Borderlands 2 Editorial
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Here's a snip:
It's hard to appreciate the story when one or more members of your team are yelling for help or shouting out enemy positions. I appreciate such communication in a shooter, but not in an RPG. Even turning off player communication doesn't help since the constant sound of gunfire easily drowns out dialogue, and any dialogue that comes in clearly can be cut off mid-sentence if one player runs too far ahead. This is an issue with any co-op game, but it's particularly frustrating in Borderlands 2 since there's no way to listen to any previously found audio logs. You have to replay the entire mission with a different character. The more players that get added to a game, the more chaotic that game becomes. Chaos is a staple of the shooter genre, but it's the antithesis of an RPG.
It's also hard to explore an environment when your team (even if it's just one member) is focused on completing objectives. When one person runs ahead, everyone else begins to miss out on the actual content of the mission. Borderlands 2 is still part shooter, so if you're not shooting when someone else is, you're missing part of the game. My desire to see every aspect of a mission forces me to play catch-up with whichever player is moving the fastest. Even when a partner is simply helping me find hidden symbols or complete a collectible challenge, he either demands I follow him as he runs straight to the objective or he'll just do it all himself. Instead of pushing through the game at my own pace, I'm being pulled through by someone else against my will. Such a relentless pace is another shooter staple, but RPGs should be slow and methodical. It results in the odd and discomforting feeling of being dragged through my own game.
