters.

@mike: Thats a strange measuring stick. Its not exactly like a $60 price tag is some sort of quality seal. Most people that play F2P games regularly spend way more than $60 on the games, its just a different pricing strategy by the marketing team.

@rethla: I think you either misinterpreted my post or maybe I wasn't clear. I don't mean that Free to Play games are always bad, I mean that I thought the game was going to be Free to Play due to the way the game looked and how it played, and it also looked bad. Hell there are a number of free to play games that I think look better and are more worth my time than Battleborn is, even if it WAS free.

I am a massive borderlands 2 fan and I really don't have any interest in Battleborn. Mostly happy for this to come out so maybe we can finally get some news on Borderlands 3. That said, I'm not really a competitive multiplayer guy so I guess it just isn't up my alley at all.

I just wouldn't hang on the fact that you like borderlands to have anything to do with you liking or not liking Battleborn. They seem so polar opposite.

Yeh that is both true and sad. People dying is an easy thing to point at and rage on for "noobs" that dont understand the game. In reality its a team game and one player dying is more often than not the fault of the entire team. An player with 5 deaths could easily have been the MVP of the team while a player with 0 deaths was just useless garbage the entire game, but that dont show in the stats.

Oh snap.

I finally realised that this is a different game to Battlecry, the free-to-play shooter Bethesda announced and then quietly never really mentioned again.

It's an online shooter so you're not going to spoil anything by watching some streams to help make your mind up. There may be a free weekend on Steam eventually if you want to try. Or use Steam refunds!

@paulmako: Oh shit lol, you just reminded me that at one point Bethesda was trying to make Battlecry a thing

I know judging the crews opinions on a specific game isn't always a good idea as they sometimes tend to be a little short sighted and whilst I do massively respect Jeff's opinions, everyone as there own tastes.

That said, there usually not so downbeat and negative so I'm guessing Battleborn must be bad. That said, I appreciate the replies giving me a clearer picture. Thanks.

I think I might give the PC version a chance as that's probably going to be the cheaper option plus performance should be better given the 30/60 FPS difference. That said, with Uncharted 4 hitting next week maybe I'd be better ignoring Battleborn for some Uncharted multiplayer which I've always loved.

I hated every second of the game I played of the beta. I just feel that it doesn't MOBA as good as other console MOBAs (Smite mostly but Paragon seems like they are on the right track). Something about the way it plays seemed off to me and I really disliked the character aesthetic.

Do I feel like it's a bad game? No but most definitely not for me.

I have no interest in it at all, but it seems to be the top seller on Steam right now, with the only negative reviews I can see are centering on hardware issues. A LOT of comparisons to Borderlands. It still very much reads as a MOBA though, even if it dresses itself up in different clothes, so I imagine whether or not that's your thing will determine if you'd enjoy it or not.

To me anything that's repetitive MP is bad.

The beta wasn't very good to me, i don't know it was available to try for yourself so now the only way to really know is to buy it.

It's alright. But not in the Giant Bomb good alright, just alright. I had some fun when I was playing it but it felt frustrating. I certainly wouldn't spend $60 on it from what I played even if I was interested in it. If I was interested in actually getting deep into the MP, I'd spend $30-40 for it. It's definitely not as bad to me as the crew made it out to be. Everything just feels like a jumble of mess in the game when you're playing and that's not something you want in a hero based MOBA. I would recommend Monday Night Combat over this if you want a well designed first person MOBA experience. Haven't tried Super Monday Night combat though.

I've been playing it a bit. Seems fine. Maybe it's just my fondness for Gearbox, but I really like their sense of humor and the gameplay seems fun. I just hate it when people keep confusing it with Overwatch.

I haven't played Battleborn, but in terms of you specifically, I would seek out information regarding what type of game it is and if that is for you. The Battleborn, Battlecry, Overwatch, Paragon mixture is pretty thick right now, but they are not all the same game and have their differences.

For instance, I have been playing Overwatch lately. Despite that game having abilities, ultimates, and classes, it is not a MOBA. It's a first person, class based shooter somewhere between Quake and Team Fortress. So using Overwatch as an example, if somebody wants Dota 2 with guns, it ain't that; they should check out Paragon or Battleborn.

Battleborn "sounds" like a MOBA, but I'm personally confusing it a little with Battlecry and Paragon. But I'm not really interested in those three games, and even if I was, I would just stick with one of them instead of jumping between all four of them.

However, if all you are only interested in is guns and abilities, I'd recommend Overwatch. Battleborn seems to be more than that, with creeps and such, and also has some of the Gearbox style (I guess?).

My two cents: I thought the Battleborn betas were pretty fun. Haven't bought it yet, because I don't really have time to get into a new game at this point. But I find when it comes to shooters, I'm 180 degrees out from most of the GB crew.

In this day and age, you have to know the reviewer, and then decide if their opinion is valid for you or not. Even Jeff's on record that for all the pronouncements and declarations they make, there's really no such thing as an objective take on the quality of a game beyond any technical issues. So when Dan says he doesn't like Battleborn, I'm not thinking "Battleborn is bad", I'm thinking "Dan doesn't like Battleborn."

For example: it seemed like everybody on the GB staff was cool or, at least, conflicted on The Division - but my wife and I have put in about 60 hours into that game, and it's been really fun co-op. We patrol around the northeast corner of the map, make fun of the clothing options, and shoot up stuff together. I think it's well worth the money.

It's actually a problem I'm having with GB at the moment - GB and I don't really like the same games (Drew and I are probably the closest match in interests), but GB was always entertaining and fun and different, which made me want to watch. But, over the last little while - I was hoping they would rediscover the improv magic that made their content a joy to consume, and God knows, it's HARD having to put yourself up in front of the faceless monster that is the Internet, day in, day out, week in, week out. And their current stuff isn't bad - I still spend more time with GB than any other gaming website out there.

But I feel like that guy who's loved a band for years, but then tragedy happened and one of the lead singers passed away, and then there are two bands and new band members... and they're still producing decent stuff, but God, you still remember that moment when a discussion about a Kingdom Hearts game turned into Jeff screaming 'I wanna ride Dumbo!' and Vinny and Ryan jumping in and it turns into this impromptu 2 minute comedy sketch, and you start laughing so hard that the Coke you were drinking comes out your nose and it BURNS, but it was worth it because it's the best laugh you've had all week... Man.

Not it's not really. I'm really enjoying myself playing it.

It might not be a game for them. Like I've said in the podcast comments. A. they are not into that style of humor at all, so if you liked BL2 and the pre-sequel, that seems to be ok with you B. Jeff/Dan aren't really into mobas so it's easy to see how they would dislike the MP, again in your case this seems like a positive not a negative. C. Jeff in particular picks the most boring/bland class in every class based shooter and stick with it to a fault D. when people are playing the game "poorly" on a stream others can form kinda skewed opinions E. they had some aggravating connectivity issues in the pre-launch and early launch window, which while fair game for criticism are kinda a minor footnote, yet color their perceptions.

Staff (and afterwards users here in trickle down effect) opinion on a particular game has a frequent tendency to become an echo chamber (unless it's a game they played earlier separately). And you could see them starting to dislike it from the early stages. If you want a more diverse set of opinions I'd advise you to seek them out, plenty of avenues for that. Like someone mentioned, when a game is sitting at Very Positive reviews on steam with a good number of them, likelihood of it actually being total shit is low.

It's got it's faults for sure. Chief among them (for me) is still the color vomit on the screen with certain characters, and more so when multiple characters are using their abilities. It can be hard to see wheat is even going on at times.

I was kind of down on it when the beta hit... but then I just kept playing it, and playing it. And I was playing their MOBA-lite mode, Incursion, which I think is a ton of fun. Its definitely not Jeff's kind of game, since I know he prefers the super fast kill-times of stuff like CoD, whereas with this its much more like: chain your skills properly and help your team to get a kill.

Also it has split-screen and what I find to be fun missions to coop, so that is a plus for my wife and I who loved Borderlands 2 and played everything that existed for it.

So yea, I really like it; I'm not sure why everyone is so down on it.

Battleborn is decent, it isn't made by Blizzard though.

Not really a fan of Gearbox "Awesomebadassdudebro" brand of humor, however

I do like MOBAs so I gave Battleborn a chance during the beta,

Long story short: Battle born didn't capture my interest for long, call me old fashion but MOBAs should remain MOBAs and Shooters should be shooters

The whole shooter-mobs crossover thing looks to me like marketing driven design, "Hey you guys there are these 2 popular things, what if we mix them up so we double profit!!! GENIUS!! "... nhaaa not really

I played it for a weekend in the beta. I'm not a Borderlands fan or MOBA player but Battleborn was just okay, seems a bit flat. Would not go out my way to play it again but can see some people enjoying it, don't think it's that bad just not that good.

Team Fortress rip off or not, I have way more fun with Overwatch than Battleborn

Maybe is this Blizzard thing that they make really fun games to play actually

See, and I feel the opposite. Opinions I guess.

I only played the beta, but as someone who's never been even slightly interested in a MOBA before, I was super into it. Once I found a character class that I vibed with (the mushroom ninja-looking medic character) I got really into it and kept thinking of new ways to play to the character's strengths. I really liked how as you put more time into a character you slowly unlocked different skill options to choose in-game that completely change the way that character plays.

It was, I remember the player count being somewhere around 500 within a couple of months. It was 250 yesterday, and that's with over 500,000 owners.

2 cents. Gearbox has a solid understanding of how the MMO/RPG/ShootLoot crowd's mind works (and Borderlands owned it as a result) but is still learning, and maybe made some false assumptions, on how it is relates to the MOBA crowd's mindset.

@fredchuckdave I'm gonna go do my research after posting this comment but isn't Overwatch a nigh-totally different genre?

So there's a GBeast stream happening and I polled the audience about Battleborn

The only similarities between Overwatch and Battleborn is that they have different heroes and its played in first person. They play 100% differently, aside from aiming and shooting some weapons.

I wouldn't take their opinions at face value honestly. Haven't played Battleborn but Giant Bomb has a history of shitting on games while having barely played them and in here it was just Jeff going "I didn't like anything" while having played almost no multiplayer and barely coming up with actual gameplay reasons behind his opinion, while Brad and Dan couldn't even get it running properly.

I agree with them on the writing. It's baffling just how unfunny this game is. After the first few matches I played, I muted the game and threw on something to listen to while I played. This game practically embodies my problem with a lot of modern humor in that they think yelling and silly voices automatically equates to being funny so they just didn't fucking try to be even remotely clever about anything. It's just one easy, lazy "joke" after another and it sucks.

That said, I actually had a lot of fun with the gameplay. Not mindblowing by any stretch, but I still enjoyed it. What ultimately killed any hope of me buying it though was having to unlock characters. Nooooooope, fuck that.

I can buy Overwatch or Street Fighter and play whoever I want right away. Paragon and DotA2 are both fucking free and I still get immediate access to the entire roster. With Battleborn, why the shit would I want to sit here and put up with playing a bunch of characters I don't like to unlock the few that I do enjoy?

Nah, I'll pass.

It's currently place number 35 on Twitch based on number of people streaming, being beat by such stellar titles as Clash Royale, H1Z1 and Chess.

Which isn't exactly great the week it comes out

@saispag:and how does that relate to the quality of a product?

@towolie: just an observation, but new games tend to be streamed more, especially online based mobaish ones. It's a bit of a shock it's so low when you look at the games above it

It's trash. Hated it. Though I loathe MOBAs, but this just seems boring and uninspired.