Quick Look: Borderlands 2

I was so hype before, but now.... I dunno, Jeff's enthusiasm just wasn't there, now I feel jaded 8(

Cool story bro still plays.

@Delta_Ass said:

The enemies have way too much health. Anytime an enemy gets to melee range while I'm firing full auto at him... that's when I know a shooter is bad.

Except that it isn't a shooter as you can shoot an enemy in the head with a weak gun and be there all day. The first game made a big point of that by making a certain mission available to you early on that you would naturally be underleveled for and as a result be unable to kill the boss character. Level and weapons matter in this.

I chuckled at BOOM and ...his brother Bewm. I actually hated the sense of humor of Borderlands - the only amusing stuff for me were the splash screens before boss fights. I still fucking loathe Scooter and his "CATCH A RIDE" lines.

@Savutano said:

I was so hype before, but now.... I dunno, Jeff's enthusiasm just wasn't there, now I feel jaded 8(

I'm beginning to rely less and less on Giant Bomb's advice and criticisms because of things like this. I still like the guys for the crazy shenanigans and the like, but lately they've just been a bummer on a lot of things this year.

I don't know why a sequel gets knocked for not completely changing up the gameplay of its predecessor, especially when this is the first sequel to an extremely well regarded game. "More of the same"?! Wow, it's almost as if people liked Borderlands 1 and would be excited to return for a, dare I say, similar experience.

I hope for the sake of critics that the next Borderlands is more revolutionary like Uncharted 3, Assassin's Creed 2.1, Batman: Arkham City, Diablo 3, the Gears of War games, Mario Galaxy 2, and of course the various Call of Duty games. You know, the pioneers in innovation and creativity in gaming.

Full Disclosure: I'm a fucking biased-as-hell, unapologetic Borderlands fanboy. Take my statement for what you will.

Drew and Vinny are truly top men. Cheers to them for getting archives and this up in one day.

Is it just me or are the audio channels for the video flipped? (left for right and vice versa)

One thing that really stood out to me from the video, though Jeff didn't address it specifically, was that the economy seems less fucked in this game. Only $80k at the start of playthrough 2, level 30 weapons only vendoring for $1.5k or less.

Seems like money may be a little more tight this time around.

I am aware it's a new game plus, but those bullet sponge enemies look totally dull to fight.

@Savutano said:

I was so hype before, but now.... I dunno, Jeff's enthusiasm just wasn't there, now I feel jaded 8(

Yeah I loved the first game, but I can't say I feel the need to be playing this any time soon.

AWWW YEEEEAH. Can't wait to sit down with this for myself.

@Sabata said:

Aww, here I was hoping for another hilarious 4-player QL.

This too...

@Skanker said:

I am aware it's a new game plus, but those bullet sponge enemies look totally dull to fight.

This was my experience in the original Borderlands from the very outset and was one of the reasons I just could not get into the game despite the praise from every media outlet.

@Manatassi said:

Hmm I'm a little unsure why Jeff seems to have tried to play the commando class exactly like Roland in the first game and ignored most of the other more interesting options... I mean I guess he can play it anyway he likes but that does seem like he's hampering his own enjoyment. Begs the question if thats what he did to review the game then was he the best choice for that review? *shrug*

From my experience, it seems that Jeff tends to go for the the most in-your-face action class in these kinds of games. Melee characters in Action RPGs, the big firepower class in shooters ... so that seems only natural that he'd play like this here.

Personally, I feel everyone should just take a break from reviewing games they've been reviewing since forever (Jeff = shooter guy; Ryan = platformer guy, etc etc) and play something fresh. Not ironically like some weird Gal Gun type of stuff but for real. Maybe that would juice things up a little. (Imagine the madness if they all started playing JRPGs lol ... massacre!)

This looks really crap. I'll pass.

@NeoCalypso said:

How could they forget about the day/night cycle in the first game? Remember the moon that was constantly on fire on one side?

The idle dialogue Jeff talked about reminds me of how Portal 2 did it when you first interacted with Wheatley. It was very well done and I don't think I've seen a lot of games that pulled it off.

The reason you cannot max the game out on the 570 is lack of memory. People forget that things like MSAA eat up memory, you need 4GB of Video memory to turn Max Payne 3 up to 8x MSAA and near 2GB for 4x MSAA. So it's no surprise that BF3 got restricted to 4xMSAA as top end cards only had 2GB of Vram when it came out and many still only do.

AA is the biggest load of crap though, so much time wasted into that tech when they could save time and memory by increasing resolution which gets rid of jaggies and makes the game look better, much better time invested than AA. Sadly monitor and TV companies seem happy to sit at 1080p, when really it's dated and has been around for far too long.

Also pretty sure the fact that the lead writer has roots in "internet comedy" is the main result of having "u mad bro" jokes in the game.

I thought Hey Ash was a pretty funny show originally but the humor really started being shoveled on a tad thick later on.

Man, Gearbox finally make a good PC version and they play the inferior in every way xbox version for the quicklook :(

can't watch on my phone, since when did this start

@Bourbon_Warrior: Check your billing I guess?

Still have the first game waiting for me in my backlog. I hear it's pretty good.

I CANNOT wait until Dubstep (and Dubstep jokes) are old news.

It.. It's the same game I played for over a hundred hours on two platforms, why does it still tempt me so.

Are the left & right audio-channels of the gameplay switched!? So annoying!

MUST. RESIST. TEMPTATION.

CAN'T. SPOIL. THE EXPERIENCE!!!!! *dies*

@Ares42 said:

Jeff really needs to get away from his "I'm gonna go all regen and make the game easy" mindset. Some games regen sucks and you're just gonna hinder your enjoyment of the game by going all defensive rather than offensive.

Looking at his skill tree he has only picked a single offensive skill, and only because he had no other choice.

Amen, brother. As if the soldier class wasn't boring enough.

Man, I know it's New Game +, but holy crap those enemies take a lot of damage. As for the game proper, I don't know. It looks exactly like the first game. The expanded customization is nice, but I still haven't been able to force myself to finish the original.

In other words, from the review, this game is not for me, just like the first, and to be honest, that was to be expected. Meh.

@Quarters said:

Man, I know it's New Game +, but holy crap those enemies take a lot of damage. As for the game proper, I don't know. It looks exactly like the first game. The expanded customization is nice, but I still haven't been able to force myself to finish the original.

I did just that, I forced myself through the original. No idea why, it wasn't all that great :) I did beat it though, that says something. I'll probably pick this up at some point, when it's a little cheaper and I don't have GW2 and soon XCOM to spend time with.

Really funny to me that Jeff's main complaint is the story and everything, considering how bad that was in the first game. What has changed? This can only be an improvement. Whatever though.

@tombtha940 said:

so looking at this it would seem that you don't need to play the first game. Does the story benefit more from playing the first or can it hold its own?

Great quicklook!

But is it just me, or is the stereo reversed?

Jeff goes on about texture pop-in a lot. I personally could care less about it and am actually closer to considering it endearing than anything else.

Couldn't stand this first looks like more of the same i'll pass

Love the Art style. I wish Fallout looked more like this...

First game totally had a day night cycle. I remember it getting dark during some big shoot out areas and the game didn't seem to compensate for the dark and it made it kind of frustrating!

It's weird that Brad mentions vertigo when leaping of tall things. I only just recently started getting that in games. Got it when playing the original Borderlands again and Darksiders 2. Like genuine fear when falling. The fuck's wrong with me?!

@Catarrhal said:

@Ares42 said:

Jeff really needs to get away from his "I'm gonna go all regen and make the game easy" mindset. Some games regen sucks and you're just gonna hinder your enjoyment of the game by going all defensive rather than offensive.

Looking at his skill tree he has only picked a single offensive skill, and only because he had no other choice.

Amen, brother. As if the soldier class wasn't boring enough.

I generally think the GB guys tend to pick the most boring class of the bunch in almost any game. No magic, no support or non-direct damage abilities, guns/melee only. Sometimes those classes work and are just as well designed as others, but often they're the most boring, basic, easy to play classes. And with regen/defense slapped on you also end up in a lot more battles of attrition more than anything.

Though I'm mainly confused why Jeff just tried to remake his Borderlands character when it was evident he was a little tired of it from the 200+ hours he put into the first one. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with one of the others for that reason.

Forgot how boring it is to watch someone play this game compared to how fun it is to play.

@Porkellain said:

@tombtha940 said:

so looking at this it would seem that you don't need to play the first game. Does the story benefit more from playing the first or can it hold its own?

Being a bit tired, I'm not sure if this is some type of sarcasm. If not, then the answer is probably "no". If there's something that a lot of people seem to agree on about first Borderlands, it's the almost non-existing and meaningless story it had. That was one of the reasons why I couldn't get too excited about it. I've played a bunch of games with poor plots and mainly focused on causing havoc in them, but with Borderlands I couldn't get past that fact for some reason. Though the shooting itself wasn't all too appealing for me either, not to mention them plain desert environments all around you.

...so long story short, I'm not too sure about this. At least they've fixed that desert part! Otherwise it sure seems to have a "helluva big expansion pack" vibe to it. Naturally that can be a very good thing in some cases. I guess I could see myself getting more into this, now that I've got a few potential co-op partners, unlike with the first game. Because even boring games tend to get 50% better with friends, I've heard!

My GTX 670 is you know...ready.

growing up sucks. i just don't have the time to play games like this

@ArtisanBreads: Better doesn't necessarily mean good.

What's with the "I'm above internet jokes" you guys live on the internet!

Seems great, just got shipped to me

Awesome quick look. But it definitely made me realize it's more Borderlands, and I didn't particularly like the first one. In fact, I found it incredibly boring. It might have something to do with the fact that I got it a couple of years after it came out and it was a little dated. Yet, this one looks so similar to the first one I'm pretty sure it's not really my cup of tea. I'll probably pass. Looks like a good game, but I've just never been able to get into the franchise, and boy did I try. Played co-op with my brother for ages, however, neither of us could really get invested in it.

@JMatrix: mine was a legitimate question, i swear :D

3 more days, 3 more days.

i cant wait so long

Why dont games remove the "soldier" option