Borderlands Previews

A couple of new previews for 2K Games and Gearbox's Borderlands bring us into the start of yet another weekend.

First in line is Eurogamer:
You initially have two weapon slots and, depending on which the game's four lead characters you chose to play as, will naturally favour melee weapons, close-combat shoguns, mid-range semi-automatics or long-range sniper rifles. Where the game's RPG pretensions more than deliver is in the gigantic range of weaponry available. Gearbox claims that the game has over 17 million weapons, and although many of these are permutations with slightly different stat modifiers. Nonetheless, gun-collecting is a big part of the game's driving appeal, as even an incremental upgrade to a sniper rifle's 'sway' stat or reload time (measured in milliseconds) can make a huge difference in battle.

The world is littered with cases of weapons, with more desirable models found in each area's extremities, and these prizes are compelling enough to encourage exploration to the ends of the game-world. Borderlands also provide ammunition for the giant spread of weaponry ingeniously, by having downed enemies drop ammo of the type that was used to kill them, ensuring that you rarely run out. Of course, if ever you do exhaust your supplies then liberally placed vending machines are always on hand for a restock. In terms of player assets, Borderlands is far more generously laden than many of its contemporaries.

And then we have Giant Bomb, where we're treated to over 32 minutes of in-game footage focusing on the cooperative gameplay.