Unprofessional Fridays: 04/12/2019

Easter bunny is here!

Here you go if you wish to enjoy more of the amazing music from Gimmick!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PdW6a77kEk&list=PL0D41B4D52716E0AE&index=2&t=0s

@brad I e-mailed a bunch of Tetris 99 tips to the bombcast account a few days ago.

Basically: you can't just be ok at Tetris. You really need to learn its particulars. The top players make the game look so amazing.

I just see Mario 2 and I know, it’s MiSTER TIME! Really loving the retro game action

I do NOT want borderlands as a live game. I like borderlands mostly single-player like ben and I really hate games where I can't do that and am forced to play with other players.

Jason.. I love your stick.

Chuck was awesome

Is Ben just better at all video games?

Ramen update: I got the Tonkotsu Shoyu, it was good.

I never saw the first avenger movie until just now and my god is that movie just an exposition dump. I guess after seeing the others it isn't needed but looking back it just isn't needed.

lewd.

e: @jeff it's a shame the J Foundation didn't burn a million quid.

I'm with Ben on Borderlands, it shouldn't be another live service/online only game. There are other ways to innovate and keep people playing without resorting to chasing Destiny dollars. The beauty of BL was always that it was a single player game you could play with friends if you wanted to.

@toxicantidote: Thank you. I love this soundtrack now.

Totally agree with Jeff about Borderlands 2 basically ruining the franchise in my eyes. The writing and humor were so unbelievably paint-peelingly-bad. Tiny Tina is one of the worst characters ever.

Borderlands 3 having armor/outfits would be cool, but I still prefer preset characters and a Diablo style co-op story to play through instead of a live game like Destiny or The Division. I just don't need Borderlands to be a game with dailies and weeklies. Having those DLC campaigns coming out is enough.

Gotta say Hellgate London was sooo much frickin fun and we haven't had something like it, often copied but never duplicated.

The combination of guns, swords, and modern day was just so amazing and I want more games with holy trinity that mix science and fantasy in that way.

It was basically Diablo but first person/third person and with guns and obviously in London. What a damn good game. I was a lifetime "founder" so yea, that worked out!

I love Borderlands 2 so much. I started playing it again recently and it still holds up. I think it is some of the best writing in a video game to this day. I have played through that game at least 30 times and there is no way I could have done that if the writing wasn't great.
I played through the pre-sequel twice. The low gravity and the slow movement are a problem, but no the worst one that game had. The writing was terrible. I liked some of the character ability trees but I could not stand to play anymore of that game.
I really worry about BL3's writing. A Borderlands game without Anthony Burch's writing is a big red flag for me.

The Pre-Sequel is probably the weakest Borderlands, but it's still a great game and in fact, contrary to what Jeff is saying, the low-grav stuff makes getting around so much faster that it actually makes the other games tough to go back to (in much the same way CoD Advanced Warfare did for that franchise).

I see why he'd think that, because it feels weirdly slow and floaty, but you actually get about super fast. It's startling when you try to go back to the others immediately afterwards and just feel so nailed to the ground.

As for B3, I would definitely prefer preset characters with actual stories and set personalities. The customisation stuff in B2 actually was in some cases tied to which bosses you'd beaten (most of them had specific cosmetic drops), but it'd be cool if they doubled down on that with even more options for 3.

Oh also they totally added that weird visual effect for the Angel in this remaster - it used to be basically straight video, they've made it into this dot-matrix thing. But she's a pretty integral character to the whole plot of 2 so she'll definitely have a part to play.

Going back to this remaster (which is fairly bare bones but does make it actually much more playable on PC) made me remember how much better the first game's loot system was. The general weapons in B2 and TPS are really solid, but the legendaries feel so underwhelming and the way you get them is so badly-designed that it kinda ruins a lot of the excitement of general looting. Hopefully they can rectify that for the new game.

Brad and Jeff suggesting modern loot shooters have improved upon Borderlands, how so?
Are we referring to Destiny? If so is it the material grinding?
Boring quest design?
Terrible characters?
Basic level design?
Lacklustre loot?
Shallow gun variety?
Complete absense of story?
An unlock system tailored towards guiding people towards microtransactions?
I'm good thanks, just make Borderlands 3 another great co-op loot shooter without any of the bullshit, don't worry i'm sure there are PLENTY more Destiny's coming out in the future, maybe take a loot at all the "updates" Anthem has received, it sounds "great".

I never have and never will play a Borderlands game

Man, I really liked Borderlands a lot back in the day, but after playing a little bit of the Game of the Year edition, I just don't think it has aged well at all.

On the off chance the person starting their Ph.D. and looking for a roommate reads these comments, speaking as someone who is finishing up a graduate school run, Ben's advice of other grad students is spot-on. Preferably grad students in other departments so you don't get sick of seeing them constantly. That's usually the best recipe for roommate success amongst my peers. Alternatively if your school offers a convenient housing option that can be useful if you decide you don't want to deal with roommates at all.

I don't agree with any of their opinions on Borderlands, except perhaps Ben. I don't want anything close to a live game.

Agree, i installed it the day it went on Steam. And i could only manage an hour of play and i was so sick and tired of it. Its mechanics did not age well, also i don't think the new textures brings anything to the table. Borderlands didn't look great to begin with even when it released.

@nthnmllr: we’re all very proud of you!

I'm another person on Team Ben when it comes to Borderlands. I played those games almost entirely on my own and if they try and force you to play with other people in Borderlands 3 then I'm out.

nice to see jeff shout out yoshi's island and name the athletic theme as a favourite song from the Super Mario bros. series :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlUeW7IOSFc

As someone who sent the damn Johnny Mnemonic CD soundtrack in to the Beastcast, (I think I sent Hackers and Sneakers and some others as well), I would like to endorse having seen Johnny Mnemonic ha-ha... i actually had a college professor show part of it in class to show a representation of something? it was Sociology so I forget what his exact lesson was, probably a representation of what the future of being plugged in looked like? But remember I was happy that day.

This is the point where someone mailbags kleenexes in to the west office.

I was one of the "snarky" people that disagreed with them last time - GB crew and audience can differ in opinion - same this time :)

But I really just think Brad and Jeff are in the minority on what they want Borderlands to be. Most of us dont need it or even want it to be one of the "many online shooters since 2012", as many said above - whats improved? Name a good one of those you want to emulate - Destiny? Anthem? You guys literally complained this week or last at how boring the writing was and how hard it is to solo Division 2, and Brad literally said "this may be the best looter shooter yet!". I bounced off all of those. (Beat the first Destiny solo, didn't want to go back). From the comments, i think most of us want to be able to solo Borderlands. But yes - for those who want it more online it would be nice to see many changes. I just dont think it has to do them, since thats not what the game has ever been.

In this show you say "the bosses need to be better, the writing had better improve". YEAH of course. We all want that. Better graphics, better abilities (i agree with Jeff the abilities in 1 were better than 2, but I never tried the expansion characters), maybe a better "fight for you're life" mechanic, (like this show, it always seemed like no one is around to give me a second wind), better guns, more NPCs to interact with (the world always felt very empty). There are a lot of quality of life improvements they can make like Ben said. And sure, add some armor to make you look different - as a solo player I cant see what I look like so i dont really care - but for those who want the "hub world" aspect to the game, why not. Maybe give you a pet Clap-Trap you can dress up like your cat in Monster Hunter to show what bosses you beat (Clap Trap dressed like a bee would be cute).

I don't get why people always have to be so shitty about Borderlands 2. Anthony Burch did a fantastic job and if you enjoy his brand of humor -- which some of us do -- you enjoyed the game even more. If the humor wasn't for you, that's fine -- no need to shit all over the game over it, like Jeff always does. I hated Tiny Tina and some of the jokes landed flat, but overall it gave the game so much more personality and joy. 1 is boring by comparison and 3 looks lame without his input.

Feel like the games industry did Burch dirty with how much shit Borderlands 2's writing gets, and then when he was heavily targetted by Gamergate, no one was really standing up for him or anything. He feels like a great talent that was left out to dry. No idea what he's doing these days.

Where can you get the core that Jeff plays?

brad gets real mad at games sometimes huh

At less than 3 minutes in, Jeff made a JLF/KLF joke and I am still laughing about it an hour later.

Ugh. I can't understand how anyone would just want another Borderlands like the last two. The first one was fine, and I was starting to get bored of the second one about 30 minutes in. I still made it through with my co-op team and we had a good enough time, but even back then I just wanted tons of active abilities (like Diablo) to really vary up the gameplay, and armor would've been fucking amazing.

Instead it was just a whoooole lotta holding down the fire button, which just never did it for me. Having a bazillion guns doesn't matter much to me when 99% of them feel awful to use and the remaining 1% are just kind of generic and boring.

I liked the writing in Presequel more than in 1 and 2 (timing felt better too) but maybe that's because I've played those to death and was sick of their jokes long before I tried Presequel. Also had much more interesting character skill trees, in BL2 only the two DLC characters have interesting sets.

There's a neat but ugly shlooter called Revulsion on Steam, it tries to go more into the Quake style of combat.

The best part of the Tetris song is that it's just a different verse of the Borat song.

Loved watching Jason play a little Borderlands. The remaster looks great in 4K hdr in my living room. Thanks Jeff for more mistr, love seeing weird things I would never get to see without it.

I made it to the final 4 of a Tetris 99 battle before attacking anyone. Zero badges and then managed to win. Just like the situation @brad was asking about at 51:30.

https://youtu.be/h_342B6jOeU

If Borderlands 3 is "more than a 4 player shooter" (meaning like Destiny & Division) my group is out.

Hi everyone. This is totally off topic, but when they played old games, at some point I realized Titan Fall is a modern Blaster Master.

KLF is gonna rock ya

What planet are people coming from to say that BL2 had good writing... Even if the humour works for you, the actual plot and character development is terrible. It feels like a fanfiction because it was written by a YouTuber, and it does everything in its power to make the returning characters as awkward and uninteresting as possible.

Edit: Shit the bed is a somewhat uncommon way to say a mistake has been made. Doesn't literally mean you've shit the bed.

What is Jeff playing the classics on at the end?