Borderlands

It’s genius, I can’t believe this game wasn’t made years ago. If you somehow haven’t heard of Borderlands yet, it’s the Diablo game disguised as a first person shooter. It’s a hectic romp through the world of Pandora, shooting everything that isn’t you and taking their stuff. But while the masses that were hoping to kill a couple hours with their buddies are going to be having a blast, anyone hoping to spend the next 6 months trying to get to level 99, or get decked out in full gold items from Baal is probably going to find the game lacking.

The plot of the game is simple enough, you’re a vault hunter, you’re here for the famed vault. So you go about, talking to people that know of it, assembling the key, and eventually going to it. It’s a pretty forgettable story, but the game is keenly aware of this. One thing that this game has by the truckloads is style. The graphics are the first indicator of that, with it’s odd, not realistic, but not altogether cartoony look. But when you play it’s everywhere, the environments, the weapons, the enemies, the NPC’s, and the dialogue all ooze with this style that can’t quite take itself seriously. Patricia Tannis is a good example of this, as you’ll spend an awful lot of time listening to her journal throughout the game. She is a well voiced stuck up utterly unlikable scientist who we listen to as she spends somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 years alone with no one to talk to but her tape recorder. By the time we finally meet her she is batshit crazy, and it’s hilarious.

The main plot is pushed along by your guardian angel person, who is this lady that pops up in your HUD whenever she feels like and says stuff. There’s kind of a twist at the end, and I won’t spoil it, but suffice it to say I doubt anyone will be satisfied with the ending of this game. That’s not going to stop them from enjoying it though.

Strange guardian angel chick.

There are 50 levels, and as I stated in the beginning, don’t expect a Diablo timeframe to level up. With around 30 hours on my character I hit max level. There are only 2 playthroughs, and you’ll definitely hit 50 before you’re done with the second. There are still things to be done in the game if you want, I’ve been told that when you beat it the second time everything levels up to 50 and you can then run around and get better loots, haven’t spent any time looking at that just yet though.

But let me back up a bit, this is about the journey to 50. When you start you’ll have one gun, and it’s going to suck ass. Once you hit level 5 you start getting skill points, there are 3 trees for each class, and 4 classes total. The classes are Brick, the Siren, the Solider, and the Hunter. People are going to like different classes more, as each class usually has a unique play style that’s emphasized by your skills. For the life of me though, I can’t see why anyone would want to play the Solider.

Gratuitous Explosion.

Every class gets an action skill, which in turn gets better as you level, is augmented by artifacts you pick up, and can be drastically modified by skill points. For instance, as a siren you get phase walk, which makes you invisible to enemies, you move very quickly, and when you enter and leave phase walk you do a phase blast that’s a little area effect thing. With talents you can electrocute everyone around you, reduce the cooldown, extend the duration, regain health while phasewalking, do +800% melee damage while phasewalking, and more. Other classes have drastically different abilities, the Hunter throws a bird that attacks stuff, Brick goes on a rampage and starts punching crap and regaining health like a psychopath, and the Solider drops a turret. All the abilities are amazing in their own ways, except the turret, the turret is horrible.

There are plenty of skills to get that don’t modify your action skill though. Things like increasing bullet velocity and damage, reducing sniper rifle drift, making enemies drop more loot, or dazing people when you shoot them. There are also weapon proficiencies, which I was a little surprised at, I don’t know why. The more you shoot a gun, the better you get at it, which is a mixed blessing type of thing. It means you’re either a jack of all trades, master of none, or you’re going to have to stick to one or two types of weapons all game. The bonuses for weapon proficiencies can be pretty substantial, and they take can take a long time to get up. I hit max level before any of my weapon skills did.

Weapon proficiencies can make all the difference.

The combat in this game is fun, frantic, and can sometimes be a little silly. As more people join the game, things get much harder, the loot gets better, and it’s all around a more fun experience. This is a multiplayer game at its core, while it can be entertaining single player, you’re missing so much of the experience that I almost wouldn’t recommend playing it if you’re not going to play with friends.

This game is a loot fest, boasting over half a million weapons in all. After spending some time in it, I definitely believe that claim. The problem is, often it can be a numbers game, this gun has so-and-so reload speed versus this, this gun fires slower but fires 2 bullets at a time, etc. And if there are half a million weapons in the game, 450 thousand of them are utterly worthless. I often found myself favoring some pretty strange choices in weapons, despite seeing a ton of purple and orange weapons dropped. And I have seen three of the famed ‘pearl’ colored weapons, which are the rarest, and they were all horrible. For example, on my hunter I used my level 19 shotgun all the way until level 38 when I finally replaced it with a revolver that shot pellets, and I haven’t replaced that yet. By the time you hit level 15 to 20, you can bet the first thing you’re going to be checking on weapon drops is the sell price.

Oh another purple, at least it sells for a lot.

That’s not to say that you won’t change weapons frequently, but the system that generates guns can be a little hard to predict. My shotgun from before fired 11 pellets doing 96 damage a piece, even at level 50 most of the shotguns I find don’t do that much damage. I’m still seeing purple shotguns that do less damage than my green level 19 one. Money is used mostly for SDU’s, but quickly becomes pretty worthless. I soon found my inventory slots worth $1000 each, then 2, then 5, 10, 50, 100… last I stopped playing, I couldn’t be bothered to pick up anything worth less than $200,000.

There are a few different types of enemies, but there’s not a ton. The AI tends to be very good though, and even though the levels are static, and the enemies never change, it doesn’t feel like you’re doing the same thing. Enemies will seek cover, throw grenades at you, jump on your face, run you down with cars and more. Speaking of cars, the vehicles are very well done in this game. While you may find that the rocket turret mounted on your vehicle quickly becomes underpowered, nothing does damage quite like running people over. They are a source of fast travel and endless amusement.

Bosses are just as varied as the other enemies, and while King Wee Wee might not be the toughest enemy ever conceived, Krom and his turret can be a pain in the butt. Often enemies will drop a signature gun, and higher level versions of the same on subsequent playthroughs. I was not a fan of this, because pretty much all the bosses guns are horrible. There are also Badass enemies, which are kind of like minibosses, or named mobs from Diablo. They’re easy to spot as they usually look drastically different, and have Badass in the name. Badasses can run the gamut as well, from just having a guy with a shotgun that has more life, to having a giant corrosive dog thing that spits acid and takes forever to die. They also seem to scale more with more players, on single player a Badass would barely give me pause, where as with 4 people they’d be 2 shotting me.

eep

The gunplay is diverse, with weapons feeling and acting drastically different, the classes and even skills in those classes are varied and can alter the feel of the game, and the enemies make sure that no two encounters are ever the same. They say that if the only thing wrong with the game is you want more, there’s nothing wrong, but I just can’t buy it in this case. All the makings are here for a truly epically replayable game, but it just feels cut short. And while there’s definitely nothing wrong with the game, don’t expect to be playing it for months to come. It was an excellent time waster, but all the promises of super hardcore gameplay, and hundreds of thousands of weapons seem to fall short. It’s a pity.

Boss intro, Borderlands style.

The Verdict:

Gameplay 5/5: It’s a frantic shooter loot fest that never relents. The controls are top notch, vehicle play is fun as hell, the dialogue will make you laugh, and the enemies can be truly challenging.

Looks 4/5: It’s hard for me to rate a stylized game such as this. It’s not always pretty, and some of the character models (see: Brick) just kind of took anatomy and threw it out the window. But it feels good, runs smooth, and almost makes you feel like you’re in a comic book.

Noise 5/5: Top notch, some of the best dialogue and voice acting to date. The music is great, I have a feeling I’ll have that title song stuck in my head for quite a while. I think my only complaint is Bricks action skill, god he’s fucking annoying when he uses that.

Addictiveness 4/5: This can be a tough one to set down, especially if you’re not the only one playing. But while the game practically begs me to play it, I find that during extended playing I go into zombie mode and have to go do something else for a while. That’s probably more a commentary on me and first person shooters though.

Replayability 4/5: It’s there, despite all the bad talk about it, it’s definitely there, it’s just not what I was hoping for. And while I almost have 2 max level characters, and have definitely been replaying it, I still don’t see putting more than 80 or so hours in the game. And while that seems like an impressive number, compared to other multiplayer experiences like Diablo, Counter-Strike, ANY MMO, or even Left 4 Dead, it pales in comparison. The game has the makings to truly absorb lives, they just didn’t push it over the edge.

Overall Rating:

Oh my…

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