Borderlands 3

apparently theres also a shit-ton (pun intended) of poop related questlines and yet another questline about making claptrap look as pitiful as possible which makes me question who gave randy writing privileges.

I can't believe the former.

It was mentioned in this review.

Oh fuck.

Well, hopefully the bugs will be fixed in the Steam release...in April.

It's worth pointing out that if we look at the Borderlands 3 metacritic we see it sitting comfortably at 85%. So that PC Gamer review is absolutely an outlier.

Which obviously doesn't mean it's irrelevant, but they do seem to be bucking consensus.

Now I can only wonder if Axton and Salvador (and maybe Krieg) weren't in the trailers was that their appearances would be spoilers, like being brainwashed pawns of the Children of the Vault or something.

From said PC Gamer review:

Yikes. I really liked the writing in Borderlands 2 and Tales from the Borderlands.

I guess if you were a fan of the Tales writing, this game's writing isn't going to measure up.

Randy Boy strikes again.

Yeah, that's rough... then again, Pre-Sequel was five years ago, and it already wasn't as tightly written as 2 (I know it was a different branch of 2K, but).

I actually noticed something like that feeling for Rage 2, which felt like it wanted to have come out in 2012 given the way the trailer is written and shot. It's possible BL3 has fallen back into that rut where adding new syllables into 'bajillions' is the peak of comedy.

Is bajillions even a quantifiable number?!

also keep in mind only specific review outlets were given a copy via a weird arcane system of being gifted an epic store account with a copy on it, not an actual code, and the version they got was not the final code release and were asked to not review the parts that were unfinished like the dx12 implentation

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Sep 12th 2019 at 12:33:27 PM

Kind of surprised that getting an unfinished game with a 'Plz don't review unfinished material kthxbai' wouldn't instantly get a 'No, you give me the full real game and then I'll review it properly'.

I know fanfic writers with better decorum for their beta readers.

Reviewers don't really have any obligation to ask for the best possible game. If Gearbox can't be bothered to give the best version of the game then they have no one to blame but themselves.

If I were one of those reviewers and I were allowed to, I would have just posted an article titled Review, and then written about how Gearbox sent an unfinished game and how unprofessional it was and given a lower score until given the actual game.

I sympathize with your sentiment but that sounds like a pretty good way for Gearbox to no longer send you any review copies, better to just review it fairly and if it's broken then it would receive the score it deserves.

Oh right the game is out tommorow.

Reviewers have become part of a game's hype machine. No longer are reviewers there to give their opinions. They say what the publishers want them to say, or else.

And yet they had no trouble savaging Gearbox's other major title, almost as if this hypothesis is not actually based on any kind substantive analysis...

That's also just, super unprofessional. You're asked to review the game, not the company that made it. If the game is playable enough for you to get a good understanding of how it actually plays, it's disingenuous to go "this game is terrible because I couldn't visit a few of the areas because I was playing a pre-release copy."

But is also disingenuous on the developer's part to go 'Here's a half completed version of the game, review it as if it were the full version and just ignore the unfinished parts'.

Like, could you fairly review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if entire chapters or pages were removed? Or if certain pages were merely notes on what is supposed to happen but hasn't been put into prose yet?

What about a restaurant review? One would be laughed out of town if they brought a food critic all the ingredients of a burger and told them to treat that as though they had fully prepared, cooked, and presented a complete meal. You'd get an F.

Or what if a student turned in a half-completed essay with lots of spelling errors and some arguments are missing sentences? If a student turns in an incomplete assignment, they get a bad grade. Doesn't matter what they 'intended' to give you or what they 'wanted' to put in the essay but ran out of time for; You have their paper and judge them on that and if they left important shit out, that's something they SHOULD be punished for.

Particularly when it comes to video games, where would I even begin to draw the line between 'finished content' and 'unfinished content' to review? What's going to be in the release version and what isn't? How many bugs are there between the copy I got 2 weeks before launch and the version that is coming out on day one? That's inevitably going to wind up blurring the line somewhat.

Edited by InkDagger on Sep 12th 2019 at 6:11:41 AM

It goes both ways. Yeah, Gearbox should have given them real copies to review. But the reviews should take the high road and make an honest attempt to review the game as best as they can. And if that results in them saying "90% of the content was cut off and that sucked, I assume it will be fine in the release version but can't say for sure," then that's reasonable. Just as long as they don't say "it wasn't the full game, therefore I hate it."

The game is in my hands. Managed to avoid pre-release banter. Don't care about the reviews.

I have a feeling Amara is going to be my favorite new Vault Hunter. And I'm not saying that just because I picked her first.

Her action skill is a little disappointing though. I thought she was going to be ORAORAORAORA-ing the whole time... a slam attack, a trap attack, and an astral projection. The slam at least lets me see her arms in action. Not sure about the others.

Stopped just after getting to Level 2 and fighting a boss named Shiv, who brought a knife to a gun fight. I'm supposed to be playing with 2 other people but I managed to grab an early copy from the store.

The engine they've got this game on just makes everything gorgeous, especially the first view of a canyon on Pandora. It just stretches off into this massive structure in the distance. I actually had to stare at it a moment .All of the small details are crisper than ever before- safe locks, stacks of bills, everything is more defined. Not that much of a feat I given I've been playing 2 recently and that game is almost a decade old now.

They give you a lot of space to move around in during the tutorial. More than I was comfortable with. I obsessively combed the area looking for secrets and found none, but I'm sure they're there.

You can feel this is the "third game" with how much Call-Back they're doing. I don't find nostalgia to be a bad thing so it's kind of nice being on a bus seeing Siren-visions, talking to Marcus, and being walked into Fyrestone by Claptrap again.

The inclusion of an "easy" mode is strange. But, "normal" is definitely harder. I was just dipping my toes in on single player and got downed twice in the tutorial area. That's never happened to me in any Borderlands game prior.

The guns have alternate modes, like firing rockets, and Claptrap hints at a few more. I genuinely hope that they have a singing gun somewhere down the line.

Avoided the Season Pass. Don't know what the DLC is and while Gearbox delivers on that front more than most... I just tossed 60 bucks at this. I'll wait to toss the other 40.

Edited by Soble on Sep 12th 2019 at 8:15:25 AM

Does the story & characters acknowledge which VH your playing in an improved way the Pre-Sequel did?

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 12th 2019 at 8:07:50 AM