Tscott

I've got a Hunter that just finished the first playthrough and has ventured into the zombie island DLC for a few hours. It says I've played him about 26 hours. I've completed the main story a few times before, so for your first time through, I'd say 25-35 hours depending on how much you need to fully explore, how much you die and how much you sit at vending machines and compare guns.

OldBoy

holy crap that is long.

slop101

Think of it as more of an open world game with a bunch of missions and tasks, only it's a first-person-shooter. If you add in the DLC, the game is easily 50-60 hours.

starman9000

I finished Zombie Island this morning on the 1st Playthrough. Tip to everyone as dumb as me: go do that early, as it was ridiculously easy with my level 43 Soldier. (Making a boring jogging game)

K&AJones

Try doing with all four characters.... My best one, a Hunter, is at 59 1/2 and have a 47 Brick, 48 Siren and 28 Soldier. I've played with guys who have maxed out all four and haven't figured how they keep coming back. I will say the weapons up at 58 and more are just insane with certain character mods going.


I'd still like to play with four "Brick" characters using nothing more than punching and shotguns. It'll be like the WWF on manaic mode. And we were talking last night about what if with four Sirens using the maxium shield mode. Can you imagine four fireballs running all over at once using nothing but Hellfire SMG's.....ah the fun.

Mike UFC

Just finished my first playthrough today and it took me 31.5 hours according to Steam. That was with completing every quest and a bit of exploring. Great game. Looking forward to playthrough #2 and the DLCs.

lordwow

I've been playing a bit since getting it from Goozex. Got my Hunter up to 20. Definitely like the WOW-like character trees, I was playing with a second Hunter who was all pistols, and I went all rogue, and the playstyles were very different between us.

OldBoy

are objectives clear and i will know what to do and all that once i get into it? clear paths, etc...
is it a sandbox game?
is it a good pick up and play game (hour or so) with ample save opportunities?

it is just that this RPG element makes me nervous as i have never been into them and never wanted to even explore them.

but this looks and from you guys sounds really fun and an unexpected surprise.

tonyc3742

Maybe not clear paths, but once you pick a quest, you always have a destination and the compass points you in that direction, with the main exception of a few [optional] "find all the pieces" quests.
It's very lightly an RPG, mainly in the character progression, ie, you can choose what skills to use to build your character. And you can pay a very reasonable amount to reset and rebuild.
As an RPG fan, I don't think there's very much "RPG" to Borderlands. It's RPG like Diablo is, NPCs give you quests, and you build your character's skill trees.
It is 'sandbox' to the extent that you can just wander around the landscape, but it's mostly linear and does give you direction.

OldBoy

thanks dt. and good to pick and play for few minutes and save and close and stuff if need be?
are there boss fights and stuff?

tonyc3742

Not so much that, actually...While the game saves anytime you quit, it'll start you back at the last major area you were at. So if you're at Town A and your quest takes you to Town B, and it takes a while to get there through fighting creatures and traveling, and you save halfway there, you start back at Town A. There's only one save per character, and it saves the progress of the quest and your character stats, but it puts you back at the start point.

There are boss fights for the quests, and the random wandering creatures you encounter have various levels as well.

xmiyux

Yes and yes.

edit: What dtcarson said about saving and quitting but i didn't think of it since the base city has access to a vehicle to speed up travel easily, you unlock teleport points, and traveling and killing things again is how you level up so it isn't really a drawback imo.

tonyc3742

Yeah, it could be worse. You can get a car to drive which does help, I'm on my second playthrough and we haven't opened up the teleport point [I recall being slightly surprised it took so long to do so, in my first playthrough], and it is a benefit in that you do get to kill more things and get more stuff.

There were a few places where we wanted to stop playing because it was very late but we didnt want to do the travel again.

Still, I think my only other real "complaint" was that holding X when picking up loot picked up everything around you, and equipped a weapon if you picked it up; I'd occasionally find myself using a weapon I had no idea how I got. The game isn't perfect, it's not real deep, it doesn't do anything really new - but for some reason it's just damn fun.

OldBoy

ok. so then approximately how long does it take to get from A to B? if i start at A and then can only play for like a hour, i want to know i can make it to B and then save and quit and pick it up from B again rather than sludging from beginning of A again if you know what i mean.

and if i am correct in understanding, even if i don't make it all the way to B, i will save my points and level up and stuff if i am on my way there, then quit, save, start back from A...

xmiyux

An hour is plenty.

As long as you avoid JRPGs, games nowadays are made to be fully playable in sessions of an hour.

tonyc3742

Definitely. There were really only a couple places where that came into play.

That's one thing that has caused to play fewer JRPGS than I used to. I just don't have the time to commit to a 2, 3 or more hour dungeon crawl at one time. Let me save anywhere, or at least no more rarely than once an hour. I really appreciated that about Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, I could play for half an hour or a couple hours.
And Borderlands, if I only have a half hour or so, I'll make some progress on a shorter, smaller quest rather than starting some long trek.

And very rarely do I want to play Borderlands less than half an hour or so.

OldBoy

^ sounds great. and you are able to discern what will be a long mission and what will be short?

i may have just snagged a copy on Bay for $17 shipped. played once in "like new" condition with no scratches or anything. i am psyched!

Groucho

Depends on the JRPG. FFXIII has save points EVERYWHERE.

xmiyux

Even during Lord of the Rings length cut scenes?

Groucho

There are no cutscenes in FFXIII that approach an hour in length.

zerotl

Alright, so kinda late to the party, just got the game, and I have a level 12 Soldier, (fun so far) I'm not sure if there's any others like me just starting up a playthrough. Please add me on xbl

xbl: Ang Colette

Michael Corvin

That only happens if you hold down X, as opposed to tapping X. If you hold down X over money and pick up a weapon that was close by it won't equip. My only gripe is having to look at items to pick them up. I think I spent half the game looking at the ground. You should be able to walk over loot and pick it up.

Groucho

Yes for money and ammo. No for guns and other equipment. There's too much junk that's dropped in the latter category.

starman9000

Downloaded Knoxx last night, I hoped in playthrough 2 just to see if there were any easy vending machines nearby with some cool loot. I preceded to get throttled by some ninjas I had to just shut it off as I couldn't even run back to the outpost without getting killed.

I also beat Braaaaaaaaaains! last night, what a pain in the ass that was.

actyper

Zombies 1/2 price this week!