The ice zone (Southern Shelf) is only the very beginning of the game, you reach more interesting areas after defeating the first major boss, Captain Flynt.
Denuvo is hardly even a deterrent at this point. So many games are releasing unfinished and broken that pirating it right when it comes out would just be a waste of time. It’s only by the time Denuvo is removed later on that the game may be in a more playable state and thus worth bothering with.
Wii. The driving always felt perfect in that game, the other games don’t control as well in my opinion. 8 Deluxe feels like a letdown with its lack of unlockable characters and karts which I felt was one of the most fun parts about Wii.
And your gun sways all over the place. Worse in 3, your character just moves their neck forward instead of using the sights when aiming. That just magically makes the bullets spread less despite not actually aiming… thank fuck for Tale of Two Wastelands.
Borderlands 1 and 2 still look great in comparison to a lot of games that came out around the same time. The stylized cel-shaded textures help hide the lower-poly environments and really make the world stand out. Most games at the time were trying to go for a “realistic” look that just resulted in bland brown and gray environments that look terrible.
This is why so many indie games are awesome. The graphics don’t need to be great when the soundtracks and gameplay more than make up for it. Those are what actually matter. I have most of Undertale’s OST committed to memory at this point lol