Play it NOW!: Borderlands

The wasteland of Pandora is plagued with adversity, but luckily, I have the cure; a bazillion guns! Borderlands, is not your typical FPS. It is one of many games entering what I refer to as a “hybrid-genre” and as Gearbox would describe it, Borderlands is what you would get if an FPS and RPG had a baby; more specifically, if Halo and Diablo had a baby. This should lead you to a couple conclusions, first you will be shooting aliens in the face, second, you will be collecting a ton of loot and last, you will be grinding until that level 50 level cap kicks in. As many of you know that read this blog regularly, I had been going to Gearbox every couple of months for focus testing sessions, and now that the game is out, I can tell you it was to play Borderlands. Since I had spent a lot of single player time (around 15 + hours) playing this game at Gearbox, I wanted to experience the actual game, co-op ONLY. Working out the schedule with my brother, we ended up finishing this game in a little less than 12 hours, and I am still left with some side quests to go back to.

I really have to hand it to Gearbox, if there is one thing Borderlands has going for it, it is style. The graphics alone are a blend of realism and cel-shading to create something wholly unique, visually referred to as “concept art” style. A thick black outline permeates the objects in the landscape and clearly defines the character models, buildings and weapons throughout Pandora. These are coupled with a sense of personality allocated to many of the NPCs you encounter; from the mischievous, sometimes hilarious Claptraps, to many of your quest dispensers like Scooter or Crazy Earl. Even your tougher enemies are differentiated by simply throwing the word “Badass” in front of their name. If I had to point to one thing lacking, it is any sort of narrative. The story is really irrelevant, starting with you choosing a class-based silent protagonist (despite the occasional taunt over your enemy’s corpse) and following the orders from a mysterious woman, to find a vault thought to contain a wealth of treasure. When you get to the vault, it will surprise you for about 3 seconds and then you realize the last battle kind of fizzles out. Let us take time to recognize though, that this is not why you play Borderlands! You play Borderlands, because of the loot and does Borderlands sure have some of the coolest weapons I have ever seen. Take for example “The Boiler”, a drum loaded cluster rocket launcher, which not only fires 5 rockets spread across the terrain, but 5 rockets which explode with “nalpamy” goodness, causing massive fire damage on all my enemies. Or my favorite close quarters gun, “The Judicator”, a shotgun of the highest grade (orange class) which will basically turn any opponent to kibble in two pops. Complete this little arsenal off with some Bouncing Bettie Electrical grenades (electric elements drop enemy shields quick) and you can pretty much handle anything the game can throw at you.

To come back the classes mentioned earlier, there are four choices; Soldier, Sniper, Siren and Brick (yeah, his name is the class). Soldiers are more tactical classes who can drop a turret which will buff you and your teammates, master shotties and assault rifles, and has an entire medic skill tree. Snipers try to control the battlefield from a distance, utilizing a pet bird to stun opponents, cause elemental damage and master the headshot. These are the two classes I experienced the most of (me being the soldier, my brother the sniper). The siren is a stealthy magic class, who can “phase walk” through enemies and explode behind them for massive area damage. She is also proficient with small arms. Then there is Brick, a human wrecking ball, whose special ability is to drop his gun and just start pummeling his opponents until they are a smear on the desert landscape. Oh and Brick also is proficient in heavy weapons, which he shoots from the hip! Each class also has a modifier, which will allocate bonus skill points to specific abilities making you more effective or balanced. I spent the majority of the game as either a Support Gunner or Shock Trooper. Lastly, there are the shields, and while most of them are cool and do various counter attacks or have immunities to specific elements, I found that the regenerative health shield was the only way to go. Myself being a medic sub-class, I could heal anyone by shooting them, except myself…which proved to be a problem from time to time, if I did not use the correct shield. The vehicle combat was passable, but did not resonate the Mad Max feeling I was going for, mostly because the vehicles lacked variety and the guns tended to be weaker than my own sidearm.

I think this game will be the Franchise that finally takes Gearbox to new heights. The Brothers in Arms series was always successful but suffered from the industries saturation of World War II shooters. FPS/RPG Hybrids on the other hand are few and far between, generally suffering from issues of being two much of one or the other. Borderlands on the other hand, seems to have found the balance here and with 2 million units sold in the first 45 days, I can hardly wait for the sequel. Luckily, there seems to be a slew of DLC keeping me busy until then. So if you like guns, guns, guns; Play it now!

* Played through the main story and probably 70% of side missions, reached lvl 38 Soldier before credits rolled.

**All images are a result of a Google image search and www.nerfnow.com