Borderlands: Jousting!

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 23, 2012

Filed under: Pictures 107 comments

So, I’ve upgraded to Windows 7. I’ve been putting off writing a post about it because I’m going to have to say very nice things about Windows 7, and I’m dreading that. (No not really. (But actually yes.))

In the process of re-installing everything I found an old, old directory of screenshots. In those shots I found this:

borderlands_jousting2.jpg

That’s Randy, Josh, Josh’s brother, and myself playing Borderlands in April 2010. Not pictured is Mumbles, who was in Vent with us at the time. Here is what was going on…

We actually had a hard time playing multiplayer Borderlands. Aside from the unforgivable Gamespy-driven multiplayer system of brokenness and ineptitude, there was something about the game that drew us away from the core mechanics towards invented gameplay based on griefing. I know that Josh has the reputation as the crazed madman of the group, but in a real game he’s actually sensible, focused, and reliable. The person most prone to griefing is… me.

Seriously. I would wreck cars. I’d shotgun cars to leave my compatriots stranded. I’d jump in the driver’s seat and then go off a cliff as soon as someone got into the passenger seat. I’m not usually like this, but Borderlands seemed to bring out my inner 12-year-old.

Once we got to the point in the game where you can drive cars, our forward progress was reduced to almost nothing. Randy and I were more interested in car wrestling. The car physics in that game were silly in a good way, which lent itself to a game where we rammed our cars into each other with the aim of getting your car on top of the other one for a “pin”. (Bonus if the other car was flipped.) When Randy won he would always say, “Dominance has been asserted”.

borderlands_jousting4.jpg

There are two cars in the game, and up to four players. So Randy and I would each grab a car. Then Josh and Glitch (or Mumbles) would get into the gunner positions, expecting us to drive to the next mission location. Instead we’d begin wrestling, and would keep going until one of the gunners threatened to quit, or one of the cars was destroyed.

Then we discovered jousting.

We found a bridge in the Trash Commons East, and somehow began driving at each other from opposite sides. The goal was to force the other car off without falling off yourself. This spot was ideal because the path back up was short, allowing for continuous play but also obliging the loser to come back up the hill via the Path of Shame and Defeat.

borderlands_jousting3.jpg

Driving was about faking out the other guy and trying to game the physics in your favor. The gunner would shoot rockets into the path of the opposing car to confuse or distract them. (You couldn’t damage the other player’s car with rockets.) Eventually we all got into the spirit of the thing, with drivers and gunners switching out and trying different team configurations.

We played this game for three hours. Just this. No shooting. No quests. No leveling. No loot. Only jousting. Three hours.

borderlands_jousting1.jpg

It was great fun, but somehow jousting killed the game for us. All of us. I think we all stopped playing at that point, and none of us were sure why. Looking back, I guess it was because single-player seems so dull when you’re alone, but if we tried multiplayer we knew we’d just end up jousting again. And we were sick of jousting. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there it is.

And now I see that the trailer for Borderlands 2 is out:


Link (YouTube)

My only complaint is with the character classes. Four classes, with fixed genders? How… 1996 of you. On one hand, I applaud the Team Fortress 2 angle of making each character have a perfectly distinct profile. On the other hand, I think we could switch the genders up without wrecking the profiles too much. I was either hoping we’d get one more class, or the ability to choose gender. (Or both, since we’re wishing for rainbows and unicorns at this point.)

I’m glad Claptrap is back. I know everyone was sick of the guy, but I always thought he was annoying in a good way, like Pritchard from Human Revolution. This is different from a character who is annoying by accident, like you-know-who.

I’m glad to see they finally have a vehicle that can hold all four players. Hopefully that will cut down on the car wrestling.

Anyway. Looking forward to this one. All hail dynamic gameplay, stylized graphics, colorful scenery, and a sense of humor. Here’s hoping they do a better job on the PC port.

 


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107 thoughts on “Borderlands: Jousting!

  1. Goatcathead says:

    Reminds me of Achievement horse, I know you don’t like halo (read: hate) but it’s funny as hell.

    1. swenson says:

      Or Geoff and Michael’s Things to Do in Saints Row 3. As I was reading this, I was actually thinking that was precisely what this reminded me of!

      1. Goatcathead says:

        Yeah, rooster teeth is great.
        Super jump FTW.

  2. MrCompassionate says:

    Problem is with Borderlands is the guns are all pretty samey besides actual model and elemental type, and the gameplay is painfully repetitive. The leveling system does nothing because you level at the same speed as the enemies thus the difficulty doesn’t change, the final boss was lame and the story is both boring and has no proper conclusion.

    There were a ton of good points to the game too, but there’s a reason you taken to making your own fun and frankly the sequel looks no different (sorry im a cynic).

    1. I agree completely, but would like to add that Claptrap is really, really annoying and I wish I could kill him in the vanilla game, because I’m not buying DLC to do it.

      1. ps238principal says:

        Agreed. My complaints also included bad single-player campaign with an idiotic main quest that ended up in a “shoot the right part of the boss monster at the right time” fight that was pretty anti-climactic and el-cheapo NPCs whose dialog didn’t change no matter what you’d accomplished, most of which had their mouths covered so the devs wouldn’t have to animate them.

    2. rofltehcat says:

      It really felt like a MMO when I played it. Done with killing lvl 3 wolves? Lvl 4 or 5 now? Off to the next area we go to kill lvl 5 wolves!

      No idea why they couldn’t just make a coop game without all the grindy stuff. I know, some people like grinding for exp and items but I’d have preferred to finish the story with my brothers and cousin instead of having to ‘farm’ for some sections. Also starting out with lower levels… at some points I was several levels below the others so it was pretty annoying since I couldn’t really touch anything.

      The game would really be a lot better without some of the annoying MMO elements. They could still keep pseudo-MMO-mode for the people who like it.

    3. Ambitious Sloth says:

      This pretty much true. Initially I was depressed because after buying the game when it was advertised as “laughing riot of non-stop fun with some huge number of guns,” I found it was mostly styled after an MMO with a nice sense of humor. The problem is everything just got really bland and samey after the half-way point because they never experimented with the game play beyond drive, shoot, loot.

      But all of it’s flaws, at least the most apparent of them, can be fixed or ironed out. Gearbox had everything there they just didn’t try doing different things with the tools they had made. The leveling could be improved, the story, the game play. All of these could be easily improved.

    4. Blake says:

      Yeah that’s how I felt, the guns you picked up were different enough that you had to check if one was better, but so similar it probably wasn’t really going to make a difference.
      They kept saying things like ‘X-brand guns hold more ammo’ and such in the loading screens, but I would quickly forget those names and just have to look at every one I picked up.

  3. James says:

    i can see it now, Shamus gets in car, so does josh randy and mumbles, Shamus them promptly finds the most perilous place to park while the other three chat about taking Garrus to the prom, and then promptly buggers of with some uber jet-pack leaving the others stranded unable to escape somehow

  4. Daemian Lucifer says:

    So borderlands woke up the UT spirit in you?

    Also Josh’s brother is OneTrueGlitch?Oh god,I cant even imagine what he does to games if Josh isnt the glitchmeister in the family.

    Also,welcome to the collective Shamus.Mwahahahaha!

  5. Destrustor says:

    What I’m hoping is that they’ll let us choose the four characters from the first game. It seems unlikely since these new guys are pretty much copy-pasted from the other ones (Salvador/Brick= huge tough guy, Maya/Lilith= witch girl, Axton/Roland= soldier with a turret and Zero/Mordecai= slim guy who doesn’t charge head first into battle), but it would still be cool.
    We do see Mordecai in that trailer so they’ll probably be involved in the game somehow, maybe as bosses who’ll try to prevent us from opening the vault because they know what’s on the other side.
    Or something like that.

    1. Peggy says:

      The original four are back as mentors/quest givers in the sequel. Not playable though.

  6. Phoenix says:

    I also did and still do crazy things with the cars in borderlands. You know there’s a bug that allows you to create three cars? Also in one of the add-ons I was standing up on the turret of a car. Most of the fun of that game is just that, but it worked for far more than 3 hours for me.

    And yes, still 4 classes sucks.

  7. Jarenth says:

    And you criticized my driving in Saints Row 3.

    A four-player car seems like it would cut down the jousting in favour of more griefing. I mean, seriously, I can feel the pull of driving hapless shooting passengers into an active volcano already and it’s not even 2 PM.

    1. Sumanai says:

      Oh that’s just because… wait. You don’t wake up feeling the pull?

    2. krellen says:

      I criticise everyone’s driving in Saint’s Row, because I drive like a boss.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        So you chop your balls off and drive?

        1. krellen says:

          No doubt.

        2. tjtheman5 says:

          I drive into the sun too.

        3. Blake says:

          I don’t always go driving, but when I do I like to bomb the Russians.

  8. AbruptDemise says:

    The thing about Clap-Trap is he’s supposed to be annoying, in a way that makes it plausible for bandits to use them as target practice.

    I will say, I sympathize with the bandits, even though I like the little guys. When something has a limited set of programmed-in entertaining things they do, it can get old very fast.

  9. Nooooooooo! For the love of all that’s only sort of holy, why on earth would you want more guns???

    I couldn’t get through the first Borderlands because I would become completely stymied by all of the damn gun choices.

    It was like going to a restaurant with too many items on the menu. I’d become so overwhelmed that I couldn’t make a choice at all.

    Too many choices = BAD!

    1. Joel D says:

      Start using a gun. If you pick up a gun of the same type (pistol, rifle, etc.) with bigger numbers, use it instead. It’s pretty straightforward.

      1. Yeah. I WISH it was that straightforward. I remember spending way too much time in the game comparing gun numbers and trying to decide WHICH numbers were more important. That’s not my idea of fun.

        1. Joel D says:

          Every gun type has some numbers that are more important, and some that you can ignore. Snipers rifles only need damage and accuracy. SMGs need rate-of-fire and a big magazine. Shotguns can ignore accuracy in favour of damage. Rockets don’t work, alien guns aren’t useful, pistols are either watered-down sniper rifles or watered-down SMGs, and combat rifles are usually inferior to SMGs.

          Of course, none of this is ever mentioned in game, so I can see how it could be frustrating dealing with the numbers without knowing this. I had the benefit of picking the game up late, and had friends tell me what to go for & what to avoid.

          1. acronix says:

            The wiki is a good choice, too.

          2. Vipermagi says:

            Masher pistols are rapid-fire, highly accurate and utterly lethal shotguns, usually with a pretty okay magazine size and a scope to boot. They and the unique Pestilent Defiler (5x-6x corrosive (display caps at 4x) guaranteed proc) are the only pistols I use much beyond the early game.

            I disagree about assault rifles being decidedly inferior; better accuracy and higher damage versus fire-rate and (assuming you’re using a Double Anarchy) bullet count. If you like being within three feet, SMGs win. If you like distance, assault rifles win.
            Which of the two is more useful also depends on your class, what with some skills and class mods being discriminating.

            All that said, what I usually do is pick two weapon types for a character and just use whatever falls in that category, applying trial-and-error to determine which I prefer. To me, it’s much more convenient to shoot dudes than to compare numbers between different weapon types and subtypes. Anything that does not fit the categories will have to be a Unique to come into consideration.

            1. krellen says:

              And you guys wonder why someone might get data overload.

            2. Cineris says:

              Not sure I really agree with the analysis that Assault Rifles are viable. When I played Borderlands I did a Soldier character focusing on Assault Rifles, and even with every offensive perk and headshotting (or equivalent) every enemy with nearly every shot, my damage output fell short of a Siren wielding SMGs and spraying and praying.

              I find it hard to argue with the idea that Borderlands would be a better game if it removed the gun randomization and focused on bringing players well-designed guns that filled different niches. Sure, it might be fun to find guns that are substantially different from each other, but Borderlands guns are mostly about guesstimating that a gun with Damage of 12 and “Fire Rate” (whatever that means) of 4.6 is better than a weapon with Damage of 11 and Fire Rate of 5. I really hope the next one does a better job of presenting information, because Borderlands 1 can be like playing Excel Spreadsheet Wars.

  10. Peggy says:

    I admit I squeed like a little girl (rather than a grown woman) when the sequel release date was announced. Now to see how close to that date that get. :) My husband and I are actually playing through Borderlands again right now.

    Mostly we’re excited for the new co-op that will let us split screen play while hooking up with friends online at the same time.

  11. RichVR says:

    Welcome to Windows 7, Shamus. Like I said when I first got it:

    “My God! It’s full of stars!

    1. Parkhorse says:

      Why is my GPU artifacting this badly!?

      Sorry, that’s the first thing I think of with computer+full of stars.

      Windows 7 would have been more exciting if my OS history wasn’t XP->Vista->MUST TRY ALL THE LINUX DISTROS EVAR!!!->W7 Yeah… Playing around with all the neat things Linux can do made all the updates to W7 seem very… “yes, that’s nice, by why can it only do that, and not also this?

      1. Bubble181 says:

        The MS reply would be: “because with us, it just /works/, without the set up!”

        Anyone elses is: “We were too lazy/incompetent/blind to get that other bit working”.

  12. Rax says:

    Seriously? An official marketing trailer on the official Gearbox channel “blocked in your country”.
    Dear GEMA,
    FUCK YOU!
    Sincerely, everyone who has to put up with your bullshit.

    Edit: As always http://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=MCWJUSulnro is a good workaround

    1. Sec says:

      Yeah. This is ridiculous and really needs to stop.

  13. acronix says:

    I never played Borderlands online because of gamespy. Or maybe because I’m a mutant blob with no friends.

    Think one of the DLC added an APC-kind-of car that had enough space for the four players.

    1. Josh says:

      “Gamespy” is a perfectly legitimate reason to refuse to play a game.

      Seriously, do these guys hire lizards to code their server software or something? You could desync a Civ 4 multiplayer game by alt-tabbing. In the lobby.

      1. AbruptDemise says:

        It’s especially finicky in Borderlands for some reason. If a friend and I didn’t just start up the game, hop right in the lobby, and get going, we would both have to restart the game to get in a session with each other.

        We never did finish that playthrough…

      2. rofltehcat says:

        Haha, yeah Gamespy is often pretty horrible. But I guess it is one of the cheapest multiplayer packs… probably the only reason why it is still used sometimes.
        Last game I remember exactly was Men of War… boy, was connecting to anything a chore (even with all ports open, some people can’t connect to some other people… peer to peer at its worst I guess). And god help you if someone Alt+F4 from the lobby… he would be gone but still take up a player slot so nobody could fill the last spot from outside and people inside would be waiting forever for the last person.

        Though a game doesn’t really need Gamespy to going desync from tabbing out… we had many Shogun 2 games go desync even when we didn’t tab out anymore. Ever. We then had to share the last save state to get back into the game. Looked like it was most often caused by the AI using ninjas and other agents. For one of us the agent would fail, for the other one it would succeed. For one of us the agent would walk north, for the other one it would walk south… pretty messy.

      3. Ysen says:

        I only played LAN and it was still glitchy as hell. Random crashes and disconnects all over place. Never happened in single player. Hopefully it’s better in the sequel.

      4. HeadHunter says:

        Yeah, I remember the trouble I had every time I tried to get a co-op game going with my friend. We eventually got sick of all the hassle and did other things.

      5. Groboclown says:

        Whenever I was playing this on Gamespy, it reminded me of the old multiplayer games, like Warcraft 2 or Total Annihilation. Dunno why, but I mostly kept expecting to hear a modem connecting.

        1. Michael says:

          You mean the actual phone line handshake? Beepboopskuuurrrrrrkkkkshhhhboooop!

    2. Kdansky says:

      It took us nearly as much time getting the game running as we ended up playing it, every single time (which is like three, after which we couldn’t stand going through the motions anymore).

  14. Joel D says:

    I’ve had a “jousting”-like experience with Halo 3. The only time I ever load it up is when I’m visiting one buddy, because he and my brother came up with a game that’s much more fun than any of the pre-set modes.

    There’s a big map called Sandtrap, on which it’s possible to leave the set play area – however, if you do, landmines will pop up around you and kill you. You can slow your demise by moving, but on foot you’re not quick enough to last.

    Now, give all players infinite rockets, 300% movement speed, and houserule that you’re only allowed to play in the minefield. Cue hours of frantically charging around and trying to hit small, fast-moving targets with rockets that are just a tiny bit faster :D

  15. Mik says:

    Hah! I thought I was the only crazy one who’d value the tragicomic over “winning”. Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, I always thought it was more fun to “car duel” by flipping wrecks around the map with the gravity gun than to just rack up points…

  16. anaphysik says:

    I realize that this makes no sense, but when I hear “Josh’s brother,” I can’t help but imagine FDR.

    1. Zagzag says:

      You are not alone there.

    2. krellen says:

      TR and FDR were cousins, actually.

      1. anaphysik says:

        *Fifth* cousins. That’s far enough apart for my mental figments to make no sense, as I said they didn’t.

  17. Cumberland says:

    Wait, I think I just read this article expecting something… I dunno. Content maybe? You guys seriously played the game in a way that is totally against the intent of the engine, no matter how broken, and somehow this ruined it for you? Jousting and griefing and wrestling don’t seem to be the core of the game, but I could be wrong… maybe there is value in playing it like it was intended with quests and stuff?

    1. acronix says:

      Most of the appeal of the game is getting a better gun that the one you are currently using. All quests are the basic “go there, kill stuff, come back” or “go there, grab stuff, come back”, so the game’s forte is all thrown on the randomized weapons (except rocket launchers: they stink like a donkey on a pig pit) and the shooting. Which is fun enough, mind, but I can see it could get a bit repetitive eventually.

    2. Shamus says:

      “maybe there is value in playing it like it was intended with quests and stuff?”

      I never said there wasn’t. This is how it happened. It doesn’t need to make sense. Multiplayer – especially multiplayer among friends – is often prey to these sorts of eccentricities.

    3. LassLisa says:

      Seems like that’s entirely compatible with what he said. Sometimes you find something to do that’s… let’s call it a local maximum of fun. For whatever reason, there’s an obstacle in the form of habit, other people’s habits, a learning curve, or even just poor impulse control that keeps you from getting away from that to something else that would be more fun.

      I think jousting would be like that – it might be fun to play the game properly, but faced with the opportunity for that rush of brain chemicals from griefing or knocking someone off the bridge, it’s hard to resist that. And if you muster the willpower to resist griefing your teammates, what’s to say the rest of your team will too? Changing an established play style can be hard work, and sometimes it’s just easier to play a different game.

      Edit: Super-ninja’d.

    4. Darkness says:

      And yet that was the reason I actually got started on current generation video games. My son was showing me GTA 4 on his XBox 360 and he tipped a big old piece of detroit iron on its side. We were playing co-op and I was going to get out of the car.

      “Wait, I can fix this.”, and he started revving the engine and turning the front wheels. A little bit later the car flopped down on four wheels and we were off once again. “I love video game physics.”, he said as we barreled off in pursuit of more adventures only some of which had to do with any kind of mission at all.

      I hadn’t played video games in a decade or more before that.

  18. acronix says:

    I should go back and play this again someday before the second one is released. I’d play solo, of course, because I hate gamespy.
    I have yet to try the latest DLC. Hope it doesn’t suffer the Seconds Per Frame problem I had on certain areas of the Knoxx one.

  19. Sumanai says:

    “So, I've upgraded to Windows 7. I've been putting off writing a post about it because I'm going to have to say very nice things about Windows 7, and I'm dreading that. (No not really. (But actually yes.))”

    Just do what I do. Dismiss everything that doesn’t make you scream with glee with “it was about time they did this” and downgrade the glee to “it’s sorta nice”. Of course I do that sort of stuff naturally, so it might not work for you.

    I can add some complaints about the trailer: hate the music, so apparently guns are for men and magic is for girls (wouldn’t bother me, but it would have mixed up the classes a bit from 1 to have The Chick be something else), and god. Damn. Claptrap.

    When I’m “in town” I usually stand still and go through my inventory comparing weapons. If I do this near Claptrap I’ll hear a constant loop of “funny” sounds. Which will quickly get old. When I rescued a Claptrap-type robot I thought about quitting the game and never coming back. If there is a break of several minutes in-between the sound bites in Borderlands 2 I think I can stand it.

    Of course that’s irrelevant if Borderlands 2 still uses Gamespy, since I don’t want to deal with it and I doubt playing it in singleplayer is any fun for me.

    1. somebodys_kid says:

      I’m choosing to believe that Borderlands 2 will use Steamworks (since DNF did). Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Just don’t buy it before checking, okay? No need to salt the wound if it’s using Gamespy, right?

    2. krellen says:

      I’m actually interested in hearing the nice things about Windows 7. Other than not having a completely sucktastic 64-bit version, I’m at a loss.

        1. Sumanai says:

          In the related post there’s a choice sentence:
          “If you had no externalities to manage – that is to say, if you were not a father of two, for whom sleep is a rare thing, and precious – I don't know what could make you stop playing Borderlands.” – Tycho

          This is completely alien to me. I only played single player, but there was nothing there that felt like co-op would miraculously make it that good.

          1. Eschatos says:

            I think the main components of 4-player coop being far superior to single player is that the game gets a lot harder and you get the same amount of loot but have to divide it among 4 people, meaning that people will actually use most of the guns that drop and also check the stores every time they restock. I wouldn’t say it’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done but it’s pretty great.

            1. Sumanai says:

              That doesn’t sound better to me. Well okay, I prefer co-op over single player almost always, so that would be for it. But Diablo 2 wasn’t fun for me in MP, so I doubt it causes miracles.

              Difficulty was never the issue, it’s that there seems to be no pull in the game for me. Granted, I only played WoW for three weeks and felt no need to play more and I’ve gained near immunity to TVtropes. In fact, the last time I spend time on there I only read a couple of topics I was interested in and then closed the tabs.

              What I’m saying is that the problem might be me.

      1. Sumanai says:

        I have to admit I share your curiosity. I wasn’t kidding when I said I dismiss advancements as “about time” -features. Most of the time I don’t even realise I’m doing it.

      2. Kdansky says:

        Stuff like being able to install the damn thing in less than four hours*. Stuff like working USB 2.0 out of the box. Stuff like installing from said USB, instead of an ancient CD-Rom. Stuff like (relatively) stable alt-tab. Stuff like dragging maximised windows. Stuff like working network shares. Stuff like automatic defragmentation. Stuff like a decent process explorer.

        Modern operating systems don’t fill you with astonishment and wonder anymore, because we’ve got the basics down by now. But the difference between a rough version (XP / Borderlands) and a polished version (Windows 7 / Diablo 2) is staggering.

        *Seriously, I recently had a hardware failure of my primary SSD, which meant there was no way past a reinstall. I was shocked at how smooth that went.

        1. Sumanai says:

          I wasn’t impressed by Diablo 2 either, by the way. And I mean that in comparison to Borderlands or Win7.

    3. Sumanai says:

      I feel the urge to explain: I don’t mean that I think that the guys making Borderlands 2 are sexist because the only female character is shown in a magic role. I meant it as a sarcastic comment about the fact they’re both using the standard four body models (female, thin male, very muscular male and super muscular male) and the standard class type for females (furthest from direct damage/combat) yet again.

      I can understand that they would repeat it so it would be easier for old players to get into the game, but I like it more when something new or rare is being done.

  20. X2Eliah says:

    Very nice things

    I wonder if that was an ironic remark or a genuine one.. It could be either one, and in either case Shamus would be hesitant to write about it.. Still, for what it is worth, I do hope he is having a mostly good time with 7.

    1. Shamus says:

      Mostly favorable impressions. Just a few small annoyances so far. Which s not bad, considering what a leap this is.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Now I really want to hear what you have to say, because the word “leap” doesn’t come into my mind when thinking about the difference between WinXP and Win7.

        1. Shamus says:

          Leap in terms of years apart. Yeah, Win 7 feels much closer to XP than, say, Win 98 did to Win 95.

          1. craig says:

            I’d suggest getting Microsoft Security Essentials, by the way – unobtrusive, effective, and free.

          2. Sumanai says:

            I think I get what you mean, and yes in that sense it is a leap.

          3. Kalil says:

            If you’re a fan of the old style start menu, and hate the new mac-style icon taskbar as much as I do, I strongly recommend Classic Shell:
            http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
            It’s my second install on a new machine, after Chrome or FireFox.

            1. Kdansky says:

              I recommend that too, not for the old and ugly buttons, but for the functionality it offers for the explorer.exe, with “go up a folder” buttons and such.

              The new start menu is actually GREAT. You can start stuff by pressing windows key and typing a few letters. Or you can use it like the old one, except with a lot less clutter. I would also recommend changing the default 10 entries to 20-30 (depending on screen size).

  21. LintMan says:

    I’m hoping for a better ending to the SP campaign. The first one was a complete and total letdown at the end that utterly fails to justify the buildup to it.

  22. There’s an old Something Awful review of Battlefield 1942 that pretty much had the same thing to say about that game. It’s actually what got me to buy it back in the day. Probably won’t get me to buy this though since the player cap is so small and I don’t know anyone else who plays it, but it was just something to note.

  23. Dragomok says:

    I know this comment is a little bit off-topic, but since the article briefly mentioned despised characters and Mass Effect

    Mass Effect 3 is coming out soon, so a plenty of webcomics is cropping up recently. What surprises me, it seems as if the fanbase hates Ashley.
    I can easily understand why people hate Miranda even from a brief contact with Spoiler Warning (narcissistic, stupid, gets her butt shown during dialogs as often as her face), but I have no idea why people hate Ashley. I have played the first Mass Effect for 40 hours but not even once I saw a single annoying thing about her as a character; all I saw was just down-to-earth soldier with strong family values. In fact, she is one of my most favourite team-mates in any game.
    So, could anyone tell me why people hate her? Or, what’s your opinion on that character?

    1. krellen says:

      They hate her because she’s a racist, xenophobic bitch. Unlike Miranda’s flaws, however, Shepard can talk her down from that.

      1. Sumanai says:

        What surprised me was hearing that someone actually considered the decision of losing Kaidan or Ashley as hard, because they didn’t want either to die.

        1. krellen says:

          I considered it hard. I liked them both. Ultimately, though, FemShep let Ashley die because she was banging Kaidan.

          And that is why COs are not supposed to fraternise with their subordinates.

          1. Sumanai says:

            That actually bugs me about ME games. Boning your crew should be at the very least a renegade option or something.

            1. Alexander The 1st says:

              “Ashley/Kaiden, I don’t care about breaking regs, because I save the galaxy at *any* cost.”

              +2 Renegade

        2. Kdansky says:

          Whom should I sacrifice?

          A: The nice, smart, friendly guy who is useful, supportive and intelligent.

          B: The short-sighted xenophobe who could give Hitler a run for his money in the racism department, generally bitches at me and whose only skill is shooting stuff.

          I would have shot her myself way earlier if that had been possible.

    2. Ringwraith says:

      Mostly because a quite a few people don’t even see past their inherent racism, but generally a lot of people just say she’s a bit boring.
      Although I think what people are suddenly taking issue with is the random redesign she’s got for the third game, which although they could get away with a hairstyle change, they also changed her face, which is more than a little odd (and inexplicable in-game as well)…

      1. lasslisa says:

        Oh no! What about Kaidan? DID THEY CHANGE KAIDAN? *worried*

        I mean, Ashley’s dead in my playthrough anyway.

        And speaking of ‘characters everyone inexplicably seems to hate’.

        1. Darkness says:

          Kaiden dies every single freaking time in my play throughs. Male, female, chasing blue booty, bopping xenophobes, waiting for Tali, whatever the personal quest – He Dies. Boring as box of hammers.

        2. X2Eliah says:

          Nope, from what I saw in the demo, kaidan has pretty much the same look and voice. Ashley does have a bunch of botox facelifts, though (also the default female Shepard, for some reason, now looks like a Barbie whore-doll.)

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Not for some reason,but because the fans wanted it.And that clearly shows I am not the target for this game.

    3. Michael says:

      Kaiden used to be my go to Vermire casualty. It wasn’t so much that I actually liked Ashley, I just found a pure Soldier class NPC more useful than a Sentinel and until after ME2 I continued to shudder every time I came across Raphael Sabarge in a Bioware game because of Carth.

      Top that off with my GF’s playthroughs where she romanced Kaiden and then he whined about Shepard not calling him up from beyond the grave cemented him even further.

      Then I saw the first ME3 version of Ashley, and started regretting that I had killed Kaiden so many times. Then I learned she’d be a Spectre and regretted it even more.

      Then… I saw the ME3 demo. I literally blurted out “oh god, it moves!” the first time and “kill it with FIRE!” every time Ashley showed up on screen.

      I don’t hate her for her racism, which wasn’t that much more pronounced than Pressly’s, and while her religious angle annoyed me it wasn’t a deal breaker, then… ugh… and they let this freak be a Spectre?

      1. Alexander The 1st says:

        I read the whole “Make the Virmire Survivor a Spectre” angle more from a desperation standpoint. I don’t think Udina wanted them to go with you on the Normandy, and instead get them own stealth ship.

        I mean, what’s better than one Shepard roaming around the galaxy? Two Shepards!

        Also, because you might be pulling a *second* suicide mission. Best to have another human Spectre, just in case.

    4. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I hate her because I let her live in 1,and then I got to that conversation with her in 2.That was one of the very few times I actually yelled at my screen.”Oh shepard,youre alive!Why didnt you call me,I was worried sick,on this remote colony,with no one but the top brass knowing my actual location,and not telling it to anyone.You shouldve called me,in these two years that you were in a coma!And whats this?Youre working for cerberus?!Well,I dont care what you say about using the resources,or fighting the reapers again,and that we spent all that time together,and that youve saved my life,you are a liar and a scumbag now!”So…much…hate!!!

      1. Michael says:

        For me, that dialog has mutated with a line from 24 into:

        Ashley: Why didn’t you call me?
        Shepard: I was dead.
        Ashley: But, why didn’t you call me!?
        Shepard: Well there’s dead, and there’s not dead, here let me show you. *Shoots Ashley*

        I seriously wish there was a renegade interrupt to execute the Vermire survivor then and there.

  24. Mark says:

    We always used Hamachi and played over the VLAN. No Gamespy bloat!

    The General Knoxx DLC added the Lancer, which could hold all four players.

    1. acronix says:

      That DLC also killed your Frames per Second if you looked in a certain direction.

    2. Sumanai says:

      Ugh. Hamachi. Wasn’t that the software that insists on starting with the OS? I removed it from the startup list with a system tool and after a few weeks it had enabled itself again. And if you want to close it you have to open the Task Manager and End Process.

      Does what it’s supposed to though.

      1. Mark says:

        Yeah, it goes pretty deep in the system because it creates a virtual network connection. I’m content to just leave it running but stay logged out.

        1. Sumanai says:

          “it goes pretty deep in the system”

          You can say that again. If I wouldn’t know any better I would’ve thought it’s a virus or something. And no, it doesn’t need to force start itself with the OS and it doesn’t need to not provide me with an option to stop and close it. I don’t like extra stuff running on the background no matter how little memory or processing time they drain. They’re excess. I want them off.

          The fact that the creators can’t respect me enough to give me that option in my eyes marks them as kinda dicks. Therefore I will refuse to use their stuff until they stop with the bullshit.

  25. Vekni says:

    Claptrap was the very definition of “Trying Too Hard”

  26. Tvtim says:

    I loved driving in the first Borderlands simply for the fact that if any of my friends were dumb enough to let me do so, I would break physics EVERY TIME. Stuck on Air? you bet. Flipped the car on a smooth road without hitting anything or being hit by any explosives? every 5 minutes.

    I’m hoping the physics of driving stay the same to see if I can break them in the same way.

    1. Sumanai says:

      Wouldn’t it be more interesting if they were broke in a different way? Then you’d have fun time finding out new and exciting ways to break the physics.

      1. Tvtim says:

        This is true, very true. I look forward to the way they’ve supposedly redone driving in the second game.

  27. Destrustor says:

    I had the same experience a few years back with the original Halo. I played co-op splitscreen with my brother and one day we saw that :
    1 warthogs were indestructible
    2 the game’s collision physics were rubber-like in their wonkiness
    3 the campaign map “the cartographer” is basically a huge, open, drivable ring containing no less than three warthogs.
    Cue hours of racing and jousting in invincible super-bouncing marshmallow rockets launching each other fifty feet in the air, spinning wildly all the way down, harmlessly.
    Oh the good times.

  28. Sean Riley says:

    What really bugs me is that if they’re going to do 4 classes, set genders, then don’t make just one female. Seriously. You have four. That’s two and two. Do not give people who wish to play male avatars (for whatever reason) choice but do not give those who wish to play female characters (for whatever reason) none. It’s bullshit.

    1. Michael says:

      Rather hilariously, I’ve got a screenshot of my GF playing Brick while I was playing Lilith in a 4 player game somewhere…

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