I can’t even imagine how boring presenting a game at E3 must get. You’ve got a cramped room, countless herds of tired, sweaty journalists, and the same canned “Lookit! A low level enemy!” presentation day in and day out. For three grueling days. Yet somehow, Gearbox Studios’ Randy Pitchford gave off so much unbridled enthusiasm that you would’ve thought his game was some juicy piece of gossip he’d been keeping under wraps for years.
Honestly, though, Pitchford’s boisterous excitement wasn’t without warrant. After all, Borderlands recently underwent a cosmetic surgery not unlike that of Team Fortress 2, resulting in an attractive comic book-style wrapping for the shooter-RPG. In other words, Borderlands looks like an entirely different game now, and a far more appealing one at that. Fortunately, its gameplay – which has always struck me as the expected result of Diablo, Halo, and Fallout 3 walking into a bar – remains just as alluring as always, even in the face of shiny new graphics.
During the presentation, Pitchford and two other Gearbox devs showed off Borderlands’ co-op mode, which allows up to four players to kick up dust in the game’s colossal desert world together. First, we saw two players take on impish, Gollum-like enemies called Scags by – what else – shooting them. As with enemies in obvious role model Diablo, Borderlands’ baddies drop all kinds of algorithmically generated loot, making for a whopping total of over half a million weapons in the game. If you can find a use for that many weapons that doesn’t involve building a Death Star, you’re a better man (and/or woman) than I.
Apparently, variations on that algorithm will power the enemy spawning system as well, though obviously in much smaller quantities. As we were made aware of this, another type of Scag whose most defining characteristic was that he was on fire howled and leapt at our guides. The merits of the evolutionary trait of being aflame notwithstanding, the spicy fiesta style Scag was quickly blasted, and the show went on.
Read more to see our verdict on Borderlands' E3 showing.
