I had a chance to play Borderlands for the first time at the Penny-Arcade Expo in early September (which does not feel like it was 2 months ago. Where does the time go?). The demo station I played it on was a PC surreptitiously placed at the nVidia booth, which wasn't actually showing off the game, but rather a fishtank-like computer case that was cooled by filling it with nonconductive liquid. They just had Borderlands running on it by happenstance. The first area of the game - right after creating a character - was on display, and I played probably 20 minutes of the opening. I loved it, and pre-ordered it as soon as the 4-packs became available on Steam.
Unfortunately, the day it came out, I had to come to grips with a sad truth: the PC version of Borderlands is in many ways a mess. There's no way to look at it that doesn't say - or perhaps scream - "lazy port from the 360", and it's painfully clear that the 360 version was the only one given any UI design consideration whatsoever. Navigating the menus and dialog boxes is a strange mishmash of mouse and keyboard tricks where, for example, only the PGUP and PGDN keys will scroll through quest text boxes (no arrow keys, no mousewheel). The FOV is locked at a claustrophobic, narrow value, and expanding it requires editing INI files, as does skipping any of the 7 intro movies(!) or the 5-minute cinematic that plays every time you make a new character. Vehicles must be driven by aiming them with the mouse; the A and D keys will not turn your car, nor can any keys be mapped to this function. And the multiplayer requires all players to have a Gamespy account, and maintain an internal friends list of Gamespy account names if they want to invite their friends to play. (Hello, late 90's! I missed you too. How is Kali?) I'm probably forgetting a few things... it's surprisingly clunky.
On top of those annoyances, the first several times I played I just wasn't having fun. Being that the game was marketed very heavily as a co-op experience, after completing the first couple of quests I jumped online with some friends from Colony of Gamers to kick the tires, and we simply got slaughtered. The scaling of the enemies was completely merciless, and we weren't getting loot drops that kept up with our opponents. Comparatively small groups of bad guys would stop the whole group in our tracks, requiring us to use all our ammo and die / respawn several times just to progress a miniscule amount. It was not a positive experience.
Soured by that first impression, I found myself increasingly irritated with the game design on my subsequent single-player excursions. My weapons weren't doing enough damage and just weren't that fun to use. The quest layout would take me all over hell and back, requiring me to fight through respawned enemies I'd already killed 3 times just to hand in a quest and get a new one. Loot would seemingly always drop for classes I wasn't playing, but hardly ever the one I was (a hunter). And the world just felt empty, with nothing to do but run or drive to a new place and shoot more monsters, like an MMO without the people. After grinding a character up to Level 16 or so, I was ready to write Borderlands off, call it a loss, and recommend that people avoid it, especially since Torchlight required so much less effort to have fun with and was considerably less expensive.
So where's the part where I admit I was wrong? I guess I only half admit it, so I apologize if that was a bit of a tease, but fast forward to this weekend. Much of the above is still true, but I've spent at least 7 hours playing Borderlands between Friday and today - a lot more than I played the decidedly splendid Torchlight - and frankly I'm kind of eager to get back into it even now.
Here's what I've discovered, some of which will seem like no-brainers, but together they've been enough to make the difference between "meh" and "let's play that again!" for me:
- The game does not scale to 4 players very well unless you want an extreme challenge, but 2 or even 3 is much more manageable. 3 can get pretty hairy, but hasn't yet felt unfair.
- Voice chat is essential. That first night with 4 of us, none of us could get the in-game voice working (actually, I still never have, but now we're using Ventrilo in the background), and you just can't coordinate your tactics without it. It also makes planning your route for quest pickups and dropoffs much, much easier.
- The vehicles in Borderlands are also ridiculously overpowered weapons, and running over an enemy is almost always the best way to dispatch them if you have the option, at least in the early game.
- Specialize in one skill tree, at least if you're playing as Mordecai (the hunter). I was trying to do a "jack of all trades" thing on my first character and that just doesn't work for him. I've found Gunslinger to be the one that best suits my playing style, but I'm sure Sniper and Rogue both also have their strong points. Just pick one and stick with it, early on.
- Don't feel limited to the weapons that are "right" for your class. My enjoyment of the game went up substantially once I decided that if I find a great combat rifle or shotgun, I'm just going to use it. Great weapon stats will outweigh your weapon-specific class perks (again, at least at first). Also, use grenades. Frequently.
It's still a very lazy port, and it's clear that the game wants to be played on the 360, which is a shame because any game with "FPS" and "RPG" in its description should fit the PC like a glove. But no matter how many complaints I might have about the details of its PC incarnation, I'm forced to admit that I've had more fun playing Borderlands this weekend than I've had with any other multiplayer game this year that I can recall, including Left 4 Dead. That's no mean feat. They've done a great job, when you've got 2 or 3 people rolling together, of setting up fights where you'll barely survive and you'll need to revive and support each other throughout a pitched battle, but more often than not you'll make it if you're coordinating well. That's exhilerating every time, and a very strong draw to keep playing.
Someday I may even be willing to try 4 players again, but I think I'll give that some time. It's only now starting to win me back; I won't risk being driven away again just yet.