Borderlands 2 – Mac

Being a Mac owner, your choices for good games are limited. Saying that this is the best 1st person shooter may not be saying a lot since there aren’t that many available for Mac. However, I would also say that BL2 is right up there with some of the best for any platform. Its no Halo, but its still an excellent game. The story line is nice and deep and there are a lot of side missions available. These side missions will greatly increase the value of the game because of the extended play available. If you like the shooter games and like a lot of different guns, then this game is for you. There are countless guns and they aren’t just bigger and bigger. Each gun has a range of characteristics that make it better in one aspect and weaker in another. You accumulate guns and choose the best ones to carry and use for a given situation. The tone of play has some strategy, no horror, and mostly just mayhem. There is a lot of scavenging in the game – to find guns, ammo, grenades, money, shields, tech stuff to improve your abilities. Another great feature is the ability to play as 4 different characters. Each one has very different special abilities so it does change the game play. This is another thing to add to the value of the game and how much novel playing time you can get out of it. The characters within the game are pretty varied and interesting – both the friends and foes. You can play multiplayer online in groups of 4 with each person playing a different character. I have not tried this yet as I am not as experienced and worry about getting one of my teammates killed – I just couldn’t live with that on my conscience. The Xbox 360 controller plugs-n-plays with no setup at all. The only reason I didn’t give it five stars overall is that the bad guys are a little one-dimensional in how they attack. There are many different foes and each one attacks/defends slightly different, but once you’ve encountered one type of foe, that type is then predictable.

This is a negative review of Borderlands 2, or rather, the associated company Steam (Steampowered.com). The game that you buy here is a blank DVD, except for a key code and an automated link to the company Steam. That is where the game is installed to your computer from, NOT THE PURCHASED DVD. Without a membership to Steam, this game can’t be played. So I created a Steam account. I put about 10 hours of gameplay into Borderlands 2, then my Steam account was mysteriously deactivated. I tried to log in with my account name and password. Didn’t work. Then I tried to reset my password. 3 times. Still no success. I received the automated emails, but Steam wouldn’t let me log in to change my password. That was 3 days and 5 emails ago. The problem with this game isn’t the format, the controls, the graphics, or the storyline. The problem is the lousy technical support by Steam. I don’t like Steam, but nobody is allowed to play Borderlands 2 on a computer without Steam’s interference. Nobody should have to wait more than 72 hours for tech support. I have, and I still can’t play this game. What a waste of time and money.

This version requires a Steam account people. Can’t play it without that. And the listing is misleading; Mac users be sure to check your OS! This is for Lion, OSX 10.7 up not for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard. I wasted money on this, while it wasn’t much, the shipping got me -and I was unable to return it because I had taken it out of the shrink wrap.