What makes Han Solo cool? Why does Mad Max excite us? What is it about Firefly that makes us want to sign up for the interplanetary mercenary lifestyle? It’s hard to say for sure, but the pull of a wild frontier, danger, excellent toys, and rich rewards make for irresistible TV, movies, and games.
Borderlands’ concept is easy to get excited about: take first-person shooting, add role-playing elements, customizable vehicles and potentially millions of weapons, and our brains could very well hemorrhage. We recently had a chance to stop the bleeding by playing a bit of the game’s single-player and co-op modes, an experience that revealed four important facts - one for each of the game’s playable classes - about the wildly ambitous Borderlands.
We recently got some hands-on time with Borderlands, the hybrid shooter/RPG due out later this month. We played a massively power-leveled Lilith character in two of the game’s later areas: Old Haven and The Crimson Enclave. Old Haven is a ramshackle city setting, while the Crimson Enclave is the high-elevation fortress of the Crimson Lance.
The voice of Gearbox’s founder Randy Pitchford cuts through the air: “These players were coming up to the crest of a hill and this wall of flame shot up. Some dude emerged and had an Alien-style flamethrower under his arm, and I was like: ‘What the f**k’s that?’”
After all the screenshot leaks and naughty pre-announced announcement that sent Gearbox's Randy Pitchford’s head into a spin, Borderlands 2 has finally been unveiled at Gamescom. About damn time.
The demo kicks off in an arctic tundra as snow flakes gently land on the screen and melt downwards. We immediately notice the graphical polish of the surrounding icy wastelands but there's no time for standing around in admiration, because no sooner has the Gunzerker - an evolution of Borderlands’ Berzerker - stepped forward than he's set upon by an Arctic Bullymong. What the hell's an Arctic Bullymong? Click on and find out.
Unleash every weapon in your arsenal on the same enemy at the same time? Or suspend them in a stasis bubble and suck away their health as you strafe to safety? Concentrate your fire on the mutant hyena or the half-gorilla, half-dragon covered in crystal? Heal your co-op buddy with medicine, or by shooting them in the back? We ponder these questions and more in our first hands-on session with Borderlands 2...
We didn't complete the Borderlands 2 preview at E3, and it wasn't because it was too hard or anything. No, despite knowing how to play the game and enjoying it greatly, we ended up failing because of how poorly our co-op experience with our boss went (Editor's note: Several inaccuracies have been fixed to better represent what actually happened)...
We go hands-on with a quest string that involves a teenage girl, electroshock torture, and midgets strapped to shields. Check out our video preview right here...
We went hands-on with the latest DLC character in Borderlands 2, Krieg the Psycho Bandit...
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