Borderlands 2 Review (PC)
Not Just Any Old Console Port
Rightly or wrongly, Triple-A multi-platform titles are usually viewed as ‘console ports’, where the PC-specific gameplay experience has been watered down to fit the limited potential of a console. Whether it be a control system specially adapted to gamepad, or a lack of graphical options stretching the capabilities of even mediocre PC hardware, the expectations we have of these titles diminished over the last five or so years. So with that in mind, we present you the Graphical Options Menu:
We’d like to shake the hand of those responsible for this
Isn’t it glorious? Resolution, Field of View, even HUD size can be tweaked in one of the more comprehensive screens we’ve seen all year. A glance shows that Gearbox didn’t approach the PC version as an afterthought, which by itself deserves praise.
Just as important as graphics tweaks is the ability to fully re-bind controls, which Borderlands 2 achieves with a minimum of fuss. Even so, the default controls are logical for a First Person Shooter so you should be able to jump right in rather than spend the first twenty minutes binding jump to [Space] rather than [P] etc.
Online co-op multiplayer matchmaking is performed through Steamworks rather than a mechanism developed in-house. Lack of competitive multiplayer makes life a little easier for Gearbox in this regard, but it’s nice to see a system which just works rather than adds unnecessary frills. Of course, this also means you need to be logged-in to Steam in order to play online, but that’s something of an acceptable evil these days.
If we were scoring Borderlands 2 purely on the strength of the port it would get an A and glowing letter sent to its parents. But we can’t just yet...
Rightly or wrongly, Triple-A multi-platform titles are usually viewed as ‘console ports’, where the PC-specific gameplay experience has been watered down to fit the limited potential of a console. Whether it be a control system specially adapted to gamepad, or a lack of graphical options stretching the capabilities of even mediocre PC hardware, the expectations we have of these titles diminished over the last five or so years. So with that in mind, we present you the Graphical Options Menu:
We’d like to shake the hand of those responsible for this
Isn’t it glorious? Resolution, Field of View, even HUD size can be tweaked in one of the more comprehensive screens we’ve seen all year. A glance shows that Gearbox didn’t approach the PC version as an afterthought, which by itself deserves praise.
Just as important as graphics tweaks is the ability to fully re-bind controls, which Borderlands 2 achieves with a minimum of fuss. Even so, the default controls are logical for a First Person Shooter so you should be able to jump right in rather than spend the first twenty minutes binding jump to [Space] rather than [P] etc.
Online co-op multiplayer matchmaking is performed through Steamworks rather than a mechanism developed in-house. Lack of competitive multiplayer makes life a little easier for Gearbox in this regard, but it’s nice to see a system which just works rather than adds unnecessary frills. Of course, this also means you need to be logged-in to Steam in order to play online, but that’s something of an acceptable evil these days.
If we were scoring Borderlands 2 purely on the strength of the port it would get an A and glowing letter sent to its parents. But we can’t just yet...
