Don't Overhype Borderlands

The videos look okay. After all, they don't post video of areas of the game they're very unhappy with, they're showing us some of the best features. I mean they want us to buy the game. Now, I'm excited about BL's, but I've had to check that because I recall some other games from Take2. Games that seemed to be on the verge of doing right, but ended up wrong. Like the Desert Storm series, or gta5 (sorry but the controls when compared to gta3 are balls) and Bioshock (now some may love bioshock BUT what I noticed I really liked was the art deco style, not the actual gameplay - again the controls were balls).

So, while I am still buying BL's on Oct20th because in doing so I hope to show the industry, if not Take2 itself which direction to focus on (fps mmo). Worst case, we get a game that's sorta fun to play online. As an older gamer though I can tell you I'm not looking foward to play online with randoms (people you don't know) this'll be a friends only type dealy and I don't think too many hardcore FPSer's are picking this up. Which means my friends list in BL will be small.

The upside of MMo and co-op online games is the opportunity to tear it up with friends in an entertaining environ / genre. The downside is often the community as it actually is, which remains to be seen. But having recently picked up Call of Duty World at War (it's so much better than Call of Nwbi 4) and noticing that hardly anyone wears their headset and those who do seem to humm or just complain about martyrdom, juggernaut and such, I wonder what the fate of BL's will be.

I mean everyone seems to be banking on the success of online gaming, and really for me that would be awesome because it's what I love most, BUT the fact is the internet is in shitty shape atm - and in a number of ways. I mean globally, australia has the worst internet ever, so bad in fact that their government is overhauling it. Aussies skip across your screen, their ping is like 350-500, and it may not be that bad when playing with friends from europe and asia, but when talking fps, and lag kills the experience. Then of course theres the actual human factor; nothing is guarenteed online - ppl often suck. So a game that requires two constants - cool ppl and solid internet, may just miss.

I really do hope this game turns into a quality franchise with something for everyone, I really do. But so far we have charcter we can't customize, a community that's getting themselves worked up for what they hope will be THE game, and randomly generated terrain between objectives. I'm so keeping my fingers crossed.