Review: Borderlands (360)

Borderlands

Developer: Gearbox Software

Publisher: 2K Games

MSRP: $59.99

Release Date: 10/20/2009

Rated:

When my travel agent first approached me with the “vacation of a lifetime” in the Borderlands, I was less then enthusiastic. I mean, sure, it had it’s merits & the team at Gearbox did a fine job publicizing the various amenities awaiting me on Pandora. But, When I made my trek to Seattle for PAX 09, I got a taste of the pleasantries to be found there, yet I still walked away just as underwhelmed as I did when I walked in. There really wasn’t anything bad about it per say, I just didn’t feel there was enough there to make me choose this trip when I had so many other presumably better holiday vacation spots to choose from. Bottom line: I didn’t think Borderlands could stand up to the other sequel-laden heavy hitters due out around the same time such as Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age: Origins, etc… So here I sit, fresh off my belated voyage to the brutal planet. I only have one thing to say: I was wrong…

The main reason I gave Borderlands a shot was word of mouth. Between seeing tons of gamers on my friends list playing it night & day and the feedback I was seeing through the various online social sites like Twitter & Facebook, my position switched from a passive curiosity to a voracious desire over the course of a mere 6 weeks. Now that I have had a chance to play through the game (along with investing a ton of hours in the other character classes), I’ve decided the issue I had with the game was the demo I played at PAX 09. Had I understood what I was playing a bit better back then, I most certainly would have pushed some of the other holiday releases aside.

Borderlands is set on the planet Pandora where you take the role of a treasure hunter searching for the mythical Eridian vault, which is said to contain treasures beyond imagination. The planet was once thought to be a mineral-rich haven, so many colonists arrived to take advantage of it & strike it rich. When this turned out to be nothing but high hopes, most of the people left. The companies that were there doing the mining had employed criminals as slave labor. When they pulled out, they left them there to fend for themselves along with the few remaining colonists who chose to stay behind. Now, it’s an oppressive wasteland controlled by viscous native creatures & gangs of thugs. You start out on an old bus & while the driver gives you some Pandorian treasure hunting history, you’ll choose one of the four characters. Roland (the Soldier) is your basic, balanced fighter. Brick (the Berserker) is the tank of the group, focusing on big weapons & fist fighting. Lilith is a Siren (which is like the wizard of the group), specializing in elemental attacks & Mordecai (the Hunter) is your rogue, sporting a knack for long-range attacks & a flying pet at his beck and call. Once you’ve chosen your class, you leave the bus where you’ll get your HUD & the opportunity to make a few minor customizing adjustments (i.e. clothing colors). Then, you’re off. But, that just scratches the surface. Each character has a different back ground & along with the 3 different skill trees, you have many different ways to play them. For example, when I played Lilith, I kept her completely focused on elemental enhancements (such as corrosive, shock, or fire) & fast weapons. So she carried the SMG as her primary weapon (eventually you can have 4 weapons equipped) & never upgraded unless there were elemental effects attached to it. Alternatively, I could have played her much differently, focusing on her other skills a bit more & less on the elements. I found the role-play options to be pretty extensive considering it’s a first-person shooter.

Since Pandora isn’t really a developed planet, it’s got this stereotypical backwoods hillbilly feel to it. Think Deliverance meets Mad Max. It’s a brutal place to be in, filled with bandits & a variety of creatures like Skags & Rakks and where the “law” amounts to what each local warlord wants. With that picture in your head, the visuals can almost be misleading. It’s as if Fallout 3 was drawn by the art team behind Sly Cooper. Personally, I think this visual style suited it perfectly, giving it an anomalous look & feel and setting it apart from the Halos of the world (I especially loved the shock-death animations!). Now, while the story may sound pretty basic, the colorful characters do a fine job of fleshing the entire thing out for you. Each person you meet up with is unique in their own right. They all have different attitudes,  perspectives & motivations. Supporting that is the laugh-out-out funny, adult-oriented dialog (“he damaged my mom’s girl parts”) & the voice cast did a great job convincing me that these folks really could live on this planet. From the redneck mechanic Scooter to the certifiably nutty Tannis (her journals are a riot, showcasing her beginnings on Pandora as an intelligent scientist & her gradual spiral into insanity), I looked forward to hearing what they were going to say next.

As I said, each character has 3 different branches on their skill tree tailored specifically for them. Players gain experience in a variety of ways from completing in-game challenges to killing enemies & finishing tasks or missions. As experience levels are gained, you’ll also gain a skill point to spend in your tree. In addition to that, each character has one primary “action” skill which serves as a special ability of sorts. Rowland can deploy a turret, Brick can go into a berserker rage, Lilith can perform a Phase Walk & Mordecai has his flying pet to call on when he needs help. In addition to the various abilities offered in the skill trees, you’ll find enhancements for the action skill as well. The soldier can add a healing ability to his turret. The siren can add elemental explosions to her Phase Walk. So on & so forth. The amount of depth was surprising & really allowed Gearbox to run with the ‘RPS’ moniker.

Of course, the marketing blitz made sure you knew that the pride & joy was the weapons. Each advertisement made sure you were aware of the “87 Bazillion” guns in the game (I’m pretty certain the real number stretches beyond the 3 million mark). While finding better guns was a real treat, they happened so infrequently that it grew tiresome after awhile. Once you’ve opened your 500th weapon crate only to find a handful of repeater pistols that haven’t been useful to you for the last 10 levels or so, it can be quite a let down. At the same time, when you do stumble across that cool combat rifle or shield in the middle of all the useless garbage, it can bring out that giddy inner child in everyone. On top of the various weapons (Revolver, Repeater Pistol, Combat Rifle, SMG, Shotgun, & Rocket Launcher), there’s 3 different mod types you can find or buy to add to your character to enhance his/her shield, grenades & skills. Offering different abilities like health regeneration, elemental effects, & even adding points to your class-based skills, these can really change the dynamic of the game, especially when your playing with your buddies. In our game, the soldier grabbed a mod that provided ammo regeneration, which basically freed us up & allowed us to really unload on our enemies with our weapon of choice. Pair that up with his skill that lets him heal his teammates by shooting them, & you become a serious team to be reckoned with (which you’ll need to be considering how big & tough some of the enemies get).

Team? Did I forget to mention that this is a four-player co-op experience from beginning to end? Yep, you & your buddies can team up & play through (up to 4 players online & system link or 2 player local split screen), regardless of experience level or where each character is in their own games. Borderlands will adjust the difficulty on the fly as players jump in & out (although, I found it a lot more enjoyable if everyone is pretty close to the same point in the story). Of course, more players mean harder enemies & harder enemies means better loot. It’s funny hearing that term, ‘loot’. To be honest, I haven’t really associated a game with the need to find loot in quite some time. Probably the most famous example of it is the Diablo franchise, where players kept going back in & playing through the game over & over on the hunt to find the best weapons & armor (which also happens to a driving factor in most of today’s MMOs). If I had to describe Borderlands, I would say “take one part Call of Duty & one part Diablo & throw them in a blender”. The result is Borderlands. But don’t worry, if loot isn’t your thing, there’s a virtual ton of quests to be found. From the mundane “kill 5 Skags” to finding all of Tannis’ audio logs to shooting all the Rakk poop off the fan blades to get it started again, you will have plenty to keep you busy right up until the end of the game. If you opt not to do all the side quests, you can go back after them even if you’ve already taken out the final boss (although I wouldn’t recommend it, as most will be absurdly easy by this point).

None of that includes the two (soon to be three) DLC packs & multiple play-throughs. My first completed 2-player co-op game, doing 99% of the side quests (we missed 2 Clap-Traps) took us about 26 hours. I’m sure it would be a bit more if I had done it alone. If you just go through it once with each character, you have over 100 hours right there. Throw in everything else & you’ll get a lot of gaming for your $60. A word of advice though: If you want to go solo, that’s fine. But, Borderlands is best when played co-op, especially after level 20 when you start getting your class mods. Each one is designed to assist the team, which you’ll find really makes the game more enjoyable later on, especially in the 2nd play through and/or the DLC (I’ll have a review of all three DLC packs for you very soon). In fact, I’m finding my 2nd playthrough much more difficult than the first, thereby regretting the decision to go it alone.

While I did have a few minor complaints, such as the way to locate your quests on the main map & there were a few trigger bugs that would pop up every now & then, there really wasn’t any issues that made me want to put the controller down. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Once we got started, it was hard to turn it off. Even now, with all the story elements exposed, I’m still fighting the urge to stop writing this review & go play some more. The visuals are unique, controls are tight, & there’s a lot to do. Borderlands is a solid title that can easily hold it’s own & go toe-to-toe with the best of them. With the gameplay of a shooter & the loot hunting of an RPG, it’s got the best of both worlds all wrapped up in a nice cell-shaded package.

Rating:

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