The story part of the game was disabled for our playthrough, but we were introduced to two new enemy types: the aforementioned Crimson Lance and the insectoid alien Guardians. We happened upon a couple battles in progress between the two, so we can speculate that the Lance are getting close to the Vault and the Guardians are struggling to repel them.
Above: Crimson Lance vs the Guardians
The Guardians carried plasma weapons that dealt serious damage; luckily we were able to equip some of them. Don’t expect to find loads of ammo for these devastating energy weapons, though.
Above: See that sword arm? Yeah, stay out of melee range
Another bit of story we picked up is that the Soldier character used to belong to the Crimson Lance, as evidenced by assorted mismatched pieces of his armor. But who needs all that pesky plot anyway? Borderlands’ strengths lie in its pretty graphics, twitchy shooting and phat lewt drops.
Above: You could just let them kill each other, but where’s the fun in that?
One final observation: the gore that we’ve seen in previous demos is not as prevalent in this footage, but we’ve been assured that Borderlands will still contain plenty of over-the-top action. Cue the exploding midgets.
Oct 8, 2009
