DeathLoop vs Borderlands 3: A Tale of Two Systems

[rainless]

It's hard for me to LOOK at Borderlands... let alone play it. I made it pretty far in the first installment with a BUNCH of guys from this forum. Then... I just kinda spontaneously gave it up. Stopped playing cold turkey. Never picked it up again. Got the sequel just because of some sale someone posted here. Never even managed to install it. In fact... the only reason I have Borderlands 3 on PS5 is because it was on sale for 10 bucks (the physical disc version) at the electronic store I frequented (a low price for the game even on Black Friday... but this was just a regular day.)

Complete boredom led to me finally giving the Borderlands universe another shot. What I discovered... surprised me.

Video game companies don't REALLY give a damned about you anymore. What's more... they generally don't even give a damned about their games. (Look no further than Watch Dogs: Legion.) They just want to get this, that, and the other title out before the holidays so that they can make some money.

Borderlands 3... is the opposite of all of that. It's rare to see so much thought placed in every single aspect of the game. You can even FOLD in Borderlands 3 while playing some kind of arcade game!

The amount of depth shows that they poured their heart and soul into the game.

DeathLoop is more about pouring in yours.

DeathLoop GENEROUSLY rewards players for exploring every nook and cranny and possibility within the game. The developers made a strong commitment not just to the characters they were building... but the world that those characters would interact with. The result is a mixture of Borderlands, and Dark Souls, and Dishonored...

...and Spy vs Spy.

No higher praise, for any game, is possible.

This is, of course, reflected in each games fan base. They care because the developers care. And they care even more because nobody's used to that anymore.

Nobody was more excited about another Watch Dogs: Legion game than me. Also no one could've been more disappointed. (They didn't even bother calling the guy who played the lead character in Watch Dogs 2 to come back for the sequel).

It's NOT a pipe dream. These billion dollar software developers really CAN make a heartfelt game that people care about... if they try.

They usually don't.

 

[EarthDog]

Never played it. Not my bag, but heard it was a great game!

People hating on the Denuvo DRM (stuttering and perf. issues). Was that ever resolved?

 

[rainless]

Never played it. Not my bag, but heard it was a great game!

People hating on the Denuvo DRM (stuttering and perf. issues). Was that ever resolved?

Which game? DeathLoop or Borderlands 3?

 

[EarthDog]

Oof....sorry. Deathloop. I just remember hearing musings about the DRM (nobody like denuvo for a myriad of reasons) and review bombing early on.

I benchmarked B3... thats it.

 

[freakdiablo]

Honestly, I wasn't a fan of B3. I've got 5 1/2 hours logged on Steam and was guessing half that before checking. Seemed too....too generic shooter after the first few games


But I'll be the first to admit I'm weird.

 

[rainless]

Oof....sorry. Deathloop. I just remember hearing musings about the DRM (nobody like denuvo for a myriad of reasons) and review bombing early on.

I benchmarked B3... thats it.

That's surprising. It won like MYRIAD "Game of the Year" awards. This is my first time hearing of DRM (then again I'm playing on PS5 so... I guess I wouldn't.)

Honestly, I wasn't a fan of B3. I've got 5 1/2 hours logged on Steam and was guessing half that before checking. Seemed too....too generic shooter after the first few games


But I'll be the first to admit I'm weird.

As for BF3... it took a LONG time for me to get into it. Especially if you understand how long I've been playing. I got it around Christmas 2020. So either just before or just after I got CyberPunk. Before or just after Watch Dogs: Legion. Before I got the Xbox Series X... before I got the PS5... I've probably completed DOZENS of games in the year that I've had the game...

Played it a bit around the time I got the PS5 in March. Didn't get back into it until about LAST MONTH.

It has a LOT of charm. And probably the most ridiculous weapons I've ever seen in a game.

I've currently got a pistol that will let you empty a full 10 shot clip into somebody that alternates between fire and acid shots and reloads pretty damned fast.

To be honest... it was this video from DigitalFoundry (comparing graphics on PS5 vs Xbox Series X) that got me into the game:

That and the pandemic of course. And now the move from Germany to France. (I'm stuck here without my desktop for another week or two.)

 

[EarthDog]

That's surprising. It won like MYRIAD "Game of the Year" awards. This is my first time hearing of DRM (then again I'm playing on PS5 so... I guess I wouldn't.)

Yeah...I dont console really... was referring to the PC.

Like I said, it looks great (not B3), just not my genre.

 

[Janus67]

@rainless DRM has been around for a very long time. DRM = Digital Rights Management, going back as far as needing a serial number is a form of DRM, leading to keygens, for example for software/games. Dunovo is one of the more popular ones of the last handful of years and is relatively difficult to defeat by the various scene teams. The negative is that it can cause a performance hit on some machines or framerate stuttering. FWIW I have deathloop on PC and don't see any issues on my computer, but it is higher-end than most.

 

[rainless]

@rainless DRM has been around for a very long time. DRM = Digital Rights Management, going back as far as needing a serial number is a form of DRM, leading to keygens, for example for software/games. Dunovo is one of the more popular ones of the last handful of years and is relatively difficult to defeat by the various scene teams. The negative is that it can cause a performance hit on some machines or framerate stuttering. FWIW I have deathloop on PC and don't see any issues on my computer, but it is higher-end than most.

Hahahahha!

Yeah dude I KNOW what DRM is... I meant it was my first time hearing of any DRM issues with DeathLoop. (And I read like a LOT of DeathLoop reviews...)

Maybe the reviews I read were written by people who had only played the console version or something...

Anyway it just makes me happier that I got the PS5 version instead of the PC version. I don't really care for DRM either... but it's got nothing to do with the quality of the game or the gameplay. I would imagine that was a choice made at the Bethesda/Microsoft level...

 

[rainless]

I'll say this for Borderlands 3: The Boss battles are MUCH more rewarding. In DeathLoop bosses just DIE... like any other character.

In Borderlands 3 even large villains have dramatic death throes (and usually a big explosion or something.)

 

[Kenrou]

If you want in depth story and character development, you play RPG's. Borderlands tries hard to be like Mass Effect or Cyberpunk but at the end of the day it's still a shooter at heart, and although you learn to love/hate some NPC's (looking at claptrap), to me at least it's only fun while you're doing the campaign, following the story, otherwise it just becomes another mindless weapon power hunt/grind. Deathloop on the other hand is just meh in general, the time loop idea has been done before and replayability is horrible, as soon as you find out how to get all NPC's into rooms in large groups and mass slaughter them it becomes laughably easy/quick to finish (and i personally never liked the whole 70s theme).

Maybe if they had made Deathloop around killing claptrap, interest in it would have grown instead of fizzling and dying at launch ? I know I would have played it for a while

 

[rainless]

If you want in depth story and character development, you play RPG's. Borderlands tries hard to be like Mass Effect or Cyberpunk but at the end of the day it's still a shooter at heart, and although you learn to love/hate some NPC's (looking at claptrap), to me at least it's only fun while you're doing the campaign, following the story, otherwise it just becomes another mindless weapon power hunt/grind. Deathloop on the other hand is just meh in general, the time loop idea has been done before and replayability is horrible, as soon as you find out how to get all NPC's into rooms in large groups and mass slaughter them it becomes laughably easy/quick to finish (and i personally never liked the whole 70s theme).

Maybe if they had made Deathloop around killing claptrap, interest in it would have grown instead of fizzling and dying at launch ? I know I would have played it for a while

I'm still on the fence about which one I like more. I think in terms of overall gameplay I prefer DeathLoop because I would've preferred Dishonored over Borderlands. But all the styles that DeathLoop tries to mash together becomes a bit much.

Like why can't I just keep slabs and guns that I've discovered? Why go through this whole Dark Souls thing? (As a matter of fact... you DO get to keep all your weapons and items after you die in Dark Souls!) And then there's limits on how much this and that you can have... all that is draining. Borderlands 3 is complicated enough managing your limited (but expandable) inventory. I'd prefer to NOT have to think about that...