1UP illuminates us this morning with a review of Borderlands, Gearbox’s anticipated open-world shooter whose chief claim to fame is the procedurally generated weaponry that literally allows for something like twelve million firearm variants.
I bet you can’t guess what score they gave it.
They gave it a B+.
See what I did with the title up there? I kill me.
I have a bit of a thing for Apricus mundus iaculores (Linnaean for open-world shooters), given my well-documented S.T.A.L.K.E.R. obsession, my equally well-documented loathing of the abortion that was Far Cry 2, and my general disappointment with the fact that the open world shooter has not really come into its own yet, despite the fact that even shooter gurus like Cliff Bleszinski (Gears of War) and Harvey Smith (Deus Ex) agree that RPG is the future of shooter. Holy cow, that whole thing was one sentence.
What concerns me most about the largely positive 1UP review of Borderlands is that writer Thierry Nguyen compares it not once but twice to Hellgate London, a game so exuberantly horrible that words have not been invented to describe its craptassery. In my infinite wit I once compared the act of playing Hellgate London to a hangover or tax audit; upon further consideration, I must revise that view to state that playing Hellgate London is like enduring a tax audit while suffering from a hangover. And having your testicles smashed with a rubber mallet. Those without testicles, substitute the appropriate noun.
Seriously, Hellgate London was like the worst game ever. It ranks up there with Dungeon Lords, if you can imagine; a game that in my infinite wit I once compared to spending 45 minutes running a cheese grater over the back of my hand. Even Far Cry 2, whose creators should be tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity (in my infinite wit I once said that Far Cry 2 was unworthy of the atoms and subatomic particles that comprise its hideousness), wasn’t as bad as Hellgate London.
Moving on.
So Borderlands gets a B+, which in 1UP terms is about a 6 out of 10. That means IGN will give it a 9, which in IGN terms is about a 6 out of 10.
(Actually I just checked, they gave it an 8.8. So, progress on the credibility front from them. When it comes to translating the ratings given by the big outlets into Real World numbers, I recommend the Jaws rule for measuring sharks outlined by Quint in the novel: “I sort of averaged all the estimates and took off about ten feet.”).
Nguyen makes a point to say that Borderlands is by far at its best in multiplayer, and often dull or humdrum in single player. That’s a pity, but since Gearbox has always said that Borderlands was meant to be a shared experience I won’t fault them for it. What does frustrate me is that this game, intended for four, offers only two-way splitscreen on the consoles and no way to play four player on two TVs using two consoles. It may come as a surprise to Gearbox, but some gamers (me, hello) have friends they like to see in the real world from time to time, to drink inordinate quantities of alcohol and play multiplayer games in the same room. I almost never want to play online with strangers, because everyone online is a complete ass.
I Steamed Borderlands, on the basis that the PC is the appropriate place to play shooters, and because I’ll probably play it by my sad little lonesome anyway. And also because Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford recently made a fool of himself by exclaiming to Maximum PC that Steam, and by extension Valve, is untrustworthy and exploitative of small developers. Given that Gearbox owes its very existence to Valve (it started life making Half-Life expansion packs), this was an unwise move; moreover it’s so patently untrue that the only appropriate retaliation was to buy the game over Steam. So it’s a pity to hear Nguyen say that the single player is occasionally a slog, but all in all his review seems guardedly positive.
So the open-world shooter trundles on, still imperfect. Upcoming candidates include id Software’s Rage, which looks better than I initially thought it would, and of course GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, about which I am so excited that even saying the title makes me squeal with girlish glee. But only time will tell if the format can realize its ultimate potential.
UPDATE: people we trust a bunch of a lot more than 1UP or IGN have weighed in on their own experience with Borderlands.
“Craptassery” must find its way into the Oxford Unabridged dictionary because it is all kinds of awesome!
I liked Hellgate London.
If you think is the worst game, you sould test most games that ubisoft make, and all “console2pc” ports. And with “you need”, I mean “you sould avoid at all cost”.
Heh heh, welcome Tei.
I suppose it may be a bit hyperbolic to call Hellgate London “the worst game.” It just didn’t achieve any of its potential, and as the RPS folks mentioned in their Borderlands chat, it felt wrong, like it was made by people with only very limited knowledge of play mechanics. Far Cry 2, meanwhile (a Ubi game!) didn’t feel wrong, it just sucked.
I have a very overwhelming passion for seeing the open world shooter genre succeed, because I like shooters with stories and I like the idea (but rarely the implementation) of open worlds. So when one doesn’t meet my expectations I tend to be very hard on it, and when one goes a long way toward delivering even if it’s flawed (like STALKER) I tend to cut it some slack. Here’s to hoping that Borderlands succeeds where others failed.
By the way, one of the guys over at Ice Pick Lodge seemed to have a happiness meltdown regarding Call of Pripyat. Thanks to his gushing I’m now really excited.
Whoa nelly, that’s some praise. Thanks for the link, Lokimotive!
Having played a bit of Borderlands I have to say it is indeed a lot closer to Hellgate: London than to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. of any name. It is essentially a loot collection game like Diablo II with a solid twitch FPS mechanic on top of it. But from what I have seen so far it’s nowhere near S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in terms of gunfighting: the weapons are heavily stat-reliant and the enemies are a lot less smart than in the Ukrainian game. Call of Pripyat (played a bit of the Russian version) is much more hardcore in terms of shooting and openness of a real world. Borderlands is much more about loot drops and stats levelling. However, unlike Hellgate: London, the dungeons are not random, so the topography seems to be a bit better.
Meho! You’re alive!
I was kind of expecting the Diablo vibe from Borderlands. It seems much less event/experience driven than the STALKER games. Did you play the PC version?
We westerners have been denied Call of Pripyat until January. Curse me for never learning Russian!
No, I played the Xbox 360 version (of Borderlands) but I don’t think the difference is significant. The combat may be “twitchy” but this no Quake 3, it’s more of a ‘stand still and zoom in, then shoot’ kind of affair so far. However, I am still playing through Brutal legend so I’ll only devote my time to Borderlands after I am finished.
Well, my Russian is pretty atrocious too, despite having studied it at school for eight long years. However there is an unofficial language patch for Call of Pripyat kicking around the grapevine that can be applied to play the Russian version with something approximating English. Parts of the game are translated well, but a lot of it looks like it’s been translated using babelfish (not kidding) so I will actually wait for the proper western release before I start playing CoP for real. So far (only done two missions), it is very much hardcore in terms of shooting, more Clear Sky than the original game kind of vibe with very aggressive but realistic AI.
Worst game ever? Oh boy Hellgate: London isn’t even close. There was some game back in the 80s, all you did was sail the world. In 8-bit graphics. When the wind died you sat. And sat. And sat. And sat. Until it picked up again.
Thankfully the name of that game is lost to time. But it came out around about when Lightspeed was getting all sorts of raves. Until it was released.
So there: 2 games far worse than Hellgate: London. Heck even the pc port of Metal Gear Solid whatever title came after was worse than Hellgate London.
Heck even Ultima 9 when it came out was worse than Hellgate London!
WhatamI gonna do with you, Ernest?
You have no capacity for prosic hyperbole!
I think it’s because having yourself a beautiful child turned your heart from stone into gold. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AT TAP-REPEATEDLY!
Let’s see us some posts about hatred and misery and maybe – MAYBE – I’ll let you back into the Inner Circle.