Borderlands ignores the split screen experience.
by K. Michael Alexander
I tend to get obsessive when it comes to games. For better or for worse I suppose, when a game hooks me, it hooks me. Gearbox’s Borderland is a game that does just that. Ever since I heard about it’s blending of role-playing elements and shooter game play my interest was peaked. Then after seeing Borderlands at PAX I would say I was enamored. So when a friend asked me if I had tried split screen, admitted I hadn’t. After all most of my experience with the game thus far have been me and three other buddies playing from the comforts of each of our couches in each of our own individual homes.
It seems clear this physically solitary gaming is what Gearbox intended. After all why would something as unacceptable as these interfaces even be allowed with a modern game? Theses screens attached are some iPhone photos of the split screen game play. Really. As you can see, it’s quite frankly, unplayable. Menus don’t fit, it’s hard to see what your looking it, it doesn’t scale it’s hard to read. It seems like split screen was a last ditch afterthought. Why else would a something this half-assed even be allowed to ship? Why would you expose this to the public? They could have shipped the game without split screen, there be minor grumbles but in the end players would have focused on the solitary co-op game play. If they simple had to have it, at the very least they could have allowed the UI to scale.
It sad to see such a great game tarnished by one major mistake. If you played it single player or co-op over the network of your choice you’d never have noticed this faux pas. Gearbox seems to miss the fact that gaming is getting more and more social. People like get together and like sitting next to each other as they play games. That’s why the Wii has had such a great success. Nintendo encouraged players to get together and game. Maybe all the markets focus on social gaming is why it seems so odd for Gearbox to quite frankly ignore something as simple as split screen.
Hopefully there will be a patch to fix this. Until then, I wouldn’t be able to recommend playing Borderlands via split screen. I’d have to encourage us all to remain solitary and sit on our individual couches and hunt for the Vault via voice communication only, it’s too bad really.
Comments
Well, you can move the UI boxes around with the right stick, so it’s not like you are completely missing out on anything. It’ll cost you some time and annoyance, which I really don’t find totally unacceptable – The entertainment of playing this game with a friend next to you more than makes up for it.
I do have an easier time with it as I’m playing on a widescreen TV, though. It uses a vertical split instead, and shows more of the UI than your 4:3 screenshots.
Your are correct, the UI can be moved, but it wouldn’t have taken much to resize the menus so they fit in whatever resolution the game is being played on, HD or SD. As of December only about 50% of US households were sporting an HDTV (http://bit.ly/aKT6N9) until those numbers change it seems off you’d ignore the experience of 50% of your audience.
Is co-op split screen Borderlands unplayable? Certainly not. Borderlands co-op split screen is still a lot of fun. Does something as simple as this add a level of frustration to a co-op experience? Of course, it’s something that was unnecessary, a bit lazy, and something that could have been easily avoided.