BL: Art's impressions

[Art Blade]

I do the same, Fiach, planning my exit :) But that one time I actually died was an accident -- at least I don't plan my accidents, so that time I was a little far from home. Didn't matter though, I could afford both my death and my resurrection  ;)

As to my impressions, first of all: I do like the background music. Most games get on my nerves with their music and basically I always switch it off after a short time, but I like this one and keep listening to it. ;D :-X

I like the graphics. I didn't expect that. When you think about how games these days strive towards photo-realism, I have to applaud BL's devs and their decision to outline everything which gives it a touch of an adult cartoon -- it does make a difference. Else it might have been just another shooter.  :-X

Collecting and selecting gear is great fun. But with "87 Bazillion Guns" an inventory the size of half a pea is laughable  ::)  So I modded my backpack's free slots from 12 to 30 -- now I'm more relaxed.  :-D

Being able to mod weapons and some items of the game is big fun -- creating a new legit weapon is like being a kid playing with a box of new toys  :-() :-X

With proper weapons the game is a lot more fun (easier to cope with baddies), again: because of the limited space in your inventory it's laughable having to chase and search everything for better guns or for guns with different attributes (elemental vs normal) and because guns designed for a lower level character ("level requirement" for items) are worthless by comparison, the same gun with a higher level requirement would have been awesome.. and again, modding the level of a weapon (or item) turns a pebble into a boulder  :-()

[JRD]

During the main game you'll find 10 SDUs, increasing your inventory space to 42, plus 30 slots at the safe in the Underdome, plus the SDUs you might get on the DLC. In the end, you'll have enough space to manage your weapons pretty well.

If I'm playing Knoxx, where I mostly fight against Lance troopers, I'll have my corrosive kit ready on my backpack, otherwise I'll store those guns to have more room for loot. In the end I'm always with 3 or 4 snipers, 2 or 3 shotguns, 1 or 2 revolvers, 2 or 3 rifles and SMG and maybe one rocket launcher, which leaves me with some 20 to 30 free slots if you consider that grenade mods have a great rotativity and I carry only 1 or 2 class mods.

After a while you don't even look at green and blue guns... orange and purple only and the pearlescents too, but that's for Knoxx only  ;)

As for the music, they did a great job puting this soundtrack together. It really sets the mood for me. I said that before but one thing I appreciate is that it fits the action on the game and the level of your enemies. Frenetic gunfights with high level enemies brings fast paced tracks while gunfights with a bunch of regular bandits and skags brings on tracks not so intense. And if you are just wandering through Pandora, then the chillax songs is perfect!  :-X

In FC2 if you just shoot a twig out of a bush the "action track" plays....  :D

[Art Blade]

Nice, thanks, JRD. I'll try to play accordingly. For now I'm waiting for the game the rest of the world is playing.. until then, I'll mod the crap out of the censored one.  ;D

In FC2 if you just shoot a twig out of a bush the "action track" plays....  :D

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[Fiach]

I think its called "Strategic Withdrawal" :)

Its weird that you have so many mods, yet none for blood lol :)

The intro song is called "No rest for the wicked" by Cage the elephant, they are a very good band, if you like this, you would like their album :)

Borderlands - Ain't no rest for the wicked

[Art Blade]

"This video is not available in your country"  :D

The mods I was talking about were self-made using WillowTree and GearCalc, basically a savegame edit. And the blood.. I'll get to see what all of you can see as soon as I get my uncut copy of the original game :) It is already ordered and on the way  :)

[Fiach]

"This video is not available in your country"  :D

For once I don't know what to say  8-X  :'(

[mmosu]

... I'll get to see what all of you can see as soon as I get my uncut copy of the original game :) It is already ordered and on the way  :)

:-() :-X

[Art Blade]

 ;D :-()

[Art Blade]

No screenshots! IrfanView gets a black nothing.  >:(( :D

OK, reached level 24 and it is getting a bit busier with enemies.

Apparently at this stage regular weapons that don't have elemental damage are not very effective any more, even if they have a very high damage value.

I killed Skagzilla with a few corrosive shots in the mouth -- did you know that skags when shot in the mouth are very likely to receive a critical hit? :)

The music is only nice over at Fyrestone. I thought it was the general background music, but apparently each map has its own music, if I'm not mistaken.

The use of character mods (like gunslinger, sniper, hunter mods for Mordecai) help a lot. Now I can buy them at vending machines. The first character mod I got was in a chest in Fyrestone.

I've reached New Haven.. nice :)

The game reminds a bit of FO3. Quests, rotten cities, "lotsa weapons and loot" and so forth.. but more action involved, let alone more and better guns :)

I like it.. can't wait for my "uncut" original copy. I hope my savegames will still w@&k then.

[JRD]

I've reached New Haven.. nice :)

Wait till you reach Old Haven  :-\

[Fiach]

LOL, OH is a bit of an eye opener alright :)

Just a FYI on Mods, you can have up to 5 points in a skill according to the skill tree, BUT even if you have purchased the 5 points in a skill, if you get a mod that is +3 in that skill, if you equip the Mod, then you will have 8 Points in that skill (5 +3) :)

[Art Blade]

Ah.. cool :)

I have accidentally found Tetanus Warrens and repaired that claptrap in there (didn't even have a mission,yet I could finis it). Then I have just been visiting The Cesspool. Nice music there again :)

[JRD]

Just another heads up regarding Claptraps and SDUs mate!

All claptraps will be on your way as you deal with your quests and missions, except the one at Earl's Scrapyard. When you first get to this place you can easily miss the path to your left as you head to Earl's place. Since no mission takes you there, you'll also miss the claptrap. So try and remember this place - EARL's SCRAPYARD... it's easy to remember if you pay attention to Earl's pet, scrappy (who will be Scrappy All Grown Up later on  >:D )

Another one I missed on my first visit was the one at Old Heaven. It's inside a garage like place roughly on the southwest area. If you search the place for chests you'll bump into this one eventually, so do your homework and snif every inch of Old Heaven... if you can  ;D!

===========================EDIT===========================

By the way... when you are in Old Heaven check out this mission.

It's a mission given by a corpse bandit bolted to a wall near the entrance of OH. If you never go near this guy, you won't notice the mission, so, again, do your homework, mate!  ;)

[Art Blade]

Thanks for the hints, JRD  :) :-X

It is amazing what they come up with regarding level design. I like what I've seen so far, many details.. and surprising enemies (whoa, some come diving from the sky and some pop up from under the surface.. hehe)

[JRD]

If you consider the DLC, one can say that they managed to come up with ALL kinds of enemies a game can have: Humans, animals, aliens, alien-animals, mutants, robots, zombies, zombie-animals, zombie-alien-animals, zombie-mutants and zombie-robots  ;D

All in many colors, shapes, names and formats... running, crawling, flying, jumping....  >:D

[mmosu]

Art you're gonna love Old Haven simply because it's a sudden and sharp change of pace in the game.  You go from generally open-range combat to tight, close-quarters urban combat against an enemy set that you have (at that point in the game) not been exposed to at all.  The main objective there works a little differently too - instead of using the Echo to navigate you have to navigate visually using smoke signals that are going off in hot-spots around the city.  It's a lot of fun  :-X

[Fiach]

Bring a Corrosive weapon, melt those faces!   >:D

[JRD]

At that point I thought "what the blip is going on" ?  ???

Then I started carrying weapons with all kinds of elemental damage with me and paying attention to what class mod/grenade mod/loadout I had with me!

My first reaction was to finish the missions I had there and get out of there as I was being seriously beaten up by those canned morons... now OH is one of my favorite places in Pandora  ;D ;D

[Art Blade]

Cheers, boys :)

While I started without elemental weapons, I changed plans when you guys told me about the mine and the guy with loads of shield power so I thought shock damage was all I needed. After that I realised that setting enemies alight was quite effective but corrosive weapons were more effective, I have most elemental weapons set to corrosive. The Assassin class mod for Mordecai even improves that sort of damage :)

[JRD]

Rule of thumb is:
Shield: shock
Armour: corrosive
Flesh: fire and/or explosive
Elemental creatures are, obviously, not affected by the element they present. So spit skags are resistant to corrosive damage, shock skags to shock damage and so forth.
Fire weapons are usually more efficient against enemies as it sets them on fire so after you hit them you can see damage points coming out of them as they scream aaahhh it burns, it burns  ;D and explosive deals a lot of damage at once - a headshot will probably splash their heads into goo  >:D
I use fire and explosive weapons a lot as I like to hear they screaming and see them blowing. For enemies with strong shields I use a shock gun with 4x elemental to deplete the shield and fire/explosive to kill - a good recipe for Sledge  ;)
Brick carry a shock artifact that causes his punches to deal huge shock damage, so all I have to do is equip that one plus a strong explosive shotgun and a high fire rate weapon to make sledge cry like a baby!!! Close quarter combat against that huge hammer is not a piece of cake, but is the approach with that character - punch him hard, shoot his head with the shotty and dodge while delivering as many bullets as possible!  8)
Lance troops - corrosive, you can`t go wrong with those - same for sentry turrets.
When you combine the right elemental effect+critical hit you are unbeatable, but since there are so many combinations to so many enemies, one has to really apply himself to the game and do some research, which I guess is not a problem for you at all  ;)

[mmosu]

Everyone will find their own preferences sooner or later - I started carrying incindiary weapons early on after finding my first combustion hellfire, and didn't discover how good Mordecai was with corrosive guns until much later.

My first reaction was to finish the missions I had there and get out of there as I was being seriously beaten up by those canned morons... now OH is one of my favorite places in Pandora  ;D ;D

I had hoped that eventually one of the DLC's would bring us to Sanctuary, which was the settlement that preceeded Old Haven.  That would have been cool, guess we'll have to wait and see if the next game takes us vault hunting off-world. 

[Art Blade]

JRD, sledge was a piece of cake using an SMG with shock damage, a couple of shock hand grenades and that awesome action bird of Mordecai.. I use that thing whenever I think I could use a hand  ;D

My first death was an accident when I fell off a ledge which I thought was climbable. The second death was when I had to fight that moron in his car in an arena with a circle of fire in the centre. What I wanted to do but didn't know it was allowed was to get out of my car and shoot the idiot with my corrosive sniper (powerful weapon). When I got myself wedged and blown to pieces I respawned outside the ring.. so I used my sniper and a few shots later that moron was history. Silly me, but heck.. only one death compared to over thousand kills is a good ratio :)

I have corrosive weapons that at the time deal significant regular damage so I am capable of blowing everything out of my way with those. Acid-spewing creatures are not totally immune to corrosive weapons, only takes a bit longer to take them out. That's when my bird comes in handy..  >:D

[JRD]

Acid-spewing creatures are not totally immune to corrosive weapons, only takes a bit longer to take them out. That's when my bird comes in handy..  >:D

Any weapon has a bullet damage that will deal damage regardless of elemental features. A hit is a hit anyway but the extra corrosion won't do any harm.  ;)

[Art Blade]

I am happy that I have taken care of my guns.. apart from heavy elemental damage, they all dish out heavy regular damage for those who neglect the current weapon's elemental power  :-()

[Art Blade]

So try and remember this place - EARL's SCRAPYARD... it's easy to remember if you pay attention to Earl's pet, scrappy (who will be Scrappy All Grown Up later on  >:D )

I've just entered that scrapyard and quit.

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Enough for today, that's why :) I think I did all missions in two areas (arid badlands and dahl headlands) and now I'm doing those quests of New Haven. In other words, I did all missions I found until reaching New Haven, and there I'm doing what's being offered.. Now being a mid-level 25 Mordecai, he does a good job so far, fun to play with :)