So, Borderlands. You’ve probably heard of it – the post-apocalyptic co-op first-person-shooter with RPG elements. Sounds good, I know. But the thing you’re most likely to have heard about it, is that it has an awful lot of guns in it. Here’s a sentence that makes its way into several press releases about the game:
“Gun Lust: Choose from an arsenal of hundreds of thousands of weapons, each with their unique manufacturers, specifications and advantages. A revolutionary new content generation system provides for near infinite tools of destruction”
And of course, it goes without saying that certain websites are happy to perpetuate this notion:
“[The game] can randomly generate weapons and then describe them, having crafted one gun during my time with it that the game described with the phrase, “Holy shit, it shoots rockets!”"
Now, am I the only one who’s just a little bit skeptical about this? From what I can gather from reading previews and stuff, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen a dozen times before, in titles like Phantasy Star Online or Too Human – and we know what everyone thought of the latter. There’ll be a handful of basic weapon types, and the game will randomly alter the numbers behind them and maybe add a few special abilities for good measure . This alone does not a good game make, and yet doing any research into the game reveals that it’s a feature the developers are seemingly really proud of. The fact that they’ve written up a bunch of different descriptions for each type of gun will throw a slightly thicker veil over the fact that you’re essentially using the same weapon over and over again, but I’m pretty sure we’re all clever enough to see past that after 30 minutes’ play. Never mind the fact that, even if the game did have several hundred thousand meaningfully-different weapons, that’s too many.
What’s made me suspicious enough to coil out these words, though, is a recent CVG interview with Randy Pitchford, where he claims the game now has around 17,750,000 weapons – a factoid that’s now circulating news blogs as we speak. Then, when asked if he has a favourite, he responds with:
“Oh, that’s like asking a spider with a billion larvae who their favourite child is.”
And why might that be, Randy? Is it because a spider’s larvae are all completely bloody identical to one another?
This isn’t really a dig at the developers, of course. They’re doing their damnedest trying to put a brilliant game together, and their PR guys have presumably decided the whole ‘26 trillion guns’ thing is a good selling point, so the devs are being forced to trot it out whenever they get the chance, because it sounds impressive. Pure speculation on my part, of course, but it’s a sad state of affairs if I’m right.
Still, maybe I’m getting wound up over nothing. I hope I am, and I hope I’m completely and utterly wrong about the implementation of the random weapon generation, because Borderlands‘ concept sounds right up my street, and it’d be a shame if it turned out to be a complete turkey. But every time I see a website, press release, or one of the developers touting the seemingly absolutely meaningless non-issue that is the random weapon generation as a key feature, I get a bit worried that maybe they just don’t have anything else to brag about.
14 comments ↓
Seth
August 11th, 2009
You’re right, man. When the main feature a game has to boast about is a pointlessly high number of weapons, it’s not a good sign.
In all likelihood, the weapons will end up not feeling distinct enough from each other and you’ll be left with a bland arsenal.
Give me 10 excellently designed, balanced and varied weapons over 17 million cookie-cutter designs anyday.
Alan
August 11th, 2009
Shut up, theres never been a more dynamic title ever created. Each one of those weapons is genius and you should just start eating your cake now.
Ben
August 11th, 2009
On one hand the scope for customisation is a good feature, but this implementation feels over implemented.
If you think back to your favourite weapons in games, why did you like them? For me it’s the Golden Gun in GoldenEye. Had there been 10,000 variations of this, some of which shot darts and rockets, something would have been lost.
This is a little similar to the pin weapons in The World Ends With You. At first the variety seems great, then you realise the abilities repeat themselves just with varying degrees of damage as you proress. This never felt random as each had their own artwork, but in the case of Borderlands it sounds like a few iterations further on.
Nevertheless, there hasn’t been a huge amount of gun innovation in games, so trying something new is not all bad.
There are similarities here to the concept of randomly generated dungeons in RPGs, which in my opinion reduces the capacity for good level design.
Both are very different to implementing randomness into an AI.
RammsteinGunner
August 12th, 2009
Ok 2 things. 1st of all its more than just randomized stats but the guns themselves look totally different. I mean sure some will look the same as in one assault rifle would have a magazing and one would have a drum barrel. They look similar but at the same time are very different.
Oh and this isnt the main reason i am getting this game. There are PLENTY of other GREAT things about this game. Co-op, local co-op (YOU NEVER see this anymore and I love it), customizable vehicles, RPS, skills for your player, etc.
This game will be great.
Matt
August 12th, 2009
Aye, if anything it’ll be the visual randomisation that makes it rather than anything – I’ve always been the kind of guy who’ll use a shit weapon as long as it looks sweet as a nut
Matt
August 12th, 2009
Playing Devil’s Advocate though – this could end up being the polished brother of EDF…
Sean
August 12th, 2009
Aye, as I said, I HOPE I’m wrong and it’s just that the previews I’ve read haven’t really done the random generation justice. Or, even if the random generation IS rubbish, it’s not just there to cover up the fact that the game itself is toss.
PLEASE BE GOOD, BORDERLANDS. xx
Manu
August 14th, 2009
“PLEASE BE GOOD, BORDERLANDS”
Same her pal
ThirdWorldMan
August 25th, 2009
Thanks for being one of the sole voices of skepticism to raise this (non)point. I’m doubtful that even WoW has even 10 million different items total and that figure (if correct or even close to being correct) would be coming from the number one MMO in the world, not a brand new IP.
ep5
September 6th, 2009
Aah, americans are gonna luv this game, to a point they will shoot cum and discharge a load on it! 999999 guns..
wow is this the new marketing trick of today? xD just.. sad… sheeple lemme guess the play time is gonna be like.. 4-5 hours?? jeesh.. I hope its like STALKER at least u could 40-50+ hours into that!
Drkillah
September 6th, 2009
For all you people looking only at the gun side of this perspective work of accomplishment, here is some reasons why this game will be a great game. This game has rpg and fps like fallout 3, yet has something fallout 3 should have had yet didn’t, co-op, none the less, 4 player co-op. Another side of this is the fact that you can customize your character more than just the gender and head. The skills seem better because they go by class, like in Diablo. This gives the game a mixture of Diablo and Fallout 3. I know I’m getting this game, and it’s not for the guns
Tom Hanks
October 4th, 2009
Why is it that when a sword-and-board RPG (Too Human and Diablo I/II stick out in my mind) randomizes weapons it’s fine but a shooter does it and suddenly it’s a worthless game because that’s its only selling point?
Think about it. What are you going to say – the shooting is fun? You can slow down time? There can’t be much, if anything, you can put into a shooter that hasn’t been done before. The last shooter game that was semi-interesting was Fracture, where you could totally alter the landscape. Since then it’s been the same generic shooters – not to say that all of them have been bad games, but nothing truly innovative.
Seth
October 4th, 2009
I’d rather have an excellent shooter with great mechanics that doesn’t particularly doing anything new, than a mediocre title with a gimmick like Fracture.
DanTheNoob
October 8th, 2009
i like guns
i hope it has some form of gore though otherwise its jus taking a step back from being good