Borderlands - Review
Added November 6th, 2009 by Karmum
Combining two different genres of video games into one isn't always the best idea. Ask Hellgate: London, which attempted to blend FPS shooting and RPG elements into an online oriented game. That didn't work out so well, but we're in the here and now, and the latest attempt at a hybrid genre is Borderlands, developed by Gearbox Software. Borderlands attempts to mash together the ever popular first person gameplay, and, perhaps at times, relatively stale role-playing genre. I'm going to get to the point: Borderlands mixes both genres very well into a solid title for your console.
Borderlands works on two different cylinders. The first one being that it is your standard first person shooter, which means it will have a lot of guns at your disposal. Its latter feature happens to be a loot-based system in an FPS. When I say loot, I mean loot. Gearbox boasts that Borderlands features millions of guns – yes, millions of guns. Whilst this is the case, many of these said millions usually feature slight variations in design. Snipers, sub-machine guns, machine guns, pistols, and revolvers, just to name a few, are all in Borderlands. Different weapons will have different and unique features to them, such as a shotgun having incendiary ammo.
Guns aren't the only things found in Borderlands. Albeit, your enemies you fight along the way do in fact drop guns, they also drop ammo and even cash. Ammo and health vendors are scattered throughout Borderlands, although enemies drop enough ammo for you to get by. You won’t find yourself out of ammo too often in Borderlands.
Even though Borderlands sports RPG elements, one of which is lacking is its character customization. Borderlands presents you with four characters, all of which have their own sets and traits that differentiate them from others. The minimal customization includes the changing of character color and equipping different weapons. That's about it. To make yourself stand out, you're allowed to assign different traits to your character, which lets you spec them out any way you want. For example, you could be a Hunter and just simply mix-and-match to snipe it out the whole way. The usual leveling feature is present, along with acquiring XP. The maximum level you reach is Level 50, and you definitely won't achieve it on your first playthrough.
Borderlands takes place in the distant future on an alien planet called Pandora. Basically, crazy fools are running around terrorizing people, and you're a part of the colonists entering the planet looking to become rich. Along the way, you'll meet different people, many of which who will give you missions to complete. People and missions are scattered throughout Pandora, and could be collecting a specific item or end up taking down a huge ass monster.
Borderlands breaks down everything into four classes: the Siren, the Beserker, the Hunter, and the Soldier. Each class has their own specific traits and options that makes them unique in contrast to each other. All four classes are given a different special move. For instance, the Hunter class allows you to summon a bird for combat into battle. If you decide to make your bird more involved in your play through, you could equip more skill points to make your bird both quicker and stronger.
Featuring both a single-player option and multiplayer option, Borderlands has plenty of fun to go around. Although you're most welcome to play the game by yourself, much of your fun will be found in playing with in its co-op mode. Enemies become harder, and everything is just a blast (literally) as you and your friends travel throughout Borderlands' world. The only problem with the co-op mode happens to lie in the lack of a trading feature. Since there is a lot of loot, chances are that you might join a match with somebody who will take all of your items and just run. That isn't fun, and it most certainly isn't fair. Borderlands ended up clocking in around 20 hours for me. I ended up completing most of the side missions, and also spent some time exploring the land. You won't get to level 50 on your first try, and you'll definitely want to go back on a second playthrough to max out your character.
Borderlands is a great looking game. Its art-style catches your eye with its impressive visuals and textures, fitting well in a post-apocalyptic setting. Enemies getting burned up or electrocuted from weapons animate great, and heads getting knocked off from headshots are always satisfying to both enjoy and look at. Borderlands also has a good amount of screams in them. Yep, I find the screams to be terribly fascinating. Grown men screaming, or midgets yelling with such intensity. You really feel like you're right there...listening to your enemies’ pain and suffering.
What makes Borderlands such a great experience is its addictive gameplay. It's kind of hard to describe it without showing you. No matter how linear some of the missions can be, you just want to keep pushing through to see what new weapon you can find, and discover the best way to spec out your character.
Borderlands does have its share of short-comings. The story isn't relatively interesting, and much of the time it feels like it ends up getting lost in translation. The lack of a trade feature is extremely frustrating, and the controlling on the vehicles is absolutely maddening. Framerate has the tendency to drop quite a bit during the larger firefights, and even more so when you're playing online with people around the world.
Borderlands isn't perfect. Far from it. But its addictive gameplay and unique features makes it different from the pack. It isn't hard to get past Borderlands' negatives, because there are so many more positives to be found. One of its biggest problems happens to be relatively inconsistent, and isn't prominent throughout the whole game. Borderlands does something that every other game in this genre hasn't done, nail the Diablo-looting system and combine that with the great gameplay of first person shooting. Hopefully Gearbox Software has now convinced other developers to join this hybrid genre.
