Borderlands

[erilar]

Multiplayer in this one will probably mostly be co-op.

There are four characters:

• * The Hunter specializes in sniper rifles, and he has a pet hawk that will attack enemies for him.
  * The Soldier is a generic military guy. Assault rifles and shotguns, and he can periodically place an auto-turret which also features a little shield he can take cover in.
  * The Berserker is a big hulking dude that can activate a Hulk mode where he runs in and pummels enemies in hand to hand.
  * The Siren is the sneaky class. She can phasewalk (turn invisible momentarily) and also has access to a bunch of crazy elemental powers.

[Hardcorhobbs]

All the reviews point to Borderlands being similar to Left 4 Dead... by that I mean it's much more fun to play with your friends. I'm perfectly ok with this Also I read that you can have the same characters... so we could have 4 snipers running around if we so desired. With the skill tree's they could end up being completely different snipers (one focused on 6 shooters, one on sniper rifles, one on his pet, or somewhere in between those...). Just so you know.

I'm going to run over to Toys R Us at lunch and pick up my copy. I caught up on housework last night so I can just play Borderlands tonight. Also, Brendan will be over to play for a while.

[Hardcorhobbs]

My copy is secured!

[NukeHavoc]

Mine is as well. Now to negotiate some time to actually play it...

[Jonkga]

Game looks like fun. However, still not sure I'm going to be able to justify paying full price for it. For me, for now, US$60 is still pretty steep, even for a game that might deliver a great deal of fun. I know it's the price that the market and the industry likes, but for me, it's still a bit much.

[erilar]

Just got back from getting my copy as well. Also made it very clear that the Xbox is mine tonight, 'cause there is shit that needs blowin' up! (Somebody signs up for Netflix and all the sudden the Xbox is now a movie player. It ain't right, I tell ya! )

[NukeHavoc]

I should be online by 9 p.m. Need to earn kitchenpass by cleaning house, then I need to finish editing my review of DMG 2 for GameCryer.

[Hardcorhobbs]

So I love the hunter and sniping... but after playing through 10 levels I can really see the need for the solder. He's like the cleric of Borderlands. He can heal (with bullets!) and buff the party in other ways. That would have been very useful in several occasions last night where our hunters (we had three at some point) were popping in and out of cover waiting for our shields to recover so we could shoot again. More importantly I found last night that the "favored guns" of each class is just those guns you can take extra skill points in. The regular gun skills (independent of the skill trees) level up by use of said class of gun. Any class can use a sniper rifle, the hunter just has a skill in his tree attached to sniper rifles.

So tonight I'll spend a bit of time building a Solder. Shouldn't take me too long to catch up to Ken since he had all kinds of connection problems last night.

Oh, as for what I think about the game: it's a ton of fun. The appeal is definitely multiplayer. I wouldn't want to play it alone, and it's obviously not set up to be played alone. Finding new guns has that same diablo feel. What looks like two similar weapons are actually quite different. For instance I picked up a new pistol which didn't seem much better than the one I was using... until I noticed it had a larger clip and higher rate of fire. It was a machine pistol! Later I had a choice, more damage from one shot (a six-shooter), or a higher rate of fire (better machine pistol). I went with the machine pistol. But that just scratches the surface of the gun system. We found out that even grenades are upgradeable. I had attached a sticky modification to my grenades (a la halo), while Ken added a mod that caused his grenade to explode into smaller grenades! So yeah, I give it a thumbs up!

[erilar]

Sorry I never showed last night. Things are very strained at home, and I'll leave it at that. Trust me, there's nothing more I wanted to do than log on and play with you guys, but I had to get the hell out.

Ended up seeing Zombieland at the Rt 248 Regal - fun movie. (FYI, the sound system in Theater 3 there sucks though.)

[Hardcorhobbs]

Sorry to hear that man. Take care of things, we'll be around.

[NukeHavoc]

I'm probably out tonight; I hurt my back, and I'm not going to be very good company as a result (and honestly, I can't sit still for too long or it starts twitching again).

Hopefully we can get the gang together sometime soon.

ken

[erilar]

Hope you heal up quickly, bud - back pain is awful.

[NukeHavoc]

Hope you heal up quickly, bud - back pain is awful.

Thanks -- it is really painful. Fortunately it's mostly subsided now, and I've got muscle relaxers I can take at night, so I should be good as new by early next week.

[NukeHavoc]

I'll be online tonight if anyone wants to play Borderlands.

[erilar]

Ken - take ibuprofen (Advil) or naproxen (Alieve) along with the muscle relaxers. They are pain relievers, but also have strong anti-inflamatory properties. Gets the swelling down and gets pressure off the nerves so they can heal.

Re. tonight, I'm definitely going to try to play some Borderlands. Most likely, it'll be earlier in the evening, but not 100% sure.

Ken and Cory - what level are your characters now? I have a lvl 10 Soldier. We should try to keep our characters at roughly the same level.

Trying to figure out what character to play if no one else is on. If I'm behind you guys, I'll play my Soldier to catch up. If not, I want to try out the Siren class too, so I can play her instead. Haven't figured out which class I want to stick with ultimately, and need to get the Siren to lvl 5 so I can try out Phasewalking.

Lastly, got an awesome gun at the end of my session Wed night. It's an assault rifle w/ 39 damage. Shoots 3 round bursts, and has a 12 round mag. Not a huge capacity before reloading (4 bursts), but I can kill most mook monsters outright with a 3 x 39 burst - that's a lot of punch!

That said, the monsters with the Badass moniker are TOUGH! I was fighting lvl 10 Badass Skrags, and they were quite a challenge, especially with a pack of weenie skrags milling around them! I found that cool assault rifle at the end of the Skrag Valley missions (the one where you gather the flower seeds for the farmer in that long, windy canyon).