Borderlands Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on October 24th, 2009

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In particular, it relies on one of my least favorite contemporary gaming tropes the (girl in your ear,) a mysterious woman who transmits advice, encouragement and tips over your headset radio and sounds like identical guardian angels from a hundred other games. Borderlands has a lot going for it, but the constant interruptions add a layer of narrative that the game simply doesn't need.

This fake friend is no substitute for real ones, so be sure to experience Borderlands with your online cronies.

If you open the door expecting Fallout 3 with extra colours, you're likely to be put off by the sometimes dodgy enemy AI (imagine an axe-wielding mercenary standing perfectly still while you shoot him in the face) and the surprisingly poorly presented story.

But overlook-able faults aside, Gearbox has delivered one of meatiest, most wholly satisfying hybrids yet.

Borderlands feels like a virtual-reality simulator. It feels like the game itself, like those aforementioned huts, has been cobbled together from the parts of other, more xxxtreme games. Ultimately, it's a game that never stops feeling like a game, and as a result, the entire experience is as flat as 2.5 liters of Mountain Dew that someone left the cap off of (definitely not xxxtreme, dude).

In a series of games based around kicking ass and scoring a ton of loot, Borderlands is one of the few that does it right. It might have a disappointing story and a slow single player but Borderlands is an awesome and fun ride through the barren wasteland of Pandora. Once you play through the first time, you'll find yourself doing it all over again. Just make sure you bring your friends.

As far as crafting an all-new experience marrying two very different genres, Gearbox have definitely succeeded, they just need to focus on a few key areas to create the ultimate benchmark for the newly made "Role-Playing Shooter".

Gearbox should be praised. Borderlands is unique, it's different, and it's hard to classify. But it's not for everyone. It's not for the stereotypical CoD/Halo crowd. It's not revolutionary, but it is interesting. And, crucially, it's a hell of a lot of fun, but only, long term at least, in co-op. When you're standing over the corpses of Skags, Midget Mutant Psychos and Badass Bruisers, having pounded on a heavily guarded compound with three mates, you can feel the adrenaline pumping. This, despite what they say about the guns, is what Borderlands is all about.

Borderlands surprised us. We went into the experience expecting a pulse-pounding shooter with fancy cut scenes and lots of drama (no surprise, since we play more FPS on consoles than RPGs), and instead found a slower-moving and tough (but immensely rewarding) slog through a beautiful fantasy world populated by imaginative monsters and more weapons than we know what to do with. We don't care how you play, alone or with friends. Just make sure you do so immediately.

Whatever way you put it, Borderlands is a great game. It does have a couple hiccups here and there (most noticeable being its frequent frame rate drops), but they're extremely easy to look past given everything it does right. The combat is fun, the loot gathering is insanely addicting, and the game's ridiculous over-the-top style is just icing on the cake. Your first play through the game will clock in somewhere around the 20 hour mark, and odds are you'll want to either dive right back in for round two, or go back and complete all of the side missions you've skipped. So unless you're completely opposed to games revolving around gathering loot, you're going to absolutely love this game.

As for the game itself, we have leveled up at a decent speed and didn't feel that the game is too hard or too easy it has a nice pacing to it. The cell shading we thought would be an issue, but after playing has started to grow on us. We can't comment much on character depth in this early review although it does seem with the ability to choose four different classes that there will be greater scope for more than one play through not to mention the added four player co op making the experience far more rich. One of the main things we have noticed about the game so far is the AI is slightly glitchy which leaves some of the characters trapped in their surroundings leaving you the option just to gun them down with ease. There are rumors even at this early stage that a patch is on its way to deal with server issues and we would imagine it dealing with a few other glitches like this one.

Borderlands' big draw is its huge arsenal, which consists of thousands of guns randomly generated throughout its environments. The weapons feel quite different compared to other shooters and are really fun to use. Ammo contains elemental properties that can add acid, fire or electric damage. The urge to test out newly discovered firearms is often enough incentive to march through the lengthy campaign.

Borderlands is a fantastic game and could go down as this year's (sleeper hit) due to Modern Warfare 2 and Assassins Creed 2 hitting later next month. With its addictive gameplay plus its fantastic multiplayer you will quickly forgive the forgetful story. I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves Diablo or Fallout. You will constantly be reminded of those games throughout but also find yourself admiring Borderlands for what it is: a game about finding guns, selling guns, sharing guns, and oh yes, finding even more guns.

Borderland is not for those who are looking for the next blockbuster game. While it may feature a number of similarities with Fallout 3, it isn't as polished as Fallout 3 was, seeing as how Borderlands suffers from a number of awkward and unexplainable gameplay quirks, in addition to a graphics engine that can really be annoying. If you can get past the bland visuals, there is a very deep and solid gameplay experience, overall. But if you're the type of gamer who wants the complete the package, Borderlands may fall short of your expectations. A good game for the hardcore Fallout 3 fan, but one in need of a lot of polish.

I could go into so many more details about combat, customization, fast travel, vehicle joyriding, Second Wind, DNA Reanimation, the HUD, the maps, and inventory navigation, etc. However, why bore you with minutia? Simply know that Borderlands is a deep and engaging, RPG-shooter hybrid that needs to be played to be fully appreciated. Blending the best elements from games such as Fallout 3 and Diablo II, Gearbox and 2K Games have put together a real winner. Don't let it fall off your gaming radar this holiday season.

I think of Borderlands as being a sort of Fallout 3 Lite. It has similar action, item collection, and character building elements, but not the same sort of time-draining depth. I feel like this is a game I can play in relatively quick, satisfying bursts over a long time. And that's just the sort of interactive experience I crave each fall, a time when my attention is drawn to dozen different games any given week. Borderlands will be sitting near the top of my stack of want-to-play games for the next couple of months, I'm sure.

This is perhaps my only real complaint about the game: The story is pretty much non-existent. I've been playing Borderlands for many hours now, and I still don't really have the slightest idea what in the hell is going on other than a flimsy premise of looking for a super-secret vault filled with riches and loot and babes or something. I see animal bones and robots and the occasional (somewhat) sane NPC, but I don't really know anything about any of them. Especially when you're playing multiplayer, everyone is always talking over the story bits so you can't even hear them, and it just becomes a game of (go here, kill that, collect this, repeat). Which is totally fine, because the combat is so solid. Even the driving is great. Borderlands is my reptile brain's favorite game right now. But the game could have maybe benefited from a little more substance, or if it's there and I'm just not seeing it for some reason, a stronger voice with which to have its story heard. The best way that I can describe it is that the gameplay is very aggressive, but the story, while I'm sure there is one, is so passive that you risk losing interest in it fairly quickly.

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