Fun game with a low enjoyment ceiling.
Recommended because I had fun with it for a while and it works, but
repetitive PvE matches, poor PvP matchmaking / empty lobbies, lack of
weapon modding and repetitive character leveling means it's not worth
the full asking price.
Total size on my hard drive (base only,
without the Season Pass content): 25GB.
Battleborn is a game of two parts: PvE
and PvP.
PvE
First off, this is not a game for
soloing. It can be done, but takes FOREVER. It's much better to try
to find a match with other people. Unfortunately, this means the
campaign is experienced in bits and pieces, frequently out of order.
The story is episodic anyway, but any kind of sense to the story
becomes hard to grasp. There's some guy Rendain who's trying to do –
something – and our team of Battleborn, assisted by genius Kleese
and the AI, Nova, are trying to stop him. Sounds good. The maps and
levels flow well, the banter with Kleese and supporting characters is
funny (the first few times), the graphics are colorful, and the
combat has a good feel (wish sprint was faster, though Speed
power-ups help). Bosses are suitably epic, but most enemies behave
the same – and in many cases, ARE the same. PvE is best used to
practice playing specific characters; expect it to get old fast –
even with alternate dialogue for in-game transitions.
PvP
Several different modes with decent
net-code – I didn't have many problems with lag (a few, but nothing
catastrophic). There are the usual concerns (and complaints) about OP
characters. Team-work and a balanced squad is rather more crucial
than in other team-based games. Kill/death ratio has zero importance;
work together to take down the enemy. If you try to go off on your
own and rambo it, you'll die fast. Gearbox is still releasing new
maps and characters at the time of this review, so there is some
variety still to be had. The problem is that people just aren't
playing Battleborn; the Steam “now playing” list indicates 800
people playing at once is a busy day. Out of the millions that log on
to Steam every day, that's an incredibly small amount – and that's
down from the 1,000 – 1,200 that showed up for a double XP weekend.
This indicates that people do own the game, and play it for special
events, but they have other things they'd rather play on a daily
basis.
Ten people are required for PvP; if you
don't have them, you can't start the match. Two is the minimum for
PvE, but there's no drop-in / drop-out. Character skills are leveled
up in the middle of the match. Press 1 to open the skill menu, press
Q, E, or F to choose a skill, the skill is upgraded and the menu
closes. It happens in mere seconds and works well. But the very next
match, I have to level my character all over again. Obviously I'm
supposed to experiment with new ways to play a character, but once
you've figured out the best way to play a character, the in-game
leveling just becomes annoying. Equipping the load-out doesn't
activate the gear in it; the gear has to be activated by accumulating
enough shards to do so. Shards are acquired by searching the area for
deposits; sometimes enemies drop shards as well. This isn't a problem
in PvE with three players or in PvP. In PvE with the maximum of five
players, though, there just aren't enough shards to go around. Add to
this that the better gear costs more shards to activate, and that it
helps to spend shards on building turrets and such, and PvE becomes a
mad rush for shards.
Gear can help with things like damage
and shields, but it won't provide new weapons; all weapons are
bespoke based upon which character you've chosen. I'm not sure if
Gearbox was deliberately trying to make Battleborn different from
Borderlands (“the weapon varieties were one of the most notable
things about Borderlands, so let's not have ANY weapon variety in
Battleborn”), but some simple weapon choices and alternatives would
have helped add new ways to play beyond choosing a character. (Look
at Mass Effect 3's multiplayer; simple as the multiplayer mode is,
the number of weapons and the fact that they could be modified added
simple but effective depth to the loadout). Instead, playing a
specific way requires a specific character; it helps focus attention
on the gallery of rogues Gearbox has assembled, but it felt limiting.
I didn’t have much of an issue with
PvP balancing (Benedict was OP, but his reload speed was recently
nerfed, largely solving the problem). I had no issue with
Battleborn’s graphical optimization, either - I also didn't try to
max out the graphics and blame Battleborn when the game started
stuttering (reduce Draw Distance, Particle Effects and Ambient
Occlusion for starters). The cartoony art style of Battleborn might
lead you to think you can max it out (like I could do with
Borderlands 2), but don't be fooled. Battleborn is very demanding
when maxed.
Battleborn provides a good amount of
entertainment, but needs more maps (both PvE and PvP), weapon
customization, and a larger player base. Get it at 75% off or more so
you don't feel too bad if / when you tire of it. Sounds harsh, but
there really isn't that much to Battleborn.
