My takeaway from playing Borderlands 4 was that it could have been ANY big studio shooter release of the last 5 years. If I couldn’t see what game it was and you asked me what it was, I would have guessed Destiny 2 in some shape or form. There was just nothing about it that was interesting or fun. It felt like it had been polished to absolute death.
But Swapmeat was great. All the parts were there for it to be a ton of fun. It felt like all the stupid fun parts of BL2 with a body mod mechanism to let you get really weird with it.
I’m not a game reviewer type, but after being so disappointed by BG4, I was really excited after playing Swapmeat. They were pretty close to each other on the show floor at PAX and the vibes were night and day.
It’s because they were. The system they used to generate weapons in 2 allowed for tons of unique but mostly garbage guns. This also combined with different drop mechanics so a random bandit didn’t have a chance to drop something amazing, you had to wade through trash to find the gimmick enemies and bosses that actually dropped good loot.