Now, this may sound a little strange, but anyone who is legally able to drink alcohol go and get some right now, no seriously, do it, it's relevant with understanding how bad this game is. Now, I want you to take a shot every time you read 'rip off,' and 'Borderlands 2' (take 2 shots). Good? Now I can start the review.
Story and Background
"You know what I'm getting sick of? Silent Protagonists, ever since Half Life they've been crammed in, with varying degrees of success. I mean, it makes sense in a game like CoD, where at all times there's someone radioing in and telling you to stop laying about, and commit more war crimes. But otherwise it just makes you look like an arse hole. Who climbs on other people's furniture, pockets the silverware, and blankly stares at people when they ask him to stop.
It's even weirder when the silent protagonist has a name, and an existing reputation with other characters in the world because he must have spoken at some point to introduce himself. Unless he constantly wears a T-shirt with his name emblazoned on it, but if that's the case then how do we even know that the character is that character, or just borrowing his T-shirt? And how does this work when dialogue choices come up? Are we transmitting the answers telepathically or putting on different T-shirts accordingly?" - Ben 'Yahtzee' Crosshaw, Escapist Magazine, 2011.
Yes Defiance does this, except ... it doesn't. Your character doesn't talk during cutscenes or anything, but in gameplay you can choose to have your character to say pre-recorded things like, "Medic! Wipe your ass," and, "I need a car, going to the brothel." So this basically ruins the whole silent protagonist thing, but I guess they just wanted to rip off Borderlands 2 with everything, so they may as well have done the silent protagonist thing (take 2 shots).
I had low expectations for this game, because it's a TV licensed game 'nuff said. And don't say the Walking Dead, the amount of movie/TV licensed games that are bad, far outweigh the good. Now, you start off the game with a complete dickhead arguing with a Commander about something or other. Yeah we're five minutes into the game and we've already run headlong into a glaring issue, the story and characters are completely forgettable, I remember 2, but they're vague at best. One is a douche, and the other has tons of casual sex, yeah not a great start Trion.
Basically, a planet has had shit hit it, and the dickhead wants to unshit the planet, but for some reason a character doesn't want to unshit the planet for poorly justified reasons. Of course, you, the character are an ark hunter working for- ahhhh! Vault hunter, ark hunter, I see we've copied Borderlands 2 again (take a shot). Anyway, you work for the dickhead trying to unshit the planet, however the ship you're all in crashes onto the planet and the dickhead is missing and we have to go and save him.
But, why? We literally saw him for about 3 minutes, and in that time he was acting like a ... well ... a dickhead. Even after you save him he starts flirting with girls after he's met them for about a minute. No one's likeable, or memorable. Anyway, after that I'm not really sure what happens, because after that you have to go and do odd jobs for farmers killing hellbugs, and you have to do an escort mission for the most retarded farmer I've met in my life.
He kept dragging me away to houses looking for his dollies, as hordes of giant bugs swept up to me trying to rip my nipples off. If you haven't noticed by now, I don't like Defiance that much.
Gameplay
Now, if you're actually doing this little drinking mingame (which you should be), then know, that Defiance blatantly rips off Borderlands 2's gameplay, badly (take 2 shots). Defiance is an MMORPG, that can be played on consoles as well and I've never really wanted that to happen because this generation of consoles just can't handle MMOs. I was always experiencing a bit of lag, player strategy wasn't even required, and the pop in ARGHH. The pop in was awful, more than once I was driving my vehicle and a truck just materialised in front of me, crashing my vehicle into it as mutants rushed in to try and see how fast they could shove a pole up my rear.
The best thing I have to say about Defiance is that it rips off Borderlands 2's weapon amount sorta good, (take 2 shots). Also the inventory has a better layout than Borderlands 2, but there's only one more thing I can say about Defiance's gameplay that's good (take a shot). There are these sections where a huge group of players will team up to destroy a crystal which has an unbelievable amount of health, a time limit, and constant bugs spawning out your arse. I would like it if the time limit was stricter though to add more tension, the swarms of bugs barely presented a challenge with the piles of ammo, and amount of players.
Now, you remember Simcity recently? Always fucking online DRM? Guess what? Yes Defiance had always online DRM and after the first 20 minutes it said I couldn't connect to the servers, and I had to wait an hour before I could reconnect, however thank god for autosaving, and the problem didn't repeat itself until another few hours. But it was still fucking annoying. There's no loot system like Borderlands 2, and in fact, it's just a rip off attempting to cash in (take 2 shots).
Another thing that Defiance ripped off Borderlands 2 were the driving sections, (take 2 shots). In Borderlands 2 vehicles were a nightmare, and Defiance has improved them, but with the pop in issues, and the attempt at realistic controls, they're still annoying (take a shot).
The game was so repetitive that I lasted a total of about 5 hours before I realised that it didn't have any variety apart from drive to a section, shoot enemies, hold out area/infiltrate area, drive off to next area. Ultimately the game's fucking gameplay was fucking awful. In the xbox version I wasn't sure if there was voice capability because no one responded to my pleas of help with a mic, nope instead I had to painfully navigate the menus and select the correct option as enemies tried to relocate my balls to my mouth.
Any one of the buttons on my controller could have been my 'start talking now,' option, but nope I had to do that system, unlike in say ... Borderlands 2 (take a shot).
Graphics and Setting
There a a few sharp edges, and unpolished textures here, I felt like I was playing Colonial Marines mixed swirled in mucus. It did look better on the PC though, the xbox version though ...
However, aside from that the backdrops are actually quite nice, more than once I had to stop driving just to admire how pretty an environment looked, but these moments didn't last long as I found out my left arm was being mutilated by a mutant, leaving me with and I had enough blood left in me to fill a biro.
The rip off doesn't copy the iconic Borderlands 2 single shaded style, and the amount of detail came no where close to the game it was ripping off (take 3 shots).
Final Verdict
If by now you're not alcohol poisoned, then I can say this: Defiance actually had potential. If it had a year or two, then this game could have been something really good it just needed to shift away from Borderlands 2 and more into Defiance (take a shot). There needed to be a unique mechanic or two, btw there were elemental weapons, just like in Halo ...
... nah I'm joking Borderlands 2 (take a shot). I'll have a look at the TV show, but otherwise stay away from this game.
The final verdict for Defiance for xbox is a 2.1/10, on the PC it gets a 2.9/10. I hope that Trion fixes these glaring issues before it's launch in April, so not that much time, but if the team is committed to making this game work, then yes they can.
Shot count: 22
