Reviewed by Brandy Shaul
Gearbox’s Borderlands is an interesting take on the FPS genre, combining all things shooter with traditional RPG elements to create a level-grinding experience unlike any other.
The game allows you to choose from four main characters, each of which comes equipped with a special ability. Roland, the soldier, is especially skilled with shotguns and assault rifles, and can release a turret onto the playing field; Lilith is a Siren that focuses on elemental abilities and can “Phasewalk,” allowing her to become temporarily invisible; Mordecai is a skilled sniper that is accompanied by a Bloodwing, a bird that can be sent ahead to attack an enemy, and lastly, Brick, with his massive frame, specializes in hand-to-hand combat, and can actually go into Berzerk mode, where he abandons traditional weapons in favor of his fists.
All four are fortune hunters who have landed on the desert planet of Pandora in search of the Vault. The story of the Vault claims that whoever finds it will inherit wealth, fame, women, and power, making discovering its location your prime goal. However, being new on the planet, you have little knowledge as to where this elusive Vault might be, and must gain the trust of the planet’s citizens by taking on a multitude of odd-jobs in order to entice them into helping you solve the puzzle.
As it stands, the game’s mission variety is rather lacking, and consists of a few basic templates – Go out, collect X number of things or kill X number of enemies. Return, gain your reward, and start it all over again a minute later. There are actual story driven missions of course, but these are rather shallow, and tend to consist of helping an NPC with a problem they’re having, and ultimately killing someone higher up on the food chain in order to unlock a new area of the world and even more of the aforementioned side missions, along with gaining a few clues about the existence of and location of the Vault proper.
The world of Pandora contains a few cities that, for the most part, serve as safe zones, with branches reaching out from each hub taking you to caves, destroyed mining facilities, wind turbine farms and so on. Each mission sees you killing a multitude of enemies, which come in various human and animal forms – the human lineup consists mostly of bandits and psychos, with psychos being particularly, well, psychotic, in that they will charge you at full speed with a blade, regardless of the fact that you are filling them with lead, while animal enemies can be most easily described as mutated forms of dogs, crabs, spiders, bats, worms, etc.
One of the biggest draws of Borderlands comes in the sheer amount of weapons with which you can dispose of said creatures. Hundreds of crates, lockers, and chests can be raided for ammunition, cash, and guns, with the overall weapon variety being downright absurd. Not only can you choose between basic weapon types like shotguns, revolvers, sniper rifles and launchers, but also an untold number of variations on each basic type. Potentially millions of guns are ready for the taking, due to the game’s randomized creation of the vast majority of weapons, which means that, in theory, no two players will ever have the exact same equipment setup, unless you unfairly work the system.
Killing enemies not only releases more weapons, but also rewards you with experience points, which go towards Borderlands’ nod at the RPG genre. As you level up, you gain skill points which can be used on your class’s skill tree to upgrade your character’s resistance to damage, health, weapon strength, magazine capacity and on and on.
Borderlands arguably places just as much emphasis, if not more, on the discovery of new weapons as it does on the story itself. While this is great for those who love the grind, and don’t mind repeating tasks to earn new items (and subsequently sell the vast majority for cash), when playing in a solo campaign, the game’s overall lack of an in-depth storyline places all of your potential enjoyment with the game on whether or not you have the patience to deal with a system that unfortunately can become a bit tedious. The game’s repetition is especially harmful in the first half of the game, when your character has yet to become a badass killing machine, and missions can take a fairly large chunk of time to complete.
Luckily, Borderlands becomes infinitely more enjoyable when taking advantage of the up-to-four-player co-op ability, due to the fact that the loot drops, enemy levels, and overall difficulty are ramped up a few notches, creating a more exciting gameplay experience than when playing alone.
Technically, Borderlands has a fantastic art style, and the voice acting is top-notch, with the only negative coming from the oft-repeated smack talk thrown your way by enemies (makes it all the more rewarding when you introduce their body to the concept of a gunshot wound, thus ending the repetitive phrasing). Otherwise, the game’s dialogue is humorous and crude, which is fitting with the game’s depressing, backwater locale.
For those who are unfamiliar or just inexperienced with loot-centric games like Diablo, getting used to the gameplay in Borderlands may take some time. However, if you can persevere long enough to become accustomed to its repetitive nature, the gameplay is incredibly solid and the co-op is a hell of a lot of fun. While not perfect, Borderlands is definitely worth a second look.
Special thanks to Jennie Sue and 2K for providing a copy of this title.