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Giant Bomb 18: Everything is always a surprise on some level

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yami4ct

Member
Megasoum said:
Well I just finished Episode 1 and this was great.

I kinda really want to continue playing but my eyes are too fucked up right now so I should probably go to bed.

Also, is that song playing during the intro and credits an original song for the game or a licensed song?
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Licensed track. Each episode has a late title card intro with a licensed track, They are all amazing.

danm999 said:
I did love that by the end of Tales from the Borderlands

Loader Bot was an actual character in every sense. He slowly gained sentience, developed a real personality, had motives, desires, cared for others like Gortys.
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I'm still surprised that Borderlands of all things ended up being Telltale's most well written game. They even managed to take Handsome Jack, one of the worst parts of BL2, and make him not only an imposing antagonistic character, but also like a real human.
 
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LurkerPrime

Member
Gigen sounds cool though. Are you saying it's all a lie?!
yami4ct said:
Licensed track. Each episode has a late title card intro with a licensed track, They are all amazing.
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So true.

It actually got me to buy the CD from the band that does the end credits theme (First Aid Kit). It's too good to pass up.
...I'm currently listening to it.
yami4ct said:
I'm still surprised that Borderlands of all things ended up being Telltale's most well written game. They even managed to take Handsome Jack, one of the worst parts of BL2, and make him not only an imposing antagonistic character, but also like a real human.
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And yeah, also true! I'm playing through Borderlands 2, and the writing goes from "this is kinda unbearable" to "it's time to mute!" Just insipid edgelordiness shooting out of everything. Jack in particular goes from unhinged to comically, pathetically homicidal. There isn't an ounce of subtlety or restraint--even a little would elevate the writing (let alone the delivery) so much.

Tales From the Borderland and Telltale really show what a difference quality writing alone can make. It's all in the direction, because, IIRC, Eps 3-5 all have involvement from the main Borderlands 2 writer and there's no apparent dip in quality.
 
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yami4ct

Member
LurkerPrime said:
So true.

It actually got me to buy the CD from the band that does the end credits theme (First Aid Kit). It's too good to pass up.
...I'm currently listening to it.

And yeah, also true! I'm playing through Borderlands 2, and the writing goes from "this is kinda unbearable" to "it's time to mute!" Just insipid edgelordiness shooting out of everything. Jack in particular goes from unhinged to comically, pathetically homicidal. There isn't an ounce of subtlety or restraint--even a little would elevate the writing (let alone the delivery) so much.

Tales From the Borderland and Telltale really show what a difference quality writing alone can make. It's all in the direction, because, IIRC, Eps 3-5 all have involvement from the main Borderlands 2 writer and there's no apparent dip in quality.
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I didn't know the BL2 guy did 3-5. You really can't notice the difference. Proves out my assertion that Gearbox needs to get the TftB to head up the writing for Borderlands 3 (or Borderworlds or whatever it ends up being). Their situation based writing wouldn't translate directly, but I'm certain having them there to set the tone and direct the universe as a whole would work wonders. It's gonna be so depressing when BL3 inevitably ends up leaning even more into the Tina Tina internet meme writing.
 
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Piston Hyundai

Member
War Peaceman said:
There are many strong contenders for that this year.

Life is Strange, Splatoon, Bloodborne, Undertale, Rocket League, (the following being the lesser candidates) Dying Light, Until Dawn, Ori, Her Story, Pillars of Eternity, Soma. I could go on.

Great fucking year
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Rocket League, Bloodborne, and Dying Light aren't really debuts, though.
 
D

danm999

Member
yami4ct said:
It's gonna be so depressing when BL3 inevitably ends up leaning even more into the Tina Tina internet meme writing.
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This can't happen right? Even people who liked that game shat on the writing and meme-ness hard didn't they? Surely Gearbox knows not to go down that road again.
 
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yami4ct

Member
danm999 said:
This can't happen right? Even people who liked that game shat on the writing and meme-ness hard didn't they? Surely Gearbox knows not to go down that road again.
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I've heard a disturbingly large number of people outside of forums like GAF and the games press that absolutely love BL2's writing and Tiny Tina in particular. I'm flabbergasted that people have such bad taste, but I fear that audience might be larger than we realize and be catered to in a sequel.
 
I

Incandenza

Banned
danm999 said:
This can't happen right? Even people who liked that game shat on the writing and meme-ness hard didn't they? Surely Gearbox knows not to go down that road again.
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You'll recall that at PSX, Pitchford claimed "Gearbox humor" was a selling point of Battleborn.

Then he played a trailer of a penguin that likes to kill stuff.
 
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LurkerPrime

Member
If you told me that Borderlands 2 had no professional writers work on it, I'd believe you.

It has only the briefest flashes of comedic brilliance, and they're entirely mechanical in nature. (Like gimmick guns or quests.) All of the writing attached to said flashes of brilliance are either: 1) unbearable; or 2) wretched
 
D

danm999

Member
yami4ct said:
I've heard a disturbingly large number of people outside of forums like GAF and the games press that absolutely love BL2's writing and Tiny Tina in particular. I'm flabbergasted that people have such bad taste, but I fear that audience might be larger than we realize and be catered to in a sequel.
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Yeah maybe I'm not down with the kids. So many fandoms confuse me.

I get like, absolutely flabbergasted when Lightning wins a favourite FF character vote, or when Yosuke was voted favourite Persona 4 character at that Atlus event this year.

Maybe Yosuke super fan skLaFarebear can explain that second one.

Incandenza said:
You'll recall that at PSX, Pitchford claimed "Gearbox humor" was a selling point of Battleborn.

Then he played a trailer of a penguin that likes to kill stuff.
Click to expand...

Oh god what?
 
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yami4ct

Member
Imagine a BL3 that didn't just have the intro music sequence, but had several of those interspersed to punctuate big story beats like Tales from the Borderlands had, directed by the Tales people. Think about how amazing that'd be!
 
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Piston Hyundai

Member
yami4ct said:
Imagine a BL3 that didn't just have the intro music sequence, but had several of those interspersed to punctuate big story beats like Tales from the Borderlands had, directed by the Tales people. Think about how amazing that'd be!
Click to expand...

Then you'd get to the main part of the game and it just nosedives. It'd muddy the waters too much and take away from the TftB intros.
 
D

demidar

Member
yami4ct said:
Imagine a BL3 that didn't just have the intro music sequence, but had several of those interspersed to punctuate big story beats like Tales from the Borderlands had, directed by the Tales people. Think about how amazing that'd be!
Click to expand...

But then you're stuck with the bad gameplay.
 
A

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
danm999 said:
This can't happen right? Even people who liked that game shat on the writing and meme-ness hard didn't they? Surely Gearbox knows not to go down that road again.
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Most of the people I know personally who liked Borderlands 2 also thought it was hilarious. Not like it's a huge sample size, but there are people who genuinely like the characters in those games.
 
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yami4ct

Member
demidar said:
But then you're stuck with the bad gameplay.
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But I like how Borderlands plays. It's everything around it that just makes it unbearable.

I mean, I'd far prefer a TftB Season 2 to a BL3, but BL3 is happening regardless so we might as well hope it's as good as it can be.
 
D

daydream

Banned
the bl2 writer also does hey ash what'cha playin' which is consistently funny so i really have to wonder if it's just ashley burch coming up with all the good jokes for that web series or if he had to go down the meme road because gearbox requested it
 
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tesqui

Member
So was Rorie serious about a King's Field playthrough? I couldn't tell if he was joking, but I'd watch the shit out of that! Those games are actually really great if you can get passed the sluggish controls. It's also fun to analyze and spot all the similarities between it and the souls games.
 
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Piston Hyundai

Member
sounds like a great time to bring up this gem

tumblr_mtpzbbC9er1sxz19yo1_540.png


daydream said:
the bl2 writer also does hey ash what'cha playin' which is consistently funny so i really have to wonder if it's just ashley burch coming up with all the good jokes for that web series or if he had to go down the meme road because gearbox requested it
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if I had to guess based off of the work I've seen of Ashly's, I'd say the former
 
Y

yami4ct

Member
Piston Hyundai said:
Then you'd get to the main part of the game and it just nosedives. It'd muddy the waters too much and take away from the TftB intros.
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But just imagine a Borderlands 3 headed by the Tales guys. You could have main through line that has that quality of character writing and maybe substantial side quests Witcher 3 style. There's always going to be nothing MMO style quests in a loot game like Borderlands as well, but no one reads them so it wouldn't really harm the narrative if there was enough good stuff there.
 
B

BreezyLimbo

Banned
Piston Hyundai said:
sounds like a great time to bring up this gem
if I had to guess based off of the work I've seen of Ashly's, I'd say the former
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Yeah, from what I've seen Ashleys got some talent. The male burch however seems to simply be..........leeching off that. He like follows her around and it's creepy. First Gearbox, and then after Ashley joined RocketJump he quit Gearbox and went to go...join her.

....
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
I'm really looking forward to the next Armored Core. Verdict Day's online systems were way too complex for the PS3 and the entire game creaked under the weight in terms of load times and general usability. Still a really cool game and I'm surprised the series didn't get more attention after From became a marque name.
 
Z

Zocano

Member
LurkerPrime said:
And yeah, also true! I'm playing through Borderlands 2, and the writing goes from "this is kinda unbearable" to "it's time to mute!" Just insipid edgelordiness shooting out of everything. Jack in particular goes from unhinged to comically, pathetically homicidal. There isn't an ounce of subtlety or restraint--even a little would elevate the writing (let alone the delivery) so much.
Click to expand...

Outside of a handful of shitty meme joke attempts early on, Handsome Jack was amongst my favorite characters from that year. They stop trying shit internet humor with him and at least make him feel like a human in some ways in the back half of the game. A ton of it was in audio logs though.
 
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mnz

Unconfirmed Member
The backlash to Borderlands 2 is reaching ridiculous levels. That game is like 80 hours long, the meme-y humor is a small part of the whole thing. I don't even like the game, though mostly because of its mechanics, but it's sitting at 90 on metacritic and sold like crazy. Let's not pretend it's universally despised.
 
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yami4ct

Member
mnz said:
The backlash to Borderlands 2 is reaching ridiculous levels. That game is like 80 hours long, the meme-y humor is a small part of the whole thing. I don't even like the game, though mostly because of its mechanics, but it's sitting at 90 on metacritic and sold like crazy. Let's not pretend it's universally despised.
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The meme-y writing invades almost every damn part of the game. Even the character abilities often have dumb names. I put over 100 hours into BL1, but couldn't do more than 20 of BL2 because I found the writing so cringeworthy. Mechanically, it's a much better game, but I really could not stand the writing. I can 100% see why someone would score it high if they could deal with that aspect.

Selling well isn't a determiner of quality either. The original Destiny sold like crazy and we all know what that game was.
 
D

danm999

Member
mnz said:
The backlash to Borderlands 2 is reaching ridiculous levels. That game is like 80 hours long, the meme-y humor is a small part of the whole thing. I don't even like the game, though mostly because of its mechanics, but it's sitting at 90 on metacritic and sold like crazy. Let's not pretend it's universally despised.
Click to expand...

I mean the context of the conversation we're having here is the writing in that series. I actually like the game itself.
 
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