PAX Prime 2011: Charting Borderlands 2

@crusader8463:

You have to open your ports. It's the cross a PC gamer often has to bear, but it's not that big of a deal...

Bastion music!

Borderlands had a decent framework but wasn't a good game, Borderlands 2 sounds great however.

Great jo-

Nevermind

Dual wield sniper rifles? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Oh my god, dual rocket launchers.  That is my all-time dream.

I laughed at the idea that players would have a 'strong connection' with the old characters. They were a skill set and a character model.

Great interview Jeff, burned out on the last game after 15-20 hours of playing it but I will check this one out for sure

Duel snipers sounds silly to me.

Wow there are a lot of positive comments up in here.

Man, I'm definitely going Gun Serker.

Wow. Recording the sound must have been bloody challenging.

First Borderlands was boring and monotonous. Got to the Rak hive before giving up on it. Let's hope this one doesn't suck as much.

Borderlands had potential, but I felt that it fell short in nearly every aspect. 
 
The itemization was terrible. Forget the fact that there were very few truly unique or crazy weapons, there just weren't enough item types to keep things interesting, and you found useful things at such a slow rate. I hope the sequel has more meaningful loot that is discovered at a better pace. It could also use multiple traditional armor slots so you have more to keep an eye out for, which would in turn emulate Diablo's feeling of constant improvement. 
 
Story and characters? Grating.  The humor was terrible and delivered in such a way that it felt like the game couldn't let a bit of halfway decent writing go by without shoving your face in it repeatedly and asking you if you got how clever it was.
 
The environment was surprisingly dull. This was an alien landscape, yet there were very few memorable locations. They're mixing things up in terms of ice and lava and whatnot, but I really hope the actual layouts and panoramas are interesting.  There were also too few enemy types populating each area.
 
Skills never felt right. Having more creative skills (whether activated or passive buffs with interesting effects) and fewer stat increases would go a long way to making your character feel unique and rewarding.
 
I also hope they change the way looting works. In FPS games, picking up loot is much more tedious than when viewed from above since you have to manually run to each and every item. Money and health should automatically be vacuumed up when the player gets within a relatively wide radius, and you should be able to remotely vacuum items by aiming at them and hitting a collect button. This would also help in those rare moments that an enemy dies and pops its loot down the side of a cliff.
 
That said, the act of shooting felt fine and the art worked, even though it became a little dreary and samey after a while. I'm hoping that Borderlands 2 feels like a significant step forward rather than more of the same with more story and a few new textures.

yes please

That sounds like a better Borderlands but gotta wait to see how it actually looks and plays.

so ready

i still, i still need to play the first one D: