In many respects, Borderlands is just another first-person shooter—albeit one reminiscent of the unhinged worlds of Duke Nukem and Serious Sam—but it’s been working for Gearbox so far. Fans who are craving a non-stop orgy of gunfights and weapon modifications will be pleased with the next installment of the Borderlands franchise.
Despite the fact that previous Borderlands games have left me with a “Where’s the story?” shaped hole in my heart, they have always looked gorgeous. The pre-sequel has completely revamped the unique cel-shading look of the first two, which makes the game’s new set of characters look sleek and colorful. Gearbox has added a few new aspects to gameplay that were fun to experiment with. First and foremost, a large portion of the game takes place on the moon, which means your character gets to use the low gravity to leap above their enemies and snipe at them from the sky. This came in handy when a legion of ice warthogs (not their official names—though maybe it should be…) sprung up from the bowels of the moon to attack me.
Of the four new character classes, I played as a Celestial Guardian, who is equipped with a laser-shield that can be used both defensively and offensively. This ability was useful against the space scavengers that I ran across since it allowed me to block their fire and fling my shield at their face when they stopped to reload. At first, it was difficult to accurately judge the character’s jumping ability—which means that I fell into a ravine more times than I care to admit. Once I got the hang of it, however, it became fun to leap out of perilous situations to a better vantage point—an ability that I think would be awesome in a multiplayer match.
Good sequels—er, pre-sequels—typically strike a balance between the familiar and the innovative. Though Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel will definitely entertain fans of the franchise, it felt a bit more akin to playing a downloadable expansion to one of the first two games rather than one that could stand on its own.
Evolve
Turtle Rock Studios/Take-Two Interactive
Available on: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Street: 10.21.14
It’s hard to miss the Take-Two Interactive booth when a life-size replica of a drooling, snarling, uber-pissed Goliath is staring right at you. In Turtle Rock’s Evolve, the Goliath is one of the creatures who will be trying to devour a four-person team of hunters. Though this premise might sound a bit familiar, Evolve actually lets one player take control of the hulking abomination. When you’re hunting this guy, you’re essentially hunting a creature that is not only physically dominating, but could potentially outsmart you with its human controlled brain.
Turtle Rock, the studio who gave multiplayer fans the Left 4 Dead games, knows how to make a game push the multiplayer element past the “our team tries to kill their team” dynamic that already exists in every multiplayer game out there. Though working as a team is great advice in a Call of Duty match, in Evolve it’s absolutely necessary for survival.
During our demo, we were given wristbands to indicate the type of character that we would be playing. I was given the role of Bucket the robot, a Support character whose main function is to augment the team’s damage output or hide them when a situation got too dicey. The demo started with our team leaping out of a dropship into a dark, unforgiving jungle—and when I say “unforgiving,” I mean that the jungle itself wants to rip you apart and fertilize its soil with your blood and guts. In addition to support characters, there are three other classes. The Trapper’s job is to actually hunt the beast and make sure it can’t get away once it’s been found, the Hunter’s job is to deal massive amounts of damage and the Medic hangs around to make sure nobody gets killed. One painful truth about Evolve is if your character is revived by anyone other than the medic, a quarter of your health is permanently exhausted—which sucks.
The beast that we faced was the Kraken, a new reveal for E3. Where the Goliath is a hulking, demonic bipedal, the Kraken can take to the sky and bombard the hunters with orbs of lighting or send them flying off cliffs with a sonar-like banshee wail. Our team made a valiant effort against this beast, but, in the end, it succeeded in murdering us.
Regardless of how you feel about multiplayer games, Evolve feels like something punk rock—like something that will lead to the next big trend in gaming. It’s big, cocky and it just might take E3 for all it’s worth.
