Guns... Lots of Guns
After much anticipation, the lid is finally off Borderlands 2 and we spent hours digging into it. First hands-on impressions await you inside.
Published: April 4, 2012
I still remember when Borderlands made the front cover of Game Informer. I don't remember too many specifics of the actual article, but there was one phrase that stuck with me, and with Borderlands throughout its development, past its release and even still to this day: “Diablo with guns.” Now, that sort of “X with Y” descriptor has mostly become a lazy, universally understandable way to describe games in their simplest terms, but in this case, the shoe fit perfectly. Borderlands was indeed Diablo with guns, and me and my friends loved every boss running, loot farming, re-rolling, min/maxing minute of it.
As it turned out, so did a lot of other people, much to my surprise. I mean, I knew Gearbox could make a fun, distinctive shooter.Brothers in Arms taught me that. But I just didn't see the audience outside of nerds like myself for an fps that incorporated character classes, branching skill trees, equipment load outs, an open world quest structure and a limitless supply of randomly generated gear. But it appears there is a god after all. An AR toting, grenade slinging god who makes games I like sell well enough to get sequels, and his latest gift to me and the rest of the gaming populace is Borderlands 2. I had the chance to play it a few weeks back and have been dying to share the experience with you all and finally, I can. Is it bigger? Is it better? Is it like Diablo 2 with guns, except wrapped in bacon and injected with ninjas? The answers to these questions and many more await you in the paragraphs ahead.
Pandora Tomorrow
The visuals in the original Borderlands were one one of the things that set it apart from the pack, but not always in a good way depending on who you asked. The game started its life with a gritty, realistic look to it, but received a face lift deep in the development cycle. At the time, Gearbox cited creative reasons as the motivating factor but to most people, myself included, the switch to cell shaded seemed like a reaction to harsh technical realities. They just couldn't get 4 players, tons of enemies and a huge open world running well with the more realistic look they had originally shown.
In the end, their cell shaded take on a decidedly non cell shaded world turned out well enough, giving the game license to be a bit goofier and more free-wheeling in how it presented itself. While the levity afforded by the new aesthetic was a plus, I still felt that the new look of the game detracted more than it added, but not because I prefer games to look realistic. I could really tell from the assets, models and environments that the game was supposed to look one way, but then they made a dramatic shift halfway through and essentially “skinned” it to look another. It always nagged at me a bit, and I found myself loving the game in spite of its look, rather than because of it. With Borderlands 2 I can honestly say that that nagging feeling is gone.
(Full disclosure: The demo units provided by 2K Games were PC's with wired, USB controllers. While the frame rate was higher than the intended 30 fps of the PS3 version, I was assured that all the textures and models were identical on both platforms)
Don't you fret, Borderlands 2 features the same colorful, comic-book style presentation of the original, only this time it looks like it was built to look that way from the ground up. The textures feature much richer colors and far more detail than in the previous game. Again, the textures aren't more processed or more “bumpy”, they just look like they were created from scratch to convey a more animated art style and the result is that everything simply oozes character. Faces have more wrinkles, guns have more scrapes and scratches, and rocks have more ridges and indentations. Looking over the screen shots, you can see that the game looks like you're inside a really well drawn comic book rather than a concept sketch.
In addition, the lighting effects are far more aggressive than in the last game. Environmental lighting interacts with objects in the world more believably, and energy based weapons really appear to pulse and crackle in ways they simply didn't before. Although none of these changes are going to put Borderlands 2 in the running for any “best graphics” awards, they successfully accent how unique, brazen, and bombastic the universe Gearbox has created truly is, something that didn't always come through the first time around.
As it turned out, so did a lot of other people, much to my surprise. I mean, I knew Gearbox could make a fun, distinctive shooter.Brothers in Arms taught me that. But I just didn't see the audience outside of nerds like myself for an fps that incorporated character classes, branching skill trees, equipment load outs, an open world quest structure and a limitless supply of randomly generated gear. But it appears there is a god after all. An AR toting, grenade slinging god who makes games I like sell well enough to get sequels, and his latest gift to me and the rest of the gaming populace is Borderlands 2. I had the chance to play it a few weeks back and have been dying to share the experience with you all and finally, I can. Is it bigger? Is it better? Is it like Diablo 2 with guns, except wrapped in bacon and injected with ninjas? The answers to these questions and many more await you in the paragraphs ahead.
Pandora Tomorrow
The visuals in the original Borderlands were one one of the things that set it apart from the pack, but not always in a good way depending on who you asked. The game started its life with a gritty, realistic look to it, but received a face lift deep in the development cycle. At the time, Gearbox cited creative reasons as the motivating factor but to most people, myself included, the switch to cell shaded seemed like a reaction to harsh technical realities. They just couldn't get 4 players, tons of enemies and a huge open world running well with the more realistic look they had originally shown.
In the end, their cell shaded take on a decidedly non cell shaded world turned out well enough, giving the game license to be a bit goofier and more free-wheeling in how it presented itself. While the levity afforded by the new aesthetic was a plus, I still felt that the new look of the game detracted more than it added, but not because I prefer games to look realistic. I could really tell from the assets, models and environments that the game was supposed to look one way, but then they made a dramatic shift halfway through and essentially “skinned” it to look another. It always nagged at me a bit, and I found myself loving the game in spite of its look, rather than because of it. With Borderlands 2 I can honestly say that that nagging feeling is gone.
(Full disclosure: The demo units provided by 2K Games were PC's with wired, USB controllers. While the frame rate was higher than the intended 30 fps of the PS3 version, I was assured that all the textures and models were identical on both platforms)
Don't you fret, Borderlands 2 features the same colorful, comic-book style presentation of the original, only this time it looks like it was built to look that way from the ground up. The textures feature much richer colors and far more detail than in the previous game. Again, the textures aren't more processed or more “bumpy”, they just look like they were created from scratch to convey a more animated art style and the result is that everything simply oozes character. Faces have more wrinkles, guns have more scrapes and scratches, and rocks have more ridges and indentations. Looking over the screen shots, you can see that the game looks like you're inside a really well drawn comic book rather than a concept sketch.
In addition, the lighting effects are far more aggressive than in the last game. Environmental lighting interacts with objects in the world more believably, and energy based weapons really appear to pulse and crackle in ways they simply didn't before. Although none of these changes are going to put Borderlands 2 in the running for any “best graphics” awards, they successfully accent how unique, brazen, and bombastic the universe Gearbox has created truly is, something that didn't always come through the first time around.
