Pitching the last games to Battleborn, the competitive Borderlands that lost to Overwatch, before the server shutdown.
If I had to say what it was me competitive shooter (or hero shooter) 2016 favorite, many will be surprised to know that it was not Overwatch, but Battleborn. Yes, I am one of the few who liked Gearbox Software’s proposal a lot more, in part because it seemed like an extension of the vast Borderlands universe.
Casually, both Overwatch and Battleborn came out in May 2016, hitting the second first, which only had a three-week lead against Blizzard’s media FPS. And as many of you will know, tomorrow Battleborn will close its servers forever, making it impossible to play again. That is why I wanted to remember what it was like to say goodbye with a brief smile.
Squeezing the last hours with Battleborn
It is curious that two shooters with so many characters to choose from came out in the same month, but the truth is that they offered different proposals within the FPS. Battleborn played midway between missions elaborated for his campaign (yes, it had a story mode) with competitive modes like the classic Capture the Flag or one in MOBA plan, baptized as Raid. In all cases, as with the third in dispute (Fusion), it offered long-duration games.
One of its negative points was, in fact, having to endure long waits to play, or to continue playing when you were killed in an advanced game, coupled with multiple crashes in its first weeks of life. Overwatch, on the other hand, was the immediacy made a video game, like the classics of yesteryear. And time is money.
It is something that even now, at the doors of its closure, I have had to suffer (to a lesser extent, yes), despite creating private games for the story or against bots, since the game depends on their servers and takes at least 30 seconds to create the game. The pity is that this time I have not been able to meet with more people or not being able to access certain sections of the main menu, such as a series of special missions from your season pass.
Although spend a little more than 30 hours in your day, he had forgotten many things of his peculiar idiosyncrasy, such as the possibility of making the character evolve in the middle of battle through two different ways to passively modify your skills. Because it is a shooter in which we always start from scratch in each game, having to decide hot what improvements were best for us, or what equipment of different rarity could be better with a certain kind of character.
This time I no longer wanted to waste time customizing his heroes or stopping to read what objects he had, in case he modified a set for the games. I was only worried about playing and, incidentally, trying the heroes that he received over the months. There my chosen one was clear, as I liked the design of the soldier-bird more Ernest in front of Beatrix, Kid Ultra and Pendles. Although my heart still has Toby, that penguin dressed in a huge Mecha. In that sense, each of the factions of Battleborn (Last Light Society, The Eldrid, The Rebels, United Peacekeepers Republic, and Jennerit Empire) They had nothing to envy in showiness and variety to those of Overwatch. But it could not be.
An online shooter with Borderlands humor
As I say (and I commented at the time), it was very noticeable that Gearbox Software was behind, apparently at times a Borderlands in competitive modeNot only because of the design of some of the characters (Rath looked like Handsome Jack’s cousin-brother), but also because of his great sense of humor in his main campaign.
It lacked depth when developing its heroes and villains, being a disappointment that it did not have a real connection with the Seekers of the Chamber, despite the fact that its creators played the distraction promising surprises. And yes, those “surprises” arrived, but in the form of skins. And when the game had already been under the free-to-play model for a few months. Because it took just over a year to change his strategy, having previously seen his price drop drastically. Did someone say Rocket Arena? It is not easy to succeed, of course.
In any case, no matter how much sales or media notes were not accompanied by Battleborn, after returning to throw a few games before its closing, I must say that the guy holds up quite well. At least according to my tastes, of course. Because if their servers were not veneered, it would be very bad again.
Ironically, this time I played more games in Fusion mode, where you have to escort the minions to the opponent’s shredder to win the game by adding more junk points. With the AI good brawls are mounted and it compensates that there are no human players (today) in the game, being the minions an extra to get easy kills accumulating more experience.
From history I hardly remembered anything (It is not that it was memorable, things as they are), but this time it was heavier for me to have to play it alone, being much more difficult this way as I did not have anyone to revive me. What here one cannot revive like in Borderlands, but has a few lives, by way of retries, before losing the mission.
I keep the games in their first months of lifeWhen there were still people and you hoped Gearbox Software would polish its flaws. Because it was a shooter with potential that died too soon …
