Borderlands (1, 2, 3, The Pre-Sequel, TftB)

[The handsome tard]

The last thing I remember doing in Pre-Sequel was some lengthy fetch quest for a nerdy character that had an unsatisfying outcome. I really can't remember the details about it, or why I was doing that, or where that even was. Every new character in the game was either forgettable or obnoxious, and I can't think of Pre-Sequel without thinking about Janey Springs and how she would not shut up about how much of a lesbian she was.

I haven't gone back to the game in years, so I can't say I hated it, but I know I just wasn't having fun with it, and eventually just felt like putting it down, unsure if I'd ever return to it. IIRC, weren't a lot of the enemies just very bullet spongey? And I know I tried a few of the characters and eventually just settled on Wilheim, though I can't for the life of me remember what his special skill was. My overall impression of TPS was that it was just bland through and through. I don't remember the stakes ever being raised, nor anything to bait me into wanting to see where things would eventually go.

I'm not entirely against the idea of playing the game with a friend if someone I knew wanted to play, since maybe that'd make the game more palatable, but I had a great time playing through BL1 and 2 alone. Who knows, maybe BL3 will turn out to be no good and reinvigorate everyone to play through the older games, and I'll have someone to play TPS with.

Im not sure if I can talk much since im playing TPS with a friend (thus having more of a challenge and fun). I do agree with some of the characters being annoying, I seriously hope I dont have to hear Janey's voice again in B3. I do think TPS is worth a playthrough at least to get the full story (since it is canon, despite a continuity junkie like me spotting a few holes here and there with was established in 2). I feel that TPS is a mixed bag, tho one I can look over the flaws because I just love Borderlands that much (tho I hope they return lasers and the cryo element in 3, maybe some Zero gravity/Air on a few settings to replicate TPS's gameplay). Besides its a treat watching my boi Jack become reach Handsome levels.
With that said, if you do want, I could play together with you if you need a friend for that.

 

[Burning Bridge]

I could write a whole diatribe on why the Pre-Sequel is bad, but here's a few easy bullet points.

1. All the new NPCs are absolute trash (see Janey Springs and Pickle)
2. The environs are way too big and too much of them are inaccessible to vehicles
3. Cryo as a mechanic is broken garbage
4. Nisha is also completely broken garbage (her ult is guaranteed headshots and she has a short-range melee)
5. Quests almost completely stop while dialogue is playing, forcing you to wait until it completes to move on (e.g. a door that is shut until the voiceline stops). This wouldn't be as much of a problem if it wasn't happening constantly.
6. Handsome Jack's transformation is tried to be played out as a gradual thing, but then they stopped caring

 

[Sir Wesley Tailpipe]

I could write a whole diatribe on why the Pre-Sequel is bad, but here's a few easy bullet points.

1. All the new NPCs are absolute trash (see Janey Springs and Pickle)
2. The environs are way too big and too much of them are inaccessible to vehicles
3. Cryo as a mechanic is broken garbage
4. Nisha is also completely broken garbage (her ult is guaranteed headshots and she has a short-range melee)
5. Quests almost completely stop while dialogue is playing, forcing you to wait until it completes to move on (e.g. a door that is shut until the voiceline stops). This wouldn't be as much of a problem if it wasn't happening constantly.
6. Handsome Jack's transformation is tried to be played out as a gradual thing, but then they stopped caring

So, it’s the Bioshock 2 of Borderlands, then.

Gotta love 2K outsourced cash-in sequels!

 

[PumpkinSpiceBitchMeringue]

Handsome Jack's transformation is tried to be played out as a gradual thing, but then they stopped caring

Spoiler: The Sperg is too real

Augh, yes thank you! I found Jack's decent into his psychotic self from BL2 too quick or not too thought out.
I believe that if they at least gave him more exposure to his "good guy" image or had more events causing his psyche to dwindle, it would've felt more natural. Now granted, Jack had already his own demons here and there, having been abused by his grandmother as a kid in turn has messed up his views on how family should care for each other, ergo abusing his own daugther since HER childhood. Hell, they could've explored his relationship with Moxxi and what made her dump his ass. (Having played the Handsome Collection, she only mentions in BL2 that Jack burned people alive and that's what broke it off. YET in TPS, although they still aren't together, that is never mentioned and Jack is supposed to be presented as a resonable "hero". So what gives?)
/Spoilers for TPS\
Hell, when Moxxi is literlly trying to blow up the Helios station, she chides Jack on how she always thought there was something wrong with him. It could've been interesting if instead him launching the scientists out of an airlock because he was paranoid was not followed by commenting how "good" it felt but by lying to himself, and you, that it was necessary or at least if he did just kept it there. His degeneracy resurfing may have been due to being in close contact with Nisha.

I could be wrong, but I digress.

 

[Edgeworth]

The Pre-Sequel also brought in a fresh new wave of obnoxious fans who'd never played the first two and had no context but see the jumbled mess of Handsome Jack's fall and insist that he's a "good boy who dindu nuffin", not to mention it felt like the writers were trying way too hard on like everything. "Have I mentioned I'm a lesbian?" "Hey let's make Jack sympathetic by demonizing everyone who disagrees with him because they're all mean and he's a good boy" "'friendzone' is an imaginary misogynistic term to view relationships" "remember that character arc Tina got in the DLC? People like her so let's make her annoying as fuck again!" etc.

The fans wouldn't bother me if they weren't the ones running everything and polluting discussions with their stupid "the robot's THIS gender" and "I love lesbians!" and "If you don't agree with someone's feelings on Jack then I'mma ban you from the subreddit lol" bullshit. It's a game about murdering people with guns that fire unicorns, shuuuut uuuup.

Just my two cents. I didn't like TPS either lol.

 

[vertexwindi]

I think TPS didn't work because everybody in Borderlands, including the good guys, are at the very least insane and/or psychotic, and as such doing a "fall from grace" story in that kind of universe is really hard. You can tell the devs realized this on some level because Angel was reduced to a single photo cameo and a few audiologs. She explicitly says in BL2 that Jack has been torturing her his entire life and actually showing that in TPS would make the entire thing collapse.

 

[First Aid Kit]

Borderlands TPS, I still like it overall, some opinions (like and dislike):

1) How Jenny being "I'm lesbian this and that" and same as Pickle voice. Maybe because I'm not a native English speaker, the whole thing didn't come off annoying or cringy. Then again, I don't mind what kind of attitude or personality characters have unless they are being outright narcissistic or constantly mocking others. With Pickle again, doing his quest is annoying due to backtracking and no vehicle allowed.

2) Story is definitely not their strong point, the pacing is kinda off around Felicity part or it really doesn't do a good job of convincing the stake with Dahl, moon and the Alien. I don't get how people interpret Jack being heroic at the start then becoming bad, it's true he went insane at the end. The whole game is like he is doing it for fame and show off, so it's more like turning from Lawful to being a douchebag. Or at least he was pretending to be nice. At the end, I still don't like him and Lilith.

3) I'll take TPS scaling and elemental types over BL2. Albeit, Fire is useless in no oxygen zone and Ice is probably too good on laser guns. The buttslam is at least making relics more interesting or more interactive.

4) A few gameplay related stuffs: Endgame is lacking, moon low gravity makes vehicle control worse, the grinding vendor is a bit exploiting, Veins of Helios can be quite a turned off.

5) For whatever the reasons, they charge the whole TPS package with higher price compared to the whole BL2 package. No wonder, it turns people off so much when it got released. Even sales can't save it.

 

[vertexwindi]

3) I'll take TPS scaling and elemental types over BL2. Albeit, Fire is useless in no oxygen zone and Ice is probably too good on laser guns. The buttslam is at least making relics more interesting or more interactive.

Oh yeah, I will say that ice is way better than shitty ass slag. Fuck that noise. Plus the groundpounding and doublejumping feels like a good fit for Borderlands. I think it could easily work in the setting even without being on the moon.

 

[The Great Citracett]

I more or less ignored slag as much as possible. So stupid. Especially when I can just power through with an electric gun for shields, a corrosive one for bots, and big non-elemental ones for everything else.

 

[Sir Wesley Tailpipe]

Am I mistaken, or did slag weapons have shitty range? It seemed like slag guns don’t fire as far as others.

 

[The Great Citracett]

Am I mistaken, or did slag weapons have shitty range? It seemed like slag guns don’t fire as far as others.

I remember them having shitty damage. I guess you were expected to slag enemies and then switch over to a different type weapon for bonus elemental damage or something.

I never really bothered.

 

[Sir Wesley Tailpipe]

I remember them having shitty damage. I guess you were expected to slag enemies and then switch over to a different type weapon for bonus elemental damage or something.

I never really bothered.

Yeah, the loading tips even say to slag an enemy then change guns. Fuck that. I assign a different class to each slot so I have a pistol or SMG, a shotgun or assault rifle, a sniper rifle and a launcher on hand at all times. There aren’t enough slots to fuck around with damage types too.

 

[PumpkinSpiceBitchMeringue]

Randy probably considers this a victory

 

[Detrogen]

Yeah, the loading tips even say to slag an enemy then change guns. Fuck that. I assign a different class to each slot so I have a pistol or SMG, a shotgun or assault rifle, a sniper rifle and a launcher on hand at all times. There aren’t enough slots to fuck around with damage types too.

Not to mention, even if you’re using a character whose weapon switch speed can be upgraded, swapping weapons is slow as fuck. By the time you’ve gone from a slag weapon to a non-slag weapon, the slag effect on the enemy has likely almost worn off. And god forbid you have to reload in that instance.

 

[Furina]

I've had a kind of weird relationship with Borderlands. I bought the GOTY edition years and years ago, played it for a couple of days, didn't understand it, and quit. At the time I really regretted wasting money on it, since I played it so little and never touched the majority of content. After reading this thread, I've decided to re-install and try again. I'm not going to buy any of the other games, but damn it I want to get my money's worth out of the first one at least.

Oh wait, nevermind. SecruROM won't let me install off the disk and Gearbox's website says to use a tool on Steam that isn't on Steam. Thanks for that...

 

[The handsome tard]

I remember them having shitty damage. I guess you were expected to slag enemies and then switch over to a different type weapon for bonus elemental damage or something.

I really feel that Slag was an element added to be exploited for the co-op. Me and my playing bro have a tactic called "Slag'em and blast'em", I use my slag sniper and he goes all Gunzerker on their asses. Randy said Slag isnt coming back, instead being replaced by "nuclear" (gotta wonder whats the in-plot explanation), tho I hope Cryo comes back (yeah its broken maybe but I like freezing and shattering enemies like Sub-zero, sue me).

 

[vertexwindi]

The hell.

 

[Catgirls are Love]

The hell.

I thought they were releasing a new videogame, not a collection of fanfiction.

 

[Floop]

I was really hyped up to play Borderlands 3, even after playing through BL2 twice, but all that anticipation kind of died off after The Pre-Sequel was a steaming turd.

Even the release of that game sort of screwed over console gamers. It weirdly was released only on PS3 and 360 in October 2014, which was about a year after the PS4 and Xbox One came out. There was no announcement whatsoever of anything Borderlands coming to next-gen systems at the time, and of course, the game was sold with a season pass offer and all that shit at full price.

Then, just three months later, The Handsome Collection is announced on January 20th, 2015. Did you pre-order The Pre-Sequel and buy the Season Pass on launch like a good boy? Well tough shit nigger, The Handsome Collection's out in March for the new systems and it's gonna have every last bit of DLC from The Pre Sequel and BL2, and it's gonna run at a buttery smooth 60fps. I can personally attest to how the PS4 version had no frame dips I ever noticed, it really was a beautiful port. The Pre-Sequel's season pass DLC wasn't even all out by the time The Handsome Collection arrived, but Handsome Collection buyers got it for free while PS3, 360, and PC owners could suck it. PC owners eventually got the Handsome Collection bundle several years later, but for a long time had everything strictly sold separately. Even to this day, you could accidentally buy The Pre-Sequel and its season pass in a bundle that's $10 more than the Handsome Collection. How the fuck is that game still $40 base?

Pre sequel was weird. After borderlands 2 improved a ton from the first game and changed a lot, pre sequel was just a glorified dlc. It’s still a game, and it introduced some cool ideas, but it was just not as memorable. I hope they bring back those mechanics and polish them in 3, as it seems you go to different planets in that game.

 

[Altera the Hun]

View attachment 929735

The hell.

What article is this from if you don't mind