Quote from: alex rogers on November 11, 2013, 04:43:23 AM
LOVED both those games o.O Although Borderlands was totally rubbish unless played with a friend.
Okay, I was trying to avoid doing this to spare everyone a TL;DR post, but here goes.
Dead Space-
We're told that the main weapon for the game is actually a mining cutter that Isaac is simply using as a weapon in desperation. How on earth would a mining cutter that only fires in pistol-like blasts, and can only hold power for 10 such shots(no sustained beams) ever be practical as a tool?
The Ripper is probably the most useful weapon in the game, but it has no point in existing in this universe. It holds a whirling blade on the end of a tractor beam for somewhere around 15 seconds before said blade is destroyed, it's worthless as a tool and as a weapon save against necromorphs, which nobody knows exist yet.
The story can't keep its continuity straight between mediums, they released an animated movie just prior to launch as a kind of 'here's the back story, GET READY!' thingy. In this story the Marker has a 'Dead Space' around it that the Necromorphs can not penetrate, IE, they can't get close to it. This was promptly retconned the instant the game launched the following week.
During Isaac's traversing of the ship you constantly see Necromorphs dash across intersecting corridors only to attack from behind, investigating/getting wise to this tactic reveals two huge gameplay flaws. First, the Necromorphs are appearantly just standing in small alcoves doing absolutely nothing, just waiting for Isaac to approach so they can do exactly this. That puts them more in the mindset of snickering 10 year olds than horrific monstrosities. Second, if you happen to notice the pattern, and turn around BEFORE they pull the surprise attack, you'll discover that they pop out of thin air. They're not dropping from air vents, tearing through bulkheads, or anything of that nature, they literally just pop into existance behind you because the programmers were too lazy.
On that note, the initial chase sequence at the beginning of the game is completely scripted in such a way that it doesn't know what to do if you don't follow the script. IE, if you do NOT immediately hammer the elevator button to escape your pursuer will simply stand there staring at you. You can almost hear him saying "Come on dude, you're making me look bad!"
Finally, the big reveal at the end makes no goddamn sense. *SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER* We discover that Isaac's wife has been dead the entire time, and he's been hallucinating her throughout the game's story. Okay.......then who exactly was hacking computers and opening doors for me? Who was I defending from hordes of Necromorphs while they performed these tasks? Because "Nobody" just doesn't work. The Necromorphs WERE attacking SOMEONE. I'm told that this HUGE FREAKING PLOT HOLE gets resolved in one of the sequels, well tough, that's still HORRIBLE story design. If I made a movie or a book with a key plot point that was this bad and said "Nono, wait a few years for the sequel and it will totally make sense!" people would laugh me out of the arena, and probably throw things.
Borderlands- I did indeed play single player, which is probably part of my problem, but I'm not big on the whole multiplayer thing except in certain situations. I'm also not much of an FPS fan, but I'd been told this was more of an RPG, so I gave it a shot.
The respawn rate is absurd. I like to take my time, and work through a dungeon in a methodical kind of way, making sure I take down every bad guy in my path and don't miss hidden loot. Because of this I frequently discovered the enemies respawning behind me, smashing me in a pincer movement of reincarnation and forcing me to start the whole area over.
NPCs are almost NEVER interactive. You get all your quest dialogue, with VERY few exceptions, through the bounty board. Save ANGEL and a few early quests, that's pretty much it. When I finally met several of the NPCs I'd been dealing with face to face they just stared at me and refused to ever talk until I went back to the bounty board.
Lilith's final Elemental power causes lots of suicide deaths. I'll freely admit that this one is probably going to be an "Only people who played the character I did, and specced the way I did, ever had this issue" But it was really aggrivating. Lilith's ultimate Elemental power is Phoenix, which makes her burst into flames every time she makes a kill, causing fire damage to everyone in her vicinity for a few seconds. This is pretty awesome given all the other powers that also proc in the same manner. The problem is that the icon letting you know it has activated vanishes almost immediately, leaving you with no way to tell that it's still up. Now, how many of you remember just HOW MANY of those explodey barrels were littered pretty much EVERYWHERE in every single dungeon area? No seriously, it's absolutely ridiculous in the first game. The first 5-10 times this killed me I had no idea what was happening. I had killed all the enemies, I was starting to walk towards the next group, but they hadn't seen me yet, suddenly I'm dead. In order to NOT make this a magical form of suicide, you need to stay in a very tight area, and sit there until you are absolutely sure the aura is gone before moving into the next open area. Kind of ridiculous IMO.
