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The upcoming DLC pack for Borderlands, titled The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned is downloadable today on 360 and PS3 for 800/$9.99.

Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2 both sold extremely well and have strong communities behind them. To estimate the amount of enjoyment that you, as a reader, will personally have, there are two questions that need to be answered.

1) Do you like Left 4 Dead?

2) Do you like more of the same?

DLC Screenshot

If the answer to one or both of these questions is yes, then this DLC is for you. Gearbox, in essence, combines the mobs of zombies from Left 4 Dead, and gives you a variety of guns and superpowers to kill them with. You can have a twenty zombie train trailing you as you run to complete a quest. Combining these two elements of games makes this DLC a blast to play with friends.

I downloaded the new DLC pack, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, with very high expectations. Ever since they first announced it I was researching it and trying to find all information that I could. It seemed very promising when first released, promising its own story, new maps, lots of side quests, and new enemies. After downloading it today after school (it was about 1gb), I quickly launched it and dove right into content.

The first thing I noticed was that it was very dark. Very, very dark. The first monster encounter you have it is nigh impossible to actually see what you are fighting. Uncreatively enough your first foes are simply called, “Zombies”. While I know it is a zombie island I would hope for a bit more creativity in the monster names. I fought my way into the town and activated my first main story quest. The story is not incredibly deep, and has one minor twist throughout its course. The trademark humour is still there, and there are a few good laughs to be had. The seems rather short, but that could be because time flies when you’re having fun. I was extremely glad I had ammo regenerating weapons though, as you quickly run out of ammo plowing through waves of zombies. Because the zombies come in such massive waves and so quickly, running out of ammo is never a good thing.

I had a lot of fun with this DLC, and it was definitely worth my $10. This, by no stretch of the imagination, means it’s perfect though. There are some minor complaints (that could be viewed as major by some) that I have with this content. Firstly, the monsters were not doing it for me in the slightest, second there was nothing that really popped at me, and third, the difficulty.

There are approximately seven different monster types throughout the expansion pack. This would be perfectly fine if they were mixed up and presented in different ways. Instead they are lobbed together in masses and thrown at you. After fending enemies off for about an hour they begin to all look the same. While Gearbox advertised Were-skags as a main attraction, I think I ran into five at most. The zombies have a repetitive look, and you are often fighting a fair amount at once. The other types, which I shall no talk about in order to avoid spoilers, are more varied and rare, and thus do not blend with everything else.

The lack of a popping feature also bugged me the entire time I was playing. There was no ridiculous quest, no awesome drop, and nothing really huge or monumental. The quests were straightforward for the most part, except for one, which contains a very nice surprise. Other then the one quest (or rather line of quests) all the quests seemed rather linear. I though I had also read somewhere that there would be five new epic weapons added into the game. I have come across none of these and weapon chests are scarce within the new maps. Also, in the original game, a boss would always drop a signature weapon after his demise. In the expansion that does not happen at all. I defeated a fair amount of bosses as well, and none of them had any spectacular drop that was linked directly to them. I am not sure if this was on purpose or not, but it does not give a great feeling of satisfaction when you do not get a great piece of loot for killing a hard boss.

The difficulty of this expansion was also quite a let down. The final boss succumbed to my bullets after 30 seconds or so, and the zombies were no match for me. My opinion on this could be skewed though, as I have a few rather powerful weapons and almost all my proficiencies maxed. I’m also, of course, level 50. But even with all the enemies being level 50 (This happens after defeating the original final boss for the second time), I had no trouble. I think I went down twice, and quickly second-winded both times. It is not a huge problem, because once you become high-level with good guns everything seems easy, but just a mild annoyance.

Regardless of the fact that there is a fair amount of negativity in the previous three paragraphs I still had a blast with this game. My friend and I played co-op through for about 8 hours and complete the entire DLC, with the exception of a few side quests. I think that paying $10 for 8 hours of fun is most definitely worth it. I highly recommend this to everyone who owns Borderlands, because of the amount of fun to be had is simply ridiculous.

Esta expansión lleva por título The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned y esta disponible ya en XBox Live y pronto [tal vez el Jueves...] en PlayStation Store.

Tendrás que ayudar al Dr Ned a curar a las criaturas que viven en esta isla junto con tus amiguitos para que vivas en su plenitud esta bonita y nueva experiencia de juego llamada Borderlands, creada por GearBox y distribuido por 2k.

¿El precio…? Naah, cosa de niños; 9.99 Dólares en PS3 y 800 Microsoft Points en 360.

No lo he jugado pero se me antoja… será posible con mi conexión bizarra de 512Kb que actualmente no me deja jugar a Uncharted 2 online… F U C K!.

Fuente | ºlaps3.comº

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With a playtime of over 50 hours, the announcement from Gearbox that Borderlands was getting a campaign expanding DLC so soon after release surprised me. MTV spoke with Paul Helquist, design director of DLC, with the hope of gaining a little more info on The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned out next Tuesday (24th) for 800 MS points or around £6 on PSN. The story goes that the good Doctor experimented with zombies while working for gun manufacturer Jakobs corporation. Things didn’t go quite according to plan so now we get to profit from all the loot! And it won’t be a 5 minute job either:

“We think of it about the same size as one of the smaller zones in the main game. It’s probably four to six hours of new gameplay with a lot of new regions, new monsters, that kind of thing. It’s probably about the size of the Arid Badlands [the starting zone] and one or two of the doglegs,” said Helquist.

Although the area is available via a teleporter as soon as we purchase the DLC, it’s not for the total newbie:

“As soon as you enter the download content, it detects what level you are and sets the area to about the same level of what you’re at. So whenever you buy the DLC, wherever your character happens to be, you can go into Jakobs Cove and you should be good to go.”

“I should mention that [level 10] is the minimum level. So if you started a level 1 character and jumped in, the monsters would be level 10. That’s because we wanted to be sure that players played the beginning of ‘Borderlands’ and really understood what ‘Borderlands’ is about, ’cause there’s no training in the download content.”

Our experience with Borderlands will be altered in a positive way too as the characteristics of the zombies differs from anything we’ve met in the main campaign. Since loot is the basis of the game, Gearbox have added something called a Loot Goon which is a “Frankenstein-like creature” with a treasure chest on it’s back no doubt full of goodies.

I may have deviated from my usual Borderlands dabbling thanks to Modern Warfare 2 but come next Tuesday, I know where my allegiances will lie!

Some things I don’t care for in Borderlands:

Backpack Upgrades – why is this an item I have to use? Why can’t it simply give me a message saying your inventory space has been increased as opposed to me having to go into my inventory and use the upgrade? Seems like an unnecessary step. I mean, unlocking weapon slots isn’t an item you use.

Unlocking Weapon Slots – why are half the weapon slots locked at the beginning? This doesn’t make any sense. What’s the purpose in restricting the number of weapons I can quickslot? Imagine if Fallout 3 restricted the number of weps you could assign to the d-pad. Having more weapon slots isn’t about making your character more powerful; it’s about giving the player convenience. Titan Quest had a similar issue, where after completing two quests you’re rewards with extra inventory space; the extra stash space I can forgive because you had to buy it. So essentially, put a price tag on extra space instead of handing it out as a quest reward.

Bruisers – heavy-type characters/units that force you to change the weight you put on your priorities; perhaps you want to unload everything into the heavy first or maybe you prefer to kill off the smaller opponents so you can deal with the tank in isolation. But the Bruisers in Borderlands don’t look like heavies. Well, they do in that they are bigger than everyone else, but all they wear are pants. I tire of games that have bullet sponge baddies, and it aggravates me more when their indication is simply thick bigness. Put some fucking tank plating on these motherfuckers or something. Just because you have more muscle doesn’t mean you’re bulletproof. This is just lazy design.

Untouchable Quest Items – this is just insanity. Send me off on fetch quests, I accept this as a game trope. But send me back to the same area over and over? Gimme a fucking break.

GT също пуснаха геймплей кадри от първото DLC за Borderlands – Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

и

Буууууу

Il y a une petite semaine, avec un ami, nous avons poncer (oui je crois que c’est le mots qui convient) le jeu Borderland du studio Gearbox Software (Gear of war 1 et 2 entre autre).

La jaquette de Borderlands.

Nous avons fait les 1000g en un peu moins d’une semaine et ceux malgrès les bugs de succès de ce jeux.

Enfin bref, le test arrive.

Dantes bloggeur et éxplorateur des terres désolé.

Borderlands Review

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

There’s an insatiable urge in all of us to quantify our leisurely enjoyment with some type of trophy or reward. Gaming is not averse to this line of thinking, it embraces it and pushes it onto us like some addictive chemical found in most foods we scarf down while playing ‘just one more level’. Achievements, trophies, and even the odd stamp system of the Wii are just some of the ways that console makers have tried to give us some type of showing for our gaming habits. One could argue that this system is derived from PC gaming, but not through an overarching and meaningless number attached to in game tasks, but the tasks themselves. Looting in games has practically been a genre all on its own, feeding on that need we all have to get just a little more because we know the next one…that will be the one.

Borderlands is a first-person shooter that adopts the lust of loot, most popularized in games like Diablo, as a main component to its appeal. The developers over at Gearbox were smart enough, however, to not just rest on that to sell the game. They also went out and made it funny, chaotic, rewarding and engrossing, just enough to make it a worthwhile game. It’s not perfect, but it does enough right when it counts.

Fresh off the bud on the world of Pandora, you’ll get to select one of four classes. These are fairly self-explanatory with a Soldier, Hunter, Siren, and Berserker to choose from, and each with their special ability and talents.  I didn’t find any of them vastly superior than the other, and given the co-op nature of the game each balances out to help form a solid ‘team’. While it might be a better time had by all to play with others online, it’s hardly necessary. The AI is a little tougher with more people and the loot is supposedly better, but you can get through this game alone without much difficulty at all.

Depending on your approach to the games questing, there’s a boatload of side quest to take on from NPC’s and bounty boards. They’re always the same though. Go here, kill this, activate or blow up this, come back and collect your reward. It’s a little lifeless in function because your interaction with the actual NPC’s doesn’t feel very genuine and there isn’t a sense that you’re doing anything to actually help or hinder anyone. This is where the game suffers, in part because it could have been a fuller experience but also because it lends itself too much to the game never feeling like its own breathing world.

The story starts out interesting and strong enough, with a wicked opening cut-scene that got me pretty pumped. From there, the narrative is essentially told to you by a visual presence that pops up sporadically throughout the game. It’s a missed opportunity because with more real characters throughout the game you could have felt that your impact actually changed things. This never gets off the ground though.

Most of the interest in this game will lay in the combat though, and that itself is solid and fun enough to make up for the rest. A utilized engine in the game generates hundreds of thousands of guns, if not more, all with their own stats and helpers tied in. Corrosive, explosive, fire and shock damage help you deal with enemies using any of the various weapons you’ll find. Certain characters are by nature better with specific weaponry, but a neat little system of leveling your use with guns means you can play however you’d like without issue.

The combat is fluid, controls tight and has a penchant for bloody. All of this is excellent. A nice Fight for your Life mechanic also means when you’re downed by an enemy, you can save yourself by killing them before you bleed out. Or, if you’re playing with a partner they can make it over to heal you. It keeps you in the action longer and means even intense battles can be a lot of fun without needing to respawn. There’s no real penalty for dying though, lessening the difficulty of the game.

This became an issue by time I finished the game. Completing every quest the game offered me up until the end meant that I finished at level 37, 50 happens to be the level cap on the game. But the enemies in the end game are hovering around levels 29-31…meaning I steamrolled the last part of the game without having to blink.

The game is helped along by quick travel, and easy driving if you wish. But area to area nothing ever feels different, until the very last level – which was a great change of pace. If Borderland becomes a franchise, I really hope they change this part of the game. Give it some variety; give some life to the occupants of the world to make it a bit more involving. As it is the game is tremendous fun, but won’t stick with you for very long afterward. So there’s a give and take, it’s a face value game that feeds the loot hound and combat luster in all of us, but it’s meaningless and unfulfilling by the time you realize there’s nothing really going on.

The World: Pandora is a great setting…at first. While I can get past games with a set tone and environment throughout, without some additional active life or characters it all bleeds together. Fallout 3 had an issue of everything looking the same, but at least NPC’s moved and altered as the game moved forward giving it a semblance of seeming real. 7/10

The Combat: Anyone who’s ever played a first person shooter can pick up this game and have a blast. It’s simple, effective and the weaponry keeps things interesting. The added RPG elements round out the options for your character giving you better control over just what they bring to the fight. 9/10

The Co-Op: This is one of those rare games that straddle the single player and co-op features extremely well. You don’t NEED to play with someone, but it makes it more fun for sure. A simple lobby allows for you to match up even if you don’t have friends that play, and private lobbies let you make it exclusive if you do. Combat and loot ramps up a bit to make it more worth playing with friends. The only problem I found was there could have been a trading system, instead of needing to just drop guns. 9/10

The Story: Uh…hmmm. It set up so well, and then peters off before the games even 30 minutes in. Told to you basically by a ‘vision’ you have as you move along, it’s a terrible narrative device that robs the game of being really outstanding. Near the end you’ll likely not care one bit about what you’re doing. Fine if you just want to kill more shit. 5/10

The Weapons: Not just in the combat section, because this was such a selling point in its own right. A smart little engine generates a ton of different weapons – and for true loot enthusiasts this alone could make the game. Perfect accuracy or more damage? Explosive rounds but a weak fire-rate? There’s an answer to pretty much any gun you might want if you scrounge and play enough. It’s not enough to sell me on a game – but going forward this could be the start of something truly awesome. 9/10

SCORE: 78%

I’ve always wanted to play a Diablo-type game set in a gunpowder world.

The story of Borderlands – does it really matter? I’m sure the quest descriptions are fine, but that’s not engaging me; I see it simply as information, unimportant since it’s not the facts that take me to the objective. If this game had a minimap on the HUD, I wouldn’t know what the game looks like.

The whole bazillion weapons aspect doesn’t bother me. After all this is a randomized item-drop game, and with this kind of play, a large variety is best. That’s the whole point. You want gear that’s different than what your friends have. You go on the same adventures but you want different rewards; maybe to brag, maybe to define your char. I’m not playing this game for the story or well-structured single-player experience. I want progressively better gear to kill mobs.

And while the randomness of the drops is entertaining Pandora is not, mainly because the world is static. I can always count on those three bandits that hop the fence just outside Fyrestone; that locker opposite the skag arena always has weapons with requirements greater than my character level. Sure Diablo 2 had fixtures, but their maps always had a randomized layout and to a lesser degree different monsters; seeing the same tile sets never bothered me, probably because from a technical point it’s more efficient to play with the arrangement of the map than have a giant catalog of cycling tile sets.

Diablo 2 had a flat map, pockets of baddies whose locations were randomized. In Borderlands, though the map is much larger and varied in elevation, you will always find the same pockets in the same areas. Farming consists mostly of opening chests. A baddie can drop anything; a weapons chest will always give you guns and ammo.

Diablo Diablo Diablo.

I’m also not fond of the vehicle. I do appreciate its purpose as a fast travel option – I don’t think a town portal scroll would work well since progression is not a straight line, one area to the next and no reason to look back. I just don’t like having to drive to a destination and then get out to fight. Which is strange since while I also got tired of Far Cry 2’s I didn’t mind the GTAs’. Perhaps it had something to do with the former being an FPS; perhaps it had something to do with the same issue as Borderlands, in that, there were always outposts on the roads that always had baddies, and while you could sometimes drive past them, it was always best to kill them. Nothing in GTA consistently blocked your path to the next mission other than traffic and the law, but nothing ever pulled you over without a reason.

Too bad. As an uncommon occurrence racial profiling could be entertaining.

And because I’ve started a playthrough with coop and everything is shared, I’ve been having to buy ammo from the vendors. When I have 0/1020 SMG rounds and can only buy in quantities of 72, that’s a lot of clicking that could be simplified to “click here to refill entire count.” I mean, come on – have you ever stopped short of buying all the ammo you could carry and say “that’s enough for me, I like being one clip light”?

I had fun the first time around. I just don’t see myself going through another playthrough because even though the loot will get better, killing the same type and number of baddies and navigating the static world are just tiresome.

just finished reading two amazing books. first off, part six in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: and another thing…. it was written by eoin colfer, the dude who wrote artemis fowl, and he did a stellar job at keeping up the comedy.

also sat down and finished the graveyard book by neil gaiman in a day as well. it’s about a boy named nobody who lives in a graveyard, raised by various ghosts and goes on numerous adventures. gaiman totally works his magic craft with it, making it both a childrens book and an adult novel, with awesome art from dave mckean.

gaiman at his best

last but not least, i finally finished up borderlands for the xbox 360, by 2k games and gearbox. a really strong and funny fps mixed with role-playing elements. to do everything it only took about 20 to 25 hours and it was totally worth it. a great amount of fun, like a fallout and diablo mix.

enjoyed it thoroughly

What?  Another Wasteland?  Another Vault you say?  Sweet another Fallout! Oh wait whats that, its not another Fallout game?  What the heck is it then?

Ahhh Borderlands Its only been out for a short while but in the end I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.  This game is an Action RPG.  What makes this game an Action RPG?  Well in this game when you shoot something little numbers pop up when you do damage to a creature.  The part that makes it an action game is that the controls are all based on how you would play a shooter.

If you’ve ever seen me broadcast any FPS games you’d get a nice visual of me stumbling around lost.  I love to run into things, get stuck on things and back myself into walls.  But because I suck at shooter does not make me shy away from them.  Actually In Battlefield Heroes I think I’m quite good.

Borderlands is pretty tough, I’ve seen people run out of bullets in the first battle only to die and I had to revive them.  The toughest part about the game is managing your loot.  If your weapons and shields are not up to par with where your at in the game, things are gonna get really tough.

Yes I said that I was fighting with other players.  This is a Multi player game which you can play co-op with up to 4 people.  With the 2 or 3 games that I played in co-op mode I can tell you that the action gets pretty crazy when you hit more than 2 people.  I was playing solo and went into an area and it was pretty calm.  But the same area with multi player was tough with some crazy monsters I had never seen before.

You can drive vehicles with this game and each vehicle can hold up to 2 people, one driver and one gunner.  It can be pretty fun with 2 vehicles going around slaughtering monsters.  I especially love to drive over them, who doesn’t like roadkill?

I can’t emphasize enough about how much I love the loot system.  I see one of the red cases that I know has guns in it and I get all tinglie inside.  It does help that when you find a case of weapons your character talks.

I’ve been having a blast with this game and suggest it to everyone who asks me about it.

So grab a gun, jump on the bus to Pandora and get ready to duke it out with some ugly skags.

Тъй като не успях да приключа с Borderlands преди излизането на Modern Warfare 2 е ясно, че отрочето на Gearbox ще остане за един по късен етап от геймърското ми ежедневие, но все пак няма как да не спомена, че онзи ден IGN показаха чисто нови кадри от първото DLC за играта – Zombie Island of Dr. Ned.

DLC-то ще струва $10 за Xbox 360 и PlayStation 3 и излиза на 24 ноември, а PC версията ще се появи малко след това… предполагам на същата цена. Ето матряла на IGN:

Por: William J. Ramírez (skycrawler1138)

Estimados lectores, antes que disfruten de estas palabras quiero dejar claro un par de mis colegas de PSNPR y yo fuimos víctimas de una intervención por nuestros seres queridos. ¿Por qué? Simplemente por que caímos en la adicción de un juego que salió de la nada llamado BORDERLANDS. Por días llevamos jugando día y noche, pero no termina ahí. Cuando no jugamos nos pasamos pensando en jugar y mientras dormimos soñamos en jugar este juego. Ha llegado al punto de imaginar ver criaturas del juego en la vida real.

Para aquellos que no sepan, Borderlands es un (single player/co-op) híbrido RPG/Shooter (o RPS) desarrollado por Gearbox Software (desarrolladores de Brothers in Arms). El juego se basa en 4 caza fortuna que andan en la búsqueda de una legendaria bóveda llena de inimaginables tesoros en un planeta desértico llamado Pandora. Guiados por una misteriosa mujer, nuestros adventureros Lilith (Siren), Mordecai (Hunter), Brick (Berserker) y Roland (Soldier) ofrecen sus destrezas para combatir contra bandidos, flora y fauna que habitan en este planeta durante una extensa aventura de 50+ hrs.

A simple vista Borderlands parece un shooter común y corriente, pero es más profundo que eso. El elemento de RPG entra mediante el desarrollo de las destrezas (skills) de cada personaje en un elaborado sistema donde puedes modificar tus atributos ofensivos o defensivos. Este sistema realmente brilla cuando juegas Co-Op con 1 a 3 personas, ya que estas destrezas benefician (de una manera o otra) a todos en el equipo y aseguran la victoria. La estructura del juego está basada en misiones que recibes de ciertos individuos (misiones primarias) o “Boards” (misiones secundarias) dispersados en un mundo abierto de cada región, el cual ayudan a encontrar claves sobre la legendaria bóveda. La parte de shooter es bien representada a gran escala. ¿A qué me refiero? Bueno, el juego juega como un buen shooter (ej. Killzone), pero a diferencia de otros shooters este  ofrece 87 bazillones (¿?) de armas. No lo estoy inventado, lo dice en la caja. Aunque suena un poco exagerado el juego brinda una inmensa cantidad de armas de diferentes clases y atributos suficientes para tumbar el cielo. Es aquí donde comienza la adicción. Cada vez que encuentras un arma rara, está se convierte en un objeto de conversación y todo el mundo  se obsesiona con encontrar nuevas armas para lucir.

A continuación nuestros editores comparten sus experiencias y nos dicen por qué estan obsesionados con este juego:

William J. Ramírez (skycrawler1138)

Sinceramente Borderlands salió para mi de la nada, cuando escuché que era un RPS (Role Playing/Shooter) que se podía jugar Co-Op encendió en mi un spark de curiosidad ya que aprecio ambos género y más si es Co-Op. En el momento que empecé, nada más con el “intro” supe que lo iba a disfrutar. El arte de este juego lo hace resaltar sobre los demás juegos de este año y demuestra altos valores de producción ya que parece que estoy jugando un comic sin ser muy obvio con el sobre uso de “Cel Shading”. Como personaje escogí a Roland (Soldier) ya que me siento cómodo con su especialidad en armas (Assault Rifles y Shotguns), además de la habilidad de lanzar un Turret que provee protección y un poquito de más firepower en el campo de batalla. Lo más que me gusta de esté juego (además del loot) es la habilidad de modificar tu personaje a tu estilo de juego. La forma en la cual estoy jugando es proveyendo apoyo a mi equipo como médico el cual consta en usar mis propias armas para regenerar la salud de mis colegas (así es, le disparo a los demás jugadores y le sube la vida). Otra elemento que me gusta (como mencioné antes) es la ridícula cantidad de loot (armas), no hay nada mejor que la euforia de encontrar un cofre en el medio de la nada con un arma rara (lo cual es raro…lol). Apesar de un par de problemas estructurales (historia pobre, intercambio de armas, menú), el jugar Co-Op con mis amigos (de principio a fin/”drop-in drop-out”) y la obsesión de encontrar mejores armas son suficientes para yo disfrutar este juego al máximo. Honestamente les digo que no dejen este juego pasar, se los recomiendo.

Johnny E. Cortés (sephiroth2006)

Personalmente no soy amante de los juegos FPS. Mi interés en el juego surge por la parte de RPG y el modo cooperativo. Las gráficas del juego resalta el mundo de una manera espectacular. El diseño de los personajes me encantó y el personaje que estoy usando Lilith (Siren) aparenta ser débil, pero en el fondo hay que decirle usted y tenga (Como decimos por acá -.ed). Cuando se juega en modo cooperativo es importante que tus compañeros se complementen para poder disfrutar de las experiencia que el juego proporciona. Aunque el juego tiene problemas, como William comenta, también encuentro que puede volverse repetitivo. Creo que el juego es una de las sorpresas de este año, aunque no para el juego del año, les puedo decir que recomiendo este juego.

Michael Negrón (Mngavis)

Que les puedo decir: “Hola, mi nombre es Mngavis y soy un adicto en recuperación de Borderlands. Al presente soy un Berserker Level 21 y me encuentro perdido en los valles rocosos de Pandora.” Cuando salió la noticia de que Gearbox se mantuvo firme en lanzar Borderlands en octubre de este año, esto captó mi atención. Aun así el juego logró pasar por debajo de mi radar y el de muchos otros. Para mi ha sido la sensación de la temporada y me recuerda cuando no paraba de jugar el modo Coop de Resistance 2. Entiendo que la capacidad de poder jugar la campaña con tus amigos en cualquier momento es el fuerte del juego y lo que me mantiene volviendo por más. Estoy impresionado con el estilo gráfico,  el cual se compara con el de Prince of Persia, porque nunca pensé que pudiera ser utilizado para un FPS. Estuve un poco reaseo a usar la clase de Berserker porque pensé que iba a ser aburrido golpear a los mandidos, pero es todo lo contrario. El juego constantemente te lleva a obtener armas y habilidades nuevas y a enfrentarte a enemigos más peligrosos. En conclusión, Borderlands es mezcla de género que funciona de maravilla y es una compra que recomiendo a ojo cerrado a cualquier  miembro de nuestra comunidad.

Alberto E. Ramírez (sincalizacion)

Que bueno el saber que después de tanto tiempo en el autobús te digan “Bueno aquí te quedas, bienvenido a los Bad Lands de Pandora” y tu primer encuentro es con un Robot del tamaño de un zafacón que empieza a decirte “ hey por aquí por aquí, sígueme por aquí”, esa es la bienvenida que recibes al empezar el fabuloso first person shooter + RPG, BORDERLANDS. En esta pequeña historia yo he decidido tomar el rol del personaje Mordecai – el Cazador, lo cual sus especialidades son con los Snipers y los Revólveres, sus destrezas son muchas veces para apoyar a sus compañeros como el ayudarlos a subir sus “Expirence Points” un 3% mas de lo normal y claro con su ataque secundario adquiere la ayuda de su águila “Blood Wing”, el cual puede tomar poderes de elementos y poder dar ataques muchos mas fuertes y con efectos secundarios dependiendo el elemento. Una de las cosas que mas me gusta de este juego es como puedes unirte con tus amigos online (no importa el nivel) en cualquier momento y sin alterar la historia, entrar y salir cuando gustes sin afectar en nada el juego. Otra de las grandes cosas del juego es como dependiendo de la cantidad de gente jugando es como la dificultad del juego disminuye o aumenta. Hasta ahora lo único que no me ha gustado sobre este juego es como ciertas habilidades que están cuando juegas solo no se encuentran cuando juegas con tus amigos online, por ejemplo mi personaje Mordecai tiene una habilidad que al estar herido se puede regenerar con el tiempo pero al jugar online con tus amigos esta habilidad es descartada. En conclusión Borderlands es un excelente juego y bien adictivo, lo que lo hace mejor es el tremendo co-op. Bueno, ahora si me lo permiten tengo un autobús que tomar para los Bad Lands a ver si consigo el tesoro escondido de Pandora.

Lourdes Maldonado (lulusoy)

Lo compré por culpa de Billy. Ciertamente no hubiese salido a comprarlo si Billy no le hubiese dado tanta promoción. El juego tiene 4  personajes que puedes escoger y yo obviamente escogí a Lilith porque era la fémina del grupo. El juego me gusta bastante, pero todavía no puedo decir que me encanta. La razón principal para esto es que  me pierdo con mucha facilidad. Esto no es nuevo para mí en los juegos, así que no es culpa de Borderlands. Mi sentido de orientación no es el mejor, aunque nunca me perdí con Uncharted 2. Me gusta su sencillez dentro de su complicación. ¿Cómo es esto? Bueno que las tareas que hay que hacer, hasta ahora, no son extensas ni imposibles. Apenas soy nivel 11 ahora y no se si luego se pone peor esta situación. ¿Qué no me gusta? La variedad de armas, válgame. En verdad hubiese preferido que las armas fueran mas limitadas y que se hicieran mas fuertes según tu nivel va aumentando y claro está, que no se acabaran las balas. Me pasa esto mucho cuando estoy juagando sola. ¿Lo que más me gusta? Definitivo la parte co-op, el poder jugar con mis amigos en mi propio juego es una experiencia brutal. Esto a su vez ayudó a que fueran mis amigos los que me dieran el tutorial del juego. Sin esa ayuda extra estaría bastante frustada, estimo yo.

TRAILER

A journey of danger, gore and heaps of weapons makes this one of the most enjoyable games you could possibly play this year.

You are on Pandora, a hostile unforgiving planet full or secrets, extreme events and some angry looking monsters. You are a mercenary sent to plunder this planet of all its riches and to discover the location of the mysterious Vault and along the way quests, objectives and violence! The intro scene will have you in that groovy killing mood in no time and gives you an exciting , new, quality feel right from the word go. So you’ve enjoyed the intro scene now you must pick your mercenary and there are four to choose from:

Roland: Soldier and former Crimson Lance mercenary, able to deploy a Scorpio Turret, a weapon that attacks automatically while shielding Roland. Rifles and shotguns are his standard-issue weapons.

Lilith: Siren Phasewalker who can fight invisibly with extreme speed. She prefers guns firing incendiary, shock and corrosive rounds.

Mordecai: Hunter whose bird of prey Bloodwing follows him into battle. Mordecai is a sniper rifle master favouring the revolver as a side arm.

Brick: Berserker who annihilates adversaries with his fists while in an almost indestructible rage state. When not pulverizing enemies by hand, Brick fights using explosive weaponry.

The four mercenaries are very different from each other giving you four unique and different ways to play the game, you can however use whatever weapons you like with each character, their classes have more favoured weapons and different abilities. When I first started I chose the Siren for her speedy but stealthy attacks, you can change the colour of your characters clothing by visiting the New-U-Station screen, they look like gas burners for your back yard and glow neon green when nearing them and will save all your stats when used so when you die you will respawn at these points.

Your “guardian angel” will appear telling you to get off the bus, your tutorial will start here. A small cheeky robot will welcome you to fire stone, these robots are called Clap Traps and they will appear throughout the game offering extra backpack spaces if you can locate a tool box to repair them. He will give you a heads up display showing you your experience, heath, ammo and a compass at the bottom in white, after an interruption by a group of bandits in vehicles you will be introduced to some enemies you can kill. You will start with one weapon but weapons come in abundance so I wouldn’t worry about not finding more, the controls are smooth and getting around is easy which is important as you have a whole new exciting but dangerous world to explore.

After you’ve killed the small nest of bandits start looking around and picking everything up, enemy’s drop a variety of things from ammo to cash and weapons, always do this as you will need the cash later on for ammo upgrades and shields. There are so many things to find and explore in Borderlands it will keep you more than happy all the way through if you fancy just treasure hunting yourself off the beaten track. When you pick up some weapons press the back button to access your character menu, scroll to your inventory to find you weapon slots and assign one extra weapon for the time being more will open as you play. When you’re out of the character menu the D-pad is used for short cuts for your weapon slots or press Y button to scroll through your last two weapons you used, making combat very enjoyable as you can switch weapons quickly also saving you and, if you choose, your buddies from hairy situations.

As you progress you will be introduced to all those locked spaces in your inventory like Grenade Mods enabling you to throw them and also to change the ability on the grenades you throw. You will also unlock Shield Mods which is self explanatory and when a shield is equipped an extra bar will appear above your health bar giving you an edge on your enemies. Even further on and you will unlock Class Mods, these are devices to boost  your character class’s stats and come in many variety’s and ranks. The game gives you enough time to become proficient before introducing you to another feature or ability which makes the transgression through training to the main plot smooth and seamless, you will start to notice more and more quality and ideas to challenge you as you progress and will carry on to the end throwing some unexpected things your way, it is Pandora after all.

To start your first missions in fire stone you must first find Dr. Zed, the Clap Trap will give you a mission involving getting to Dr. Zed. Mission objective show up on your compass and are indicted by a green and white flashing triangle, it’s very easy to use and follow especially over the wastes of Pandora and your compass will also show other things like car depot and mission spots making navigation painless, and if you’re still stuck or lost you can always consult your map with the back button and scroll along the menu tabs. After a violent introduction to Dr. Zed you can start to pick up more and more missions eventually opening up new ways to other areas and new missions.

The map is huge and has many areas extending from it giving you expansive areas to explore, also you can open up short cuts in certain areas making trekking back for missions a little bit less time consuming. The level design is high quality with nothing looking out of place and various chests and caves make for good exploring, there are also some amazing sights to be had around Borderlands standing on top of buildings or areas you have scaled can be rewarding as you can see far and wide. As you explore and complete missions you will gain access to vehicles which makes all the difference as some areas are right down the bottom of the main map, you can also use the travel posts marked on your map to instantly travel to other areas you have explored making exploring the whole game a strong possibility and why not you have alot to discover.

As you progress you will notice there aren’t just bandits on Pandora but hardy looking monsters too, there is a good variety of life on Pandora all of which are trying to kill you or eat you but some other forms of life that are harmless should have been added for the cheap kill factor and for more depth, mutant cows always go down well, just seems like there’s too many hostile enemy’s to survive on Pandora but it is entertaining when bandits and monsters try and murder eachother, it gives you a Borderlands perspective of the fight for life. All AI is detailed well for the cell shaded look Borderlands has and the gore effects make combat what is it, very violent and exciting even when you’re a high level you still will be challenged by hordes/villages of bandits or huge flying creatures that breath down elements. There are also bosses and mini bosses, these may have a short cut scene but be warned they normally have much better abilities than your average bandit or monster and often have strong Hench men to protect them, these parts of the game are normally in some kind of arena and will test your skills. You must use all of your powers and probably most of your ammo but these tests in the game keep you looking out for bigger bader enemy’s and get you really involved in the game.

The story progresses well,  I won’t spoil it buts definitely worth seeing through to the end even if your short on time these days and with excellent side missions to boot will keep you focused in game if that’s what you feel like doing, but you can also explore in your own time giving you options to fit what killing mood you’re in. 

The game is solid all the way through and fans of this genre will be very happy, the game expands as you play leaving you wanting to play more and not trading it in after two days. It also has online co-op for four people which is fantastic, you and your friends pillaging and murdering on a Saturday night, you just can’t beat sharing experiences with friends online or offline. Split screen however is a huge fail, there’s too much going on screen for small/medium TV’s and scrolling menus across your screen to see them just doesn’t work sadly, larger TVs I expect may reduce this problem. It’s nice to see more “worthy titles” especially being advertised well on TV as they’re not misleading the customer in anyway this has quality running all the way to the end and more, this is definitely a game to be proud of.

Buy, Rent or Pass: Big Fat Buy

Gamer Rating: 9.7

Yeah, I’ve got the game, and I like it, but here’s the deal: it could have been WAY better, and it wouldn’t have been very hard to drastically improve the PC version. Here to school Gearbox on what PC gamers want in their role-playing shooters is the entire community of RockPaperShotgun, a gaming website devoted entirely to the PC. Check it out: what begins as a short post mentioning that a Borderlands 2 is very likely quickly turned into a very intelligent and thought-out list of the improvements Gearbox should make on the next game. I think they’ve pretty much nailed it, but see for yourself.

Every good game deserves a good DLC. Couple that DLC with zombies and you’ve got yourself a great bit of content. 1up is reporting that the previously announced Zombie Island of Dr. Ned DLC for Borderlands is being released on November 24th for Xbox 360 and PS3. Sadly PC owners may have to wait a bit longer as 2K chose not to mention a version for them.

Just to recap – Dr. turns locals of Jacobs Cove into zombies and it’s up to us to find a cure while no doubt destroying a few of them along the way. Of course there will be oodles more loot to collect, keep or sell which is something that has been keeping me entertained for the last few weeks. For only 800 Microsoft points or around £6, more loot, zombies and even were-skags – oh yes, were-skags – sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

And when I say finished I mean I beat it on normal; there is still Playthrough 2 to come where everyone is super tough, and lots of 4 player online play and duelling. Safe to say I am getting my 50 dollars worth out of this game.

Okay so my Hunter has completed every last mission in the game with 21 hours 12 minutes of play on the clock. On a second playthrough I expect about fifteen hours; not a whole lot of time was spent trying to figure stuff out. A lot more time was spent putting rounds through bandits heads and watching the beautiful chunks spray in all directions.

Visually I am in love. The concept art slash comic book style slash cell shading works wonders. Each piece of the terrain has a full texture which is then surrounded with a chunky black border that stays the same thickness at every distance: so from far away things appear blocky and chunky, resolving into pieces when you approach. The enemies are one of six types but with many variations, each with their own unique model. The guns – oh, the guns. Having picked up easily five hundred guns and used most of them I have to say they are still fresh and exciting. The models are created with a modular system, so each one can have any of a dozen different magazines, stocks, barrels, scopes, etc, etc. Which means no two guns look alike, and you really notice it when you’re handling so much weaponry. Borderlands doesn’t let the modular randomising system take over though: I came across easily twenty ‘unique’ weapons all obviously hand-crafted to look specifically awesome – most notably the Patton revolver, all brushed silver with a minimalist, Old-West revolver appearance, sporting a quote from General Patton in its description.

The best bit about the guns isn’t how they look like, or even how they sound – though the crack! of each revolver has a distinctive sound, and are all equally satisfying – it’s the shooting. I have never experienced such super-smooth hit detection. Critical spots are difficult targets, but not because the hitboxes are off: they are difficult because the models move realistically, duck behind cover, work in pairs (nothing amused me more than hearing a bandit yell “Nobody kills my buddy and lives!”, except maybe Tannis’s utter insanity) and die in such a satisfying manner.

That said, it’s not a perfect game. Multiplayer is deeply flawed, requiring players to host their own servers on their own internet connections, requires port forwarding and the like to avoid 15 second timeouts, and much of the glorious hit detection is lost in the milliseconds of lag. The bosses, while climactic and terrifying and introduced with hilarious, Inglourious Basterd-style freeze frames, tend towards being too static and simply beefcakes without much killing ability. Maybe as a Hunter my play style exacerbated that issue as I tended to run backwards and shoot them in the eyes, but that’s still a point against them. Indeed, I died once to Sledge and killed every other boss first try. I found myself dying to the average grunt when I wasn’t paying attention or managed to get caught in between two or three of them. The challenge level in the first playthrough is bumpy, though – a badass (elite) grunt, due to its clever AI or good positioning, was often more challenging than the boss he was protecting.

That said, the battle against Krom ranks in my top five boss fights of all time, up there with Salazar from Resident Evil 4.

Mission design was seamless, pulling of the go-here do-that kill-this-guy turn-in quest system from many an MMO with relative ease for a shooter. The missions themselves are creative, amusing, varied, and sometimes even challenging on their own.

Anyway, the final verdict is that it’s a great game: the loot system of Diablo, the aesthetics and black humour of the Fallout series, a peerless shooting experience and characters worthy of Bioware. Don’t be fooled by the sandbox gameplay tagline – this is pretty linear. And damnit, that’s a good thing!

~VIDEO GAME NEWS~

Reggie Fils-Aime unphased by rival motion controls
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Alan Wake May 2010
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Bobby Kotick $20m richer
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Mario and Luigi: Partners in Crime
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October NPDs
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10m xbox sold in UK
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2009 Gran Turismo Awards
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Q. What is the appeal of Cosworth as an engine partner?

Sam Michael: They are an independent, engineering-led company, which is pretty much identical to Williams. Engineering is at the forefront of everything they do and that was a big attraction. The reliability of their original engine should achieve pretty good levels with the current rules because it was an engine that was designed to much higher revs back in 2006.

Now the limit is 18,000rpm so you have a very robust basis for an engine. Those were a couple of areas that we thought were quite strong. If you look a back to 2006, it was one of our most unreliable years, but one of the things that was clear to us internally was that there was only one DNF from an engine failure.

There were other engine-related failures but that was because of packaging and other areas of the car that we didn’t have time to optimise because it was such a late decision. Cosworth have got a lot of work to do over winter to consolidate and make sure that that reliability is realised for the start of next year.

And fuel consumption is an intensive area of development at the moment so that’s it on the technical side. From a strategic point of view, they are only 50 miles from us, they are very easy to communicate and so far all of the design meetings we have had to integrate the engine have been very positive and well-received.

Q. In 2006, Williams decided to drop Cosworth in favour of Toyota. Now, you are going the other way. Have the changes in regulations made the Cosworth more desirable again?

SM: The sport has changed massively since 2006. If you look back from the early 2000s to the last 18 months, it has been manufacturer dominated but that’s shifting significantly. There were different reasons for not being with Cosworth back then. But you can also ask if the decision we took was correct? We don’t know, because history sets itself and that’s it.

If we had continued with Cosworth back then, maybe it wouldn’t have been the best thing. That’s the great thing about F1 – it keeps evolving and it’s a process of change right now and that has led things back to an independent engineering group being the best thing for Williams.

Cosworth has got two big hurdles. Fuel consumption is critical with no refuelling, and their target for the winter is to improve that. The other is reliability. Everyone has accumulated three years of running on their engines while Cosworth has been out and gained thousands of kilometres of knowledge.

Q. Is the Cosworth a winning engine?

SM: We won’t know that until we get it on the track. Our target is always to be at the front and with the grid being so tight now it’s even more realistic to have that as a target as the regulations have closed everything up so much. Finding one or two tenths from aerodynamic or some other gain can put you in with a shout of winning races. That’s why there have been so many winners this year. Cosworth are going to do a good job.

Q. Have you got enough time to adapt the design of the 2010 car to run the Cosworth engine?

SM: We’ve been into it for quite a while. Obviously Brawn showed what is possible this year and how you can make an engine decision late, but to think that we wouldn’t have a more optimised version in 2011 would be incorrect because there’s no doubt that you always in the second and third years of an engine partnership get more and more refined and understand what advantages there are. But there won’t be anything significant on the 2010 package that is compromised because we’ve tackled the issue.

Q. Will you continue to run your own gearbox?

SM: We make our own gearbox and there’s no debate over that.

Reference: Autosport.com

I live in Istanbul, Turkey.

However, I bought my car from Adana.

On the 28th of August 2008, I registered my car and went out to traffic.

It was an A3 1.4 TFSI Sportback with a S-Tronic gearbox.

A great day for me, as I was an old fan of Audi who never had one.