Tell me about Borderlands...?

[seawasp]

I've heard some good general buzz about the game, and I have heard that there's a sequel out or coming soon, but I've never played it or seen it played. Is it a game I'd enjoy?

Games I've played and enjoyed:
  A bunch of the JRPGs, with Chrono Trigger and Star Ocean and Persona at the head of the lists
  Fallout 3 and New Vegas
  Oblivion and Skyrim
  Dragon Age

Games I have enjoyed but found I can't play them for long before my aged reflexes betray me and I am filled with fail:
  Action-RPGs like Tomb Raider and inFamous

Games I don't really enjoy are FPSs.

  I've also been thinking about Mass Effect. Is it important to play ME1 before ME2 and ME3 or are they pretty much separate?

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

You can play any of the ME games without playing the others; ME2 has an introductory "motion comic"/"choose your own adventure" segment for those who don't import a gamesave from ME1. (ME3 has a set of default choices if you don't import a gamesave from ME2... but most folks won't like the story the results from those defaults.)

That being said, I personally would recommend playing the games in sequence. You get more investment in "your" Shepard that way, and the story reveals will have more impact if you've managed to make it this far without them being spoiled.

Be advised that the mechanics of ME1 are a bit primitive; if you don't "level" a gun skill then that type of gun will be very difficult to use, and there's no "VATS" like mechanic like in the new Fallout titles. (Easily avoided for by taking one of the "power"-heavy classes like Adept or Engineer, though, as powers do have a pause-game-to-use feature.) ME2 and ME3 have better mechanics and actually make for good shooter games (if you want to play them as such) as well as solid RPGs.

-- Steve's still mildly addicted to ME3's multiplayer, which is superior to that of many dedicated shooter games he's tried.

PS: the added downloadable content for ME1 is easily skipped; none of it gets reflected in later games, save for a few non-interactive mentions. ME2 has four DLC missions that I'd strongly recommend getting; Overlord (which sets up a mission in ME3, plus it's amazingly creepy in an eldrich-horror sense), Stolen Memory (introduces a secondary character in ME3), Lair of the Shadow Broker (huge, huge set-up for ME3 and it may be the DLC mission I've enjoyed most from any game), and Arrival (bridges ME2 to ME3).

[melchar.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried 'Borderlands' [it's a little too much western/fps for me ^_^]. I have been told it's good, but I'm still playing 'Skyrim' and have a backlog of 'Persona' games still to play. [So what am I playing now? Ran thru KotOR last week and am doing KotOR2 now, since the lastest fan-patch has high marks.]

'Mass Effect' was very, very good. IMO you should play it before the others. It establishes plot and universe very well. It was a ton of fun. 'Mass Effect 2' is also very good, tho it takes the story in odd directions, but very much plays off the original.

I have not played 'ME 3' but have heard that it is 90% very good, but suffers from a very disappointing deus ex machina ending.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Considering what you have noted as likes and dislikes I would be hesitant to suggest you pick up borderlands. The core game mechanic is that it is a FPS, but it does have great humor and some nice story elements. Less so than Fallout 3 and it does not have VATS mode to help with the combat. Basically the quickest summary is Diablo with guns or stretching back a little farther Rouge/Moria/Angband as a FPS.

To suggest a different modern game with a sequel coming out "soon" I would say take a look at Torchlight / Torchlight 2. You can still preorder torchlight 2 for $20 and get a free copy of torchlight. Semi action dungeon crawling with piles of semi random equipment to collect. Fun cartoony art style too. http://store.steampowered.com/app/200710/

[usdutchkitty.livejournal.com]

Me personally? I've gotten Fallout New Vegas and I really like it. It is from the same people who did Skyrim and it has a long of open world and story. You don't have to play the earlier Fallout to enjoy this one.


But to go old school, I HAVE to recommend Legend of Dragoon. It is from the PS1 era but it is still go enjoyable.

Now if only my PS3 store would put up Chrono Cross for me to buy.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

My guess is you would not enjoy Borderlands. I approach it pretty much as a FPS.

I would recommend playing the Mass Effect games in order. Some gameplay is boring/tedious ("scanning" planets, argh!), but overall it is pretty good, and you can always fiddle with the easy-mode knob.

[remus-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Borderlands is an FPS. It's irreverant and funny, with randomized loot and a rudimentary RPG leveling system like Diablo, but it's still a FPS at heart. There are no branching conversations like in Fallout, so it's much more linear than any RPG. Variety in Borderlands comes from the weapons you find. The tagline for the game is 'One Bazillion Guns' -- they do live up to that promise.

Mass Effect is a FPS also, although it has branching plotlines like a RPG. I've only played ME1, and it was just okay. I've heard that ME2 is much better, with superior game mechanics and storyline, and that you could jump in there and ignore ME1 completely. But that's second-hand info.

I don't know much about console gaming, but my girlfriend's son swears by the Assassin's Creed series. That's a RPG you might enjoy. The gameplay looks interesting and varied to me, but I can't speak to the storyline. (Something about time travel from the future back to moments in one man's family history.)

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Mass Effect is a shooter, not a role-player.

[remus-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should mention -- if you want a good game for your Mac, get Bastion. It's a platformer with RPG elements, and it does some neat tricks with narrative that I think you as a writer would appreciate.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend the Mass Effect series. It currently stands at the top of my all-time list of favorite computer RPGs, ever.

I also strongly recommend playing them all, and in sequence. ME2 and ME3 have a mechanic where you can import a save file from the previous game, and all the choices you made get reflected in the storyline. By the time you get to the third game, you can be playing in a seriously different universe from someone who made different choices. They put a lot of work into this aspect of the series.

If you don't import a save game into ME2, it makes default choices for you. If you don't import a save game into ME3, you get a very limited ability to choose how you "played" the previous games -- but it's not nearly as complete as actually doing that.

Also, the series has a really good story -- galactic-scale space opera, with a backstory going back millions of years. It has, as E. E. Smith would say, "scope."

Now, all that being said, the ending of the third game -- the culmination of the entire trilogy arc -- is, let's say, just a little bit disappointing. They released a patch that makes it less sucky, but it's still a major let-down. However, there are some other pay-offs in the third game that are fantastic, IMO.

As far as gameplay goes, ME is a hybrid third-person shooter/RPG. They tweak the mechanics a lot between the first two games, emphasizing some of the shooter aspects over classic RPG elements (e.g., the inventory system goes away), and then they tweak them back slightly in the third game. However, I found that even I -- and I generally suck at shooters -- was able to complete all the games on "standard" difficulty without too much trouble. The first and second games have an "easy" mode that is, well, easier. The third game goes one step farther: it has a "narrative" mode, which makes the combat much easier while still giving you all the conversation and story options; as well as the opposite mode -- I forget what it's called -- that gives you lots of hard combat but skips over most of the dialogue.

[lamparty.livejournal.com]

I can pretty much tell that the games that I really liked would probably put you to sleep! My all time Favorite was a game by a group of independent programmers that called themselves Mare Crisium! It was called "Stars!", a 4X game, for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate! A turn-based Strategy game and a DOS game at that! Minimal graphics and engrossing game play, even against the AI, but it was mainly a play-by-email game! I still break it out once in a while and use DOSBox in Ubuntu and play against the AI! Last time I had my *ss handed to me very neatly! I've never been able to memorize the twists and turns of the dungeon based first person shooters, or to have the required eye hand coordination to play the Real time Sims! Last one like that I enjoyed was "Elite" on the Atari 1040ST! Still looking for another space based 4X turn based game!