Review: Borderlands

Game: Borderlands
Format: XBox 360
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: 2K Games

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that Borderlands is a fairly derivative game. Sure, it appears to have taken the wasteland setting and RPG elements of Fallout 3, mixed it with the “proper” first person shooter controls of your Call of Duty and Halo games, and even added in the cell shaded visual style of games like Jet Set Radio and Crackdown. You have got to give it to Gearbox, they’ve taken elements from some of the best games in recent years and created something entirely new, and frankly quite fantastic. Borderlands is not only an excellent shooter, it is a brilliant RPG, with the option to play through the entire thing with up to three friends, or go all the way on your own.

Missions range from the bright sunny surface, to dank dark caves

The game takes place on the planet Pandora, far in the future. Pandora is a desolate junk yard planet, populated with mutant creatures, bandits, and frontiersmen. So if Pandora is such a hell hole, why would any sane person want to go there? The answer lies in the legend of The Vault, an alien treasuretrove just waiting to be discovered by any adventure hunter brave enough to search for it. You take control of one of these treasure hunters. There are a total of four types of adventurer and each is armed with their own special ability. Roland, the Soldier, is your all round character, who is especially good with combat riffles and shotguns and can use a turret if things get particularly sticky. Lilith is a Siren, and is able to turn invisible for short periods of time, giving off an energy pulse. Mordecai is a Sniper who possesses a hunting bird that he can send to attack his enemies. The final character to choose from is Brick, who is proficient with explosive and shotguns, and is able to go in to a blind rage and punch the daylights out of his enemies. Unlike many other RPGs you cannot really customise the appearance of your characters, beyond changing the colour of their clothing, which is a shame but it does not harm the overall experience. As you level up your characters you are able to customise your character’s abilities through a fairly expansive skill tree. You can also equip various types of energy shields, squad modifications that bestow special abilities such as ammo regeneration, and modifiers for your grenades. It sounds complicated, but the game slowly eases you in to the customisation of your character through the first four or five missions or so.

Meet the cast: Roland the Soldier, Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter, and Brick the... errr... Brick.

At first Borderlands can seem quite daunting. At the start of the game your standard weapon is fairly weak, but you should not have any problems dealing with the bandits and creatures called Skags, a weird cross between dogs, lizards, and rhinos. As you kill more enemies and explore more regions you discover more loot, including better weapons and shields. The developers proclaimed early on that there were millions of weapons in the game, and that is easy to believe. For the most part the differences between the weapons are subtle, with the main differences between guns being a few points in the damage capabilities, accuracy, or firing speed. However, as you progress further in to the game you discover weapons with elemental damage bonuses which can cause serious damage to your opponents. Yet, it will take more than a cool gun to get you through the game. Each mission is labelled with a recommended experience level for you to be at in order to succeed, and in my experience I found these guidelines were very strict. For instance, early in the game I was a level 7 and a mission required me to be level 10. Feeling confident in my abilities, as I had discovered an excellent sniper riffle, I decided to go ahead with the mission anyway. As you can imagine I was utterly obliterated every time I attempted that mission until I reached level 10. At this point I was able to succeed, as if by magic, by meeting their guidelines. At first this felt a little cheap, like an artificial way of increasing the game’s length, but those feelings soon subsided as I progressed realising that it was a lot of fun running around doing the side missions in order to boost my experience level.

There are plenty of enemies to keep you occupied as you travel the land

The world of Pandora itself is fairly large, and while it is very open, it is not entirely an open world. Each section of the planet that you can access is more like a large arena, with mountains and valleys stopping you from straying too far instead of artificial walls. To progress through one area to another you must travel through a gate, which prompts a loading screen, taking you to the next area. In some ways this is a little disappointing, but for the most part it actually makes the game less daunting and gives it a decent level of structure, as you are mostly unable to wander too far away from your objectives. Being a wasteland, the world is mostly made up of barren deserts, but there has clearly been enough thought put in to the design of each section to prevent the world from becoming boring. The world is densely populated with hostile forces, so you will often find yourself being attacked as you attempt to travel from one place to another. If you see an encampment, or run down building, chances are that the bandits have taken control of that area, so you will have a fight on your hands if you dare to explore or go looking for loot. Each section that you visit is fairly large and expansive, and takes a long time to traverse on foot. Thankfully cars have been included, allowing you to quickly drive around, and shoot at enemies with either a mounted machine gun, or a rocket launcher. Each vehicle can hold two people – a driver, and a gunner – so if you are playing multiplayer you will probably need two vehicles. Vehicles are fairly easy to come by, with several garages in each section of the world, all you need to do is press a switch and a vehicle will appear. Upon reaching the second main area in the game, you unlock the fast travel ability, which lets you teleport from one section to another, avoiding all of those nasty enemies.

Vehicles can make things a lot easier for you, but they are not invincible.

As for the story itself, I do not think that it would be unfair to say that it is pretty weak. Each story mission merely serves as a way of progressing you from once place to another, rather than enriching the story. Yet the writing for the individual character’s dialogue is often hilarious, with some of the incidental side characters being very memorable. The story revolves around your quest to discover the vault, and prevent the evil corporation that claims to own the planet from getting there first, but to be honest, it all seemed fairly generic and uninspired. The real fun in this game is in the exploration, the discovery of loot, and the combat. The action is fast paced and frantic, especially when you are playing in four player co-op. Thankfully you can play in co-op with any combination of character types, so you can all be soldiers, or whatever you want, with no penalties. If you choose to play the game in single player, then you are entirely on your own, with no AI controlled team mates. It is clear that this game is designed with 4 player co-op in mind, as the more players you have, the more enemies you will face, and the better loot you will find. There is a very handy feature in the game that takes place if you are killed – before actually dying you drop to your knees and are given a few seconds to try and kill an enemy. If you are successful you spring back to life with a little health, and can continue. There is no real punishment for dying apart from a small fine, as you merely respawn at health stations, and can continue from where you left off, although any enemies still standing will also have their health refilled if every member of your team dies. As an overall experience, Borderlands is fantastic fun and incredibly hard not to recommend.

REVIEW ROUND UP:

GRAPHICS: 5/5 Originally Gearbox were going to go with fairly generic “realistic” graphics for this game, and thank god they decided not to. The thick black lines and bright colours gives the game a charming and distinctive comic book look.

SOUND: 5/5 Some of the voice acting is superb, and the sound effects for the guns are impressive. The screams the bandits make when they are killed with a corrosive gun, and turn in to a pool of ooze, are incredibly haunting but satisfying. The music is subtle, but memorable, and can create a sense of tension when you are bombarded with enemies.

GAMEPLAY: 4/5 The missions usually revolve around collecting items, or going to a certain location and killing someone. While some missions can become a little tedious, the experience is overall a very positive one. The enemy AI is pretty stupid for the most part, as they just tend to charge at you. A lot of the time gunfights involve you walking backwards slowly and emptying your gun in to a crowd of enemies. Thankfully there are no times racing events, and no escort missions!

LONGEVITY: 5/5 The first play through will probably take over 20 hours to complete, especially if you aim to complete as many of the side missions as possible. Upon completing the game you will be a level 30ish character and can start a second play through, keeping all of your attributes and loot, facing much tougher enemies. The inclusion of 4 player online co-op, and 2 player split screen co-op can potentially keep you coming back to the game for a good while to come.

OVERALL: 5 Critical Hits out of 5. Borderlands is a surprisingly fun experience, especially when playing online with friends. If you are the sort of person that enjoys hunting for treasure in games, always trying to have the best equipment possible, then you will find a lot to enjoy here. Those looking for a deep and lengthy story telling experience may be left a little disappointed, but the dialogue of the characters makes up for that particular shortcoming. The RPG elements are slowly introduced to the player so that even a novice will quickly pick up the complexities of the game and be equipping modifiers with the best of us.

Tags: 2K Games, Borderlands, First Person Shooter, gearbox, guns, Mightyles, mutants, Review, Role Playing Game, Role Playing Shooter, RPG, wasteland, wild west, XBox 360

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