Borderlands
It's clear that Gearbox Software focused heavily on the console release of Borderlands. So much in fact that the PC version, which was delayed by a week, has still shipped with an unfortunate number of issues that will most likely cause PC gamers some headaches. Whether or not they ruin a player's experience with the Borderlands on PC is going to vary. It is our hope that Gearbox will focus on improving the overall experience for its PC fanbase, if nothing else, to get Borderlands ready for the big league gamers.
Perhaps the most noticeable console intrusions in the PC version of Borderlands reside in the control schemes and gameplay. Any Halo fan will immediately notice the outlandish "space jump" that allows your character enough time to reload, save the game, and enjoy a cup of tea, all before landing. This is very awkward, especially when coupled with the molassas-rich walkspeed – another abyssmal console remnant. There is of course a sprint button that actually lets you cover some ground, but this gameplay element left us wondering why anyone would ever "walk" in Borderlands. If the combat is meant to be so intense and the worlds are so expansive, why not just beef-up the walk speed to something along the lines of Left 4 Dead and call it a day? If players feel the need for precision combat in Borderlands, they will still be able to crouch and move slower, so the walk/sprint option feels completely useless...just like it was 15 years ago in Doom.
That leads us to another aggravating console feature in the PC version of Borderlands...toggled maneuvers. Though these may vary according to user preference, it seems that few PC games employ a crouch manuever through a toggle command over the traditional press-and-release. Even something like looking through a weapon scope tends to be an active control rather than a passive switch the user needs to manually switch between. These default choices really get in the way of the good combat that Borderlands brings to the table, so seasoned PC gamers will most likely have an immediate itch to find out how they can changes these settings. Thankfully, there are a series of very useful tweak guides available online due to the wonderful flexibility of the Unreal 3 Engine, which powers Borderlands juicy innards. We'll be posting ours very soon.
The vehicles in Borderlands are another area that reflect the game's console origins. Though they are not as glaring as the issues mentioned above, hoping into a vehicle and gliding around does feel a bit artificial. Controlling the ride is handled with the mouse rather than the Left and Right keys used for moving the player. This is a design choice not unheard of in PC games, but clearly mirrors the simplified control scheme used with a console controller. We prefer an Unreal-style control system that allows for separate navigation and look controls...especially useful for vehicle-to-vehicle combat. That said, using the vehicles in Borderlands is still very satisfying. Smashing into your enemies without remorse is never a bad thing, but even that provides less realism than we would have liked. In terms of sound effects or animations, it is clear that the console crowd would be treated to a rumble feature upon impact, but the PC crowd in Borderlands is left with nothing more than a vertical splash of gibs and a very quite squish sound effect that is disproportional to the actual physics of speeding through an Alpha Skag.
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