Borderlands 2 Camera Spinning
One of the playable characters in the original Borderlands, Lilith is a powerful siren who uses invisibility and the elements to take out enemies. She is an NPC and important story character in Borderlands 2.
Share.Shooting and looting works in VR, but not without costs.ByAt face value, Borderlands 2 doesn’t sound like the kind of game that would translate to VR with success – but it only took a few hours with to prove my preconceived notions wrong. While it’s clearly not a ground-up, made-for-VR version of the shoot-and-loot bonanza, it’s yet another reminder that large, traditional console/PC games can work reasonably well when retrofitted for virtual reality. Certain concessions, namely the lack of co-op, make Borderlands 2 VR a significantly easier, lonelier, and less replayable game than the original version, but Pandora has never been this close to your fingertips.After spending 20 hours inside Pandora from a closer vantage point, it’s clear that Borderlands 2 has aged well. Borderlands 2 VR ports over the entire, massive map from the base game (though, notably, it’s strictly only the base game). The illustrative art style, in particular, works in its favor, and it probably doesn’t hurt that Pandora is mostly a sparse wasteland. Unlike some other ambitious PSVR games, the world and characters don’t have that slightly washed-out look.
Everything looks about the same as it did in the PS3/Xbox360 original. It didn’t blow me away like Wipeout and Moss did, but it’s perhaps unreasonable to expect a VR port to look and feel as if it was designed with VR in mind. Unfortunately, glaring reminders that it’s not native to VR literally pop up regularly. Menu systems, from inventory management to vending machines, are rendered in holographic-style 2D panels that float in the air, and these screens frequently suffer from clipping with the environment. When that happens they’re either hard to read or even completely obscured and force you to exit the menu, reposition, and pull the menu back up with a centered and clear field of vision.
This is largely a minor annoyance that’s easily remedied, but it happens far too often – and for a game based on managing tons of loot, it’s definitely a bummer. The flat, non-VR screens are also the means for displaying cutscenes – par for the course for several flat-to-VR game ports – but I’m not a fan of the way the change in perspective temporarily lifts you from the immersive experience back to reality. “None of the numerous DLC packs are included.I had played through Borderlands 2 on two different platforms before this, but the off-the-wall dialogue and comedic flourishes still provoked plenty of hearty chuckles.
That said, if you’ve played it before you’re not going to find anything substantially new here. The story arc, missions, and piles upon piles of loot have been ported as-is to PSVR.
It’s unfortunate that none of the numerous DLC packs are included here, considering some of Borderlands 2’s best missions hail from its expansions and it would’ve given people who played the base game but not the expansions some “new” adventures to experience first in VR.Sadly, due to the change in perspective and the lack of co-op, Pandora feels emptier this time around than during my previous two playthroughs. Borderlands 2 VR is single-player only, which feels somewhat like a direct contradiction of what made the franchise so great. Shooting your way through hordes of Skags, Spiderants, and pale humans by yourself just isn’t as much fun as doing it with friends. That’s mostly due to the lack of camaraderie but also because you don’t get to use the diverse class skills to support each other. It felt all the worse when I happened upon reminders that this world was meant to be traveled with friends, such as vehicle spawn points made for two cars. “I have to admit it’s really cool to blast an enemy up close with a shotgun and watch the cartoon blood billow into a cloud in slow motion.To make up for the absence of multiplayer, it appears that Gearbox has significantly nerfed enemies. On top of that, a new mechanic dubbed Bad Ass Mega Fun Time, or BAMF for short, slows time to a crawl,can be activated pretty frequently, and makes combat significantly easier.
I have to admit it’s really cool to blast an enemy up close with a shotgun and watch the cartoon blood billow into a cloud in slow motion.But wait, there’s more: Character skill trees for each of the four Vault Hunters have been updated to make them stronger for solo players. Axton’s Steady ability, for example, is twice as powerful with BAMF activated, which let me blow large groups of enemies to bits, and his Able skill let me further the carnage by adding a few more seconds to my next BAMF Time. While I still died here and there in boss fights, if you’re even somewhat accurate, you’re unlikely to struggle much throughout the campaign.Gearbox may have gone too far in terms of lessening the difficulty, but it’s better than the alternative of being completely overwhelmed.
After you beat the campaign the first time you can replay it in True Vault Hunter Mode, which does ramp up the difficulty, but it’s absurd that we don’t have the option to turn it up at will. And since you can’t play with friends, it’s hard to imagine many will want to go through the 20-hour story more than once.Fortunately Gearbox has included multiple, customizable control schemes, which is good because playing with a standard PS4 DualShock 4 controller, as was originally intended, is far better than fumbling around with the Move controllers. However, doing so robs you of the ability to interact with the environment and aim your weapons as you would in reality, virtual or otherwise. With the DualShock 4, you can play it like a typical FPS by tinkering with the controls – and you really should tinker, because the default controls basically make you crawl at frustratingly slow speeds. The only difference here is that you aim with PSVR’s head tracking instead of naturally by pointing your arms.
It only took me about an hour to get the aiming down, and now I think I’m just about as good at aiming with my head as I am with a joystick.Both options can be further customized for comfort and your own preferred play style, allowing you to set movement to either teleport, teleport and walk, or walk and jump depending on how steady your VR legs are. Teleport and walk with the DualShock 4 became my preferred method, and I mainly used free movement. Jumping made me queasy, though I was surprised to find how playable Borderlands 2 VR is without jumping at all. To mitigate VR motion sickness you can use snap turns — both instant and smooth — set to various degrees and change movement speed.
I was able to play for hours at a time with movement speed set to “Fast” and turn mode set to “Gradual” (standard right joystick camera controls). “Move motion controls turn Borderlands 2 VR into more of a chore than a game.Move motion controls, on the other hand, turn Borderlands 2 VR into more of a chore than a game. Here’s the thing: Frankly, the Move controllers suck in general. They feel cheap, the layout is poor, the buttons are tiny, and they don’t have joysticks because they were never designed for VR in the first place, much less a traditional first-person shooter. Movement is controlled by pointing with the left Move controller and holding down the Move button, while the right Move aims your weapon.
Problems arise with turning, as you have to use the face buttons. It’s cumbersome and annoying to manage in a fast-paced first-person shooter, even an easy one with slow-motion powers. I played with the Move controllers for a few hours and, while I still found success, it wasn’t nearly as fun. Even if you get the hang of the motion controls for combat, sorting through your inventory is a constant pain.It’s disappointing that we can’t have the best of both worlds, namely the AIM controller, which enables other first-person shooters on the PSVR to both aim by pointing and move using a stick. Sadly, Borderlands 2 VR doesn’t support it.
The Verdictis a decent adaptation of the shoot-and-loot classic. While the lack of co-op, expansion content, or control over the difficulty settings is disappointing, the overall experience is positive. It’s best played with the DualShock 4, as the Move controllers simply aren’t good for shooters, and the absence of Aim controller support feels like a major oversight. Still, revisiting Pandora in this new light is mostly a hilarious, action-packed good time. It doesn’t feel as fast and frenzied as it did originally, but it’s still one of the deepest shooter experiences available on PSVR.
The stylistic visuals of Borderlands 2 lend themselves to all kinds of possibilities, so the idea of allowing the user to create their own aesthetic is a mouthwatering one.Water your mouths no more (that’s not a phrase, but work with us), because will let you adjust textures to your heart’s content, morphing the already striking world of Pandora, and turning it into something potentially wonderful, or potentially horrifying.What kind of brand new frontier will you create? We’d advise you peruse through the existing list of content in order to draw some inspiration, but ultimately, the power is in your hands.Use it wisely, and create the kind of majestic kingdom your grandparents once spoke of.Did your grandparents speak of lots of penises on the walls?
Then stop that, you cheeky mix. Want a new perspective on life? How about a new perspective on death?Though it may be an affront on the very definition of ‘first-person shooter,’ those who are keen on trying a new view may be interested in trying out which has you observing the action from a third-person camera angle.It may mess with your head a little if you’re something of a Borderlands savant, but once you grow accustomed to it, it almost feels like you’re experiencing the game for the first time all over again.It also allows you to appreciate the visuals just that little bit more. Traditionally, mods have been made to make your life easier in some way, shape or form.
Back when I was a little girl living in the old country, my papa used to tell me all of these stories – oh, the stories he would tell! – about our family’s history, and the way that my great- great- great- grandfather innovated a new way for cows to –NO MORE.Intros are all well and good if you’re into things like exposition and prefacing, but sometimes you want action, dammit. Raw, blistering, bloody action!So you must install that automatically skips the intro videos, allowing you to jump straight into the melee.
Feel free to ask me about the cow innovation some other time. There are occasions when you want the game to be harder. There are occasions when you want it to be easier. And then there are occasions when you just want it to be gosh darned purdy.So that’s why Sam has seen fit to gift us with a more marvelous tapestry of colors and effects to fill our eyeballs with whimsy and mirth.This Borderlands 2 creates deeper colors, better detail, better anti-aliasing and Gaussian bloom with no detectable loss in performance. Jargon jargon lingo lingo buzzword buzzword – it looks nice, and that’s all you need to know. There’s something kind of off-putting about the word tweaking.
Borderlands 2 Camera Spinning Machine
It evokes unpleasant connotations for nipples, or minor adjustments made to things. Most often the former, should you roll in certain circles.Regardless, there are some things in life that we simply must tweak, and allows us to do so.Predominantly, they are related to graphical or performance elements, like turning off distortion effects or dynamic lighting.With one, you get to reduce the time it takes for corpses to disappear from your screen, which not only can prevent weaker graphics cards from sputtering, but can also help remove some feeling of guilt you may suffer for the acts of violence you have just committed. The Unkempt Harold is a weapon of fearsome power, but its look leaves something to be desired.Why not spruce it up a little by injecting some Doctor Who into its paint job? Why, it looks so spectacular, you could practically rename it to Kempt Harold, put a CV in its hand and send it out to apply for a job in the banking industry.Dream big, Harold.
Dream big.All does is adjust the Unkempt Harold to resemble the design of the good Doctor’s scarf from season 18, which may sound superfluous until you realize just how spiffy that scarf happens to be.Then you may upgrade it to ‘fairly pointless,’ and that’ll do just fine. If you’re unhappy with aspects of your profile and you demand satisfaction, then we come bearing good news: we hear of a mod that can adjust various features like your badass ranks, golden keys, max health, shield capacity and more, a mod that can be downloaded at your leisure.And that mod, obviously. We wouldn’t have listed it if it was only legend, obviously.Not only does it let you customize various things to your choosing, but it also features some of the more amusing file notes, listing among the requirements of use that you have ‘a brain.’Such witticism ought to be rewarded, and we do so by spreading the good word. Have you ever haphazardly thrown out the phrase, ‘if you don’t like a game, go ahead and make something better yourself’?’ If so, be aware that sometimes, the community goes out and does just that. Boy, will your face be red.Allow us to introduce you to the Borderlands 2 a mod that balances and adjusts a few uneven or rough edges of the game to help create the perfect experience.Developers do their very best, but rarely does anyone know better than the fans themselves, and when they come together to collaborate, it can lead to beautiful improvements.Or blistering, hateful remarks in the comments section. It’s 50/50, really. So you want to reap the benefits of max-levelled characters, but you don’t want to put in any of the time and effort?
Well, can’t say we approve of your impertinence, but we’ll assume that you’re a very busy person.You’re probably a paramedic or something, and you’ve got lives to save.If that’s the case, then you will have definitely earned the right to all of the protagonists to level 72, and will be able to use these newfound powers safely and responsibly.We’re giving you the benefit of the doubt here, don’t let us down, okay?That does it for our best Borderlands 2 mods of all time! You definitely can’t play without them.
Let us know if we missed any, too.