Poll: Borderlands 2 is annoying...

[Skops]

I was a big fan of Borderlands 1, and I still am. Bought it on release day, and all the DLC and enjoyed most of them (Mad Moxxi's Underdome was trash). I love the art style, the loot'n shoot/dungeon crawler FPS it is. I just wanna put that out there before I get into this: I LOVE Borderlands.

But Borderlands 2? Even when it was first announced, for some reason I wasn't looking forward to it. The game came out, got critical acclaim from the large portion of reviewers and community. So naturally I get it, but I didn't play it at all until this week. After a full first playthrough finally, I can say why I don't like Borderlands 2: It's too fucking ridiculous.

Everything about this game is over-the-top bullshit and shoving it down your throat. From constant puns, pop culture, and internet meme jokes to the stupid gun designs. This game is like 4 Chan in disc form. It annoys the shit out of me. I'm not going to deny that Borderlands 1 didn't have some elements of annoying humor, it did. But nothing like this. Borderlands 2 goes for the 12 year old approach and at an earlier point in the game calls some enemies "bonerfarts". This game doesn't have 1 quest or side quest that doesn't make 2-3 jokes within the dialogue and it's not needed.

This might just be a personal thing, but I can't stand the gun designs in Borderlands 2. I know that in the first game a number of people said that there is lack of diversity in how the guns look. I understand that, but this isn't how rectify that criticism.

Spoiler

Just, what is that? Now obviously, this isn't the case with every weapon, but it is the case for most of the high rarity weapons. Everything has be so silly that, after a few hours it gets sickening.

Now another thing is the games performance. I might never buy another Borderlands game again on console, cause this game runs at like 22-25fps on my PS3 in single player. It gets even worse when you play split-screen or online co-op. It's bad enough I get headaches from it after an hour or so. I wondered if it was like that in the first game and nope, solid, consistent 30fps until you have 4 person co-op going in a confined area. And it's not like the game looks better, in fact I'd argue it looks worse!


I apologize for my wall of text. I really can't stand Borderlands 2, and these are just the beginning of my reasons. If this is the direction of the franchise, I might stay away from it unfortunately. Do you agree or disagree with these criticisms? Or is there other things that you don't like about Borderlands 2?

 

[piinyouri]

Yup, it's over the top.
As someone who can easily start to feel annoyed by too much of this attitude and style, Borderlands 2 never really bothered me in that way. It all felt very genuine and most of it at least chuckle worthy.

Every friend I know as well as myself has intentionally left that quest unfinished so the bullymongs can be called bonerfarts the whole game. We thought it was funny.
*shrug*

Don;t see the problem with the gun in question.
How does it look silly?

I will agree the games frames (I'm on ps3 as well) can flux pretty hard, and on multiplayer all bets are off. We even had it crash on us a couple times.

Hell you didn't even mention the reason why I myself may be staying away or at least be very cautious about Borderlands 3.
It seemed to be, mechanically tilted slightly towards multiplayer. And I mean.... it's fine, if you want to make a more multiplayer oriented game, that's fine, but when single player starts getting affected by these things, bosses you can't beat alone, difficulty levels that are almost impossible by yourself, it starts to rub me wrong a bit.


All that aside, BL2 is quite a different beast from the ole BL1.
So....I guess it's not for you?

 

[A BigCup of Tea]

some writing

agreed with piinyouri what exactly is wrong with that gun? it looks awesome! yeah the games over the top but that's the borderlands theme, i absolutely loved the first game (but agreed on mad moxxi dlc was garbage) and i'm glad BL2 took it further, as for frame rate i play on the 360 and have no troubles even in a four player co-op game in a cinfined space but i feel your pain. Now i must actually go finish the story and the dlc as i didn't buy the game and season pass for nothing (damn splinter cell and gta)

 

[Zhukov]

I found the humour to be very hit-or-miss. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it really, really wasn't.

However, for the most part, the misses didn't bother me. Better than the swamp of boring that was the first game though.

I didn't really look at the guns, beyond their stats. I can see where you're coming from though.

My main problem was that it just dragged on way too fucking long. I was ready for it to end when you meet Mordicai. Except then it kept fucking going. And going. And going. I forced myself to the very end, by which point I had come to hate it.

I have the Tiny Tina DLC, but I can't bring myself to play it.

 

[The Wykydtron]

It was alright, I had play it singleplayer though, not because of my lack of friends but I cannot appreciate any dialogue when my one mate is blasting dubstep over the mic and the other is stood there comparing weapons for five minutes. I cannot stand being distracted from a story regardless of quality. Especially when this one is full of jokes and references

The final boss fight was, well, less disappointing than the first one. I really liked Handsome Jack as a villain but he's just a guy in a suit and they could never make a really good boss fight out of that.

The game did stretch on but since I was playing it intermittently it didn't wear on me so much.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I didn't get (and still don't) a lot of the "jokes" in BL2. I don't care, they just went right over my head since I don't know what they refer to. But it is the point of the game to be over the top in every way.

As for the gun designs, as you yourself pointed out, they're not all like this, and really for this particular example, look at the manufacturer: Bandits. Since they don't have a huge factory like every other manufacturers, they just put guns together from whatever parts they could find that worked. It actually makes sense.

For performance, I can't help, since I play on the PC and have had no problems with it (and it can be tweaked anyway).

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Now another thing is the games performance. I might never buy another Borderlands game again on console, cause this game runs at like 22-25fps on my PS3 in single player. It gets even worse when you play split-screen or online co-op. It's bad enough I get headaches from it after an hour or so. I wondered if it was like that in the first game and nope, solid, consistent 30fps until you have 4 person co-op going in a confined area. And it's not like the game looks better, in fact I'd argue it looks worse!

Some of the jokes get tiresome, as does the grinding, but overall I found it a really fun game.

As for performance, you should try the PC version. It is unquestionably superior. It runs silky smooth on most systems, never dropped below 60fps for me while on my Xbox it chugged along at sub-25 at times. It has better lighting, everything is smoother due to AA and it has all kinds of cool physics extras.

 

[-Dragmire-]

The only things I liked better in Borderlands 1 was the gun feel(don't know how to explain it, it just felt better when shooting) and Tanis' character.

Everything else I prefer Borderlands 2.

Can't comment on performance, I played the PC version of both and had no issues.

 

[HDi]

...and Tanis' character.

Tannis was so much better in the first game... her journals had this weird pathos about them and the voice performance really sold it perfectly. She sounded sick, like seriously mentally ill... and it was an awesome joke because they didn't play it like a joke.

In the second game they really pushed her 'craziness' ...but in that 'OMG you guyz! I'm so zany and totes craycray with all these insanities!' ...which is fine, I didn't really need it to be like it was before in order to enjoy the game... but I did prefer the quieter, more subtle humour.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

BL1 suffered from Wasteland syndrome. BL2 suffered from color riot syndrome. Blend the two together and you'd have a game that would be pretty fun.

 

[josemlopes]

BL1 suffered from Wasteland syndrome. BL2 suffered from color riot syndrome. Blend the two together and you'd have a game that would be pretty fun.

I guess this, I liked Borderlands 1 more but it was also bland as fuck where Borderlands 2 didnt offer anything new other then trying to be over the top nonsense.

I wouldnt mind as much if it didnt stopped from time to time to pretend to be deep and serious, like the OP said, if most of the dialog consists of cringeworthy material like bonerfarts I just wont put much effort into paying attention to the story (and you have to put effort since everyone is talking at the same time in the middle of fights, and if playing online its even worse since you also have other people talking) and I will laugh when the game tries to make me care for its characters.

 

[New Troll]

I was never a huge fan of the first game, only putting so many hours into it at the time because I really didn't have anything else interesting to play in it's place. But Borderlands 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I have it and every DLC on PC, which I prefer and where I mainly play solo, and also own it on console to play co-op with my sons. I'd say I've spent around $250 on the game, but have thousands of hours played (so far) so the enjoyment has been more than worth the money!

I would say after more than a year of playing the game, I have become fairly bored of the gameplay, but I still find myself logging into the game just to try out some new concept I've thought up. (Hmmm... wonder how these skill combinations would work on this particular boss?!?) I have at least one of every character at max level because the gameplay with them each was different enough to make each one interesting. The multiples of certain characters is either because I liked the character enough to play it completely differently while leveling or because of playing certain characters with certain people.

The graphics are more colorful in this second game which I personally prefer. But the main two reasons I prefer this sequel is the awesome story which I enjoyed playing through dozens of times and the playstyles of the characters. The one thing I did miss from the first game was just how small I felt running around on this giant planet, Pandora. Especially during encounters like the Rakk Hive where I felt very miniscule, which made beating those encounters all that much more rewarding. I find this particularly amusing since some of the enemies in Blands 2 are suppose to be much bigger than anything from the original Blands, like Terramorphous, Dexidious and the Leviathan. But it just doesn't "feel" like it.

As for the looks of the guns... I spend my time focusing on the actual game going on in front of me and never even notice what the guns might look like. Though I would have to say they look a whole lot better on PC than on console. But what would you expect; everything does.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

...and Tanis' character.

Tannis was so much better in the first game... her journals had this weird pathos about them and the voice performance really sold it perfectly. She sounded sick, like seriously mentally ill... and it was an awesome joke because they didn't play it like a joke.

In the second game they really pushed her 'craziness' ...but in that 'OMG you guyz! I'm so zany and totes craycray with all these insanities!' ...which is fine, I didn't really need it to be like it was before in order to enjoy the game... but I did prefer the quieter, more subtle humour.

That'd possibly be my main little itch about Borderlands 2. They sort of took her insanity and made it... well fake. She was my favourite character in Borderlands 1.

OT:
I can agree that alot of the pop culture references were just plain annoying. Some is ok, but it felt some were just too niche and alienated some people.
Also yeah, PC is where it's at.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

I'd say it improves on almost every aspect of the original except in a few areas. Some of the weapon design doesn't do anything for me especially the guns that act like a grenade on reload and the amount of dlc is taking the piss.

 

[pspman45]

trick question, they BOTH suck!
I found borderlands 1 so boring that I couldn't be asked to finish all of the quests in the first town, and while I did get further in Borderlands 2, I was only doing it to play with some friends, I actually found the game quite boring and unchanged since the first one