Borderlands has so far proved to be an immensely enjoyable game delivering in many ways where Gearbox promised. I feel it will be equally appealing to fans of shooters and dungeon crawlers alike.
You start the game going through a little story intro and a bit of a bus ride. Shortly after a bit of introduction you'll be asked to select one of the characters and exit the bus to start your adventures. The game doesn't come right out and tell you these are your "classes" but for the interests of the RPG elements of the game that's what they are. Your choices are basically between stealth/special weapons, sniper, support/healing, and tank/melee. There unfortunately isn't a vast amount of customization in their looks available but you can alter a 3 color scheme for their outfit and customize your name almost immediately after stepping off the bus.
From here you do a short and sweet tutorial which throws you right in to the action relatively quickly. The controls are tight and will be very familiar to fans of popular FPS games such as Halo, Resistance, Gears, Unreal, and many others. You have the ability to jump, duck, melee, shoot, toss grenades, and eventually use a class specific special ability such as placing turrets. Aside from the general control of your character menus are easy to navigate for all of your weapons, the map is easy to read, and the HUD is simple and informative.
Following the tutorial you progress the game from doing various quests. These quests can be found on mission boards, from NPCs, and occasionally from random stuff lying around. The quests themselves so far haven't been anything particularly noteworthy in the grand scheme of RPGs. It's still a lot of "kill XYZ" "collect a fistful of whozawhatits" or "go talk to random NPC" but they have streamlined them enough to where the don't feel forced but rather serve as more of a beacon of where you should realistically be taking your character and scoring some nice exp and loot while you're at it. Quest objectives can also be tracked and objectives are clearly marked on your compass.
Outside of questing there are a decent number of monsters to kill. I still don't really have much of an idea as to what dictates when an enemy will respawn but it seems if you wander around enough you will likely run in to something to kill. It's typically not a mindless slaughter either, I would highly recommend trying fighting tactically much like you would in a shooter. Until you out-gear or out-level your opponent you will find that the game can actually be quite challenging at times and reward clever use of your equipment and abilities. The game did a great job of encouraging this too by making your enemies respond to grenades logically, implementing cover well, and of course rewarding you with devastating critical with our beloved' HEAD SHOT!
Sizable amounts of experience can also be earned through completing various challenges which are like in game achievements, some of which are actually tied to achievements/trophies. It's mostly killing various things with various weapons but early on it's a great source of experience and you can track your progress on them.
Starting at level 5 you will start to acquire skill points every level. These are used to boost various abilities of your character via a talent/skill tree. There aren't a lot of choices and you can get quite a few of them with the number of points you wind up with but most of them are fundamentally decent options allowing for some individual diversity in how you build your character without having to over-think it. Aside from that each level your character will get a generic health, defense, and attack boost.
The weapons are pretty cool but I will state that some of the "87 Gazillion" claims were perhaps a bit exaggerated. While it is true that many of the weapons can do quite a bit of unique things, the vast majority of the weapons and gear you will find are going to be slight variations of each other much like any other similar dungeon crawler such as Sacred, Titan Quest, or Diablo. Perhaps later in the game the unique generation of weapons becomes more apparent but I could so far fairly compare this to the way the weapons were in Hellgate: London. As for the size of the actual database and possible combination of weapons, I'm sure their claims are accurate but I can only comment from a practical standpoint of what I've seen. In addition to weapons you also get shields which can do various things such as regen health or do elemental bursts when depleted and grenade modifications which allow your grenades to do all kinds of things such as teleport, stick to things, and bounce.
Looting is probably one of my few mild gripes with this game. You can't simply auto-loot everything in your proximity. What the game has you doing is finding in item, hitting the loot button, and then holding it to pick up other relatively close items. It's not game breaking annoying but the range on it isn't very great and holding the loot button to pick up a weapon will auto-equip it which is something that can be frustrating at times.
The graphics will most likely be a love/hate thing for most players as they are highly stylized. I personally love them and think they're quite well done but there are certainly realism junkies out there that won't care for the cartoon approach at all. I will say that only decent videos of this game should be used to judge the graphics, still screenshots don't do this game any justice at all. Graphics aside the environments are very interesting, the characters are well done albeit a bit generic, enemies are pretty decent (Tremors anybody?), and the animations are high quality.
Multiplayer can be done with 2 player split screen couch co-op and online with up to four players I believe. I haven't gone online yet but the split screen was easy enough. Rather than scaling all of the menus down in split screen they opted to leave them full size and movable so that text wouldn't get smushed together which I thought was a pretty clever move. What this means is both players don't have to squint to read everything thing, simply centralize it in their field of view. Also as you do quests objectives/turn-ins will be shared meaning you don't spend your time waiting for everyone to catch up all the time. In multiplayer you can also duel each other which I haven't tried yet.
Vehicles haven't really been much more than a way to get around for me yet. They can be customized in color and weapon outfit but my brother and I both agreed that they weren't a very good way of killing anything aside from running them over which seemed to always been an automatic kill. For a giant vehicle mounted weapon they seem completely inferior to even the worst weapon you could collect at that relative level. The controls are very similar (identical?) to that of a Warthog in Halo. They'll probably take some getting used to for new players but they're relatively easy once you've figured them out. I personally find them to be a bit floaty and awkward but at the moment I don't see myself needing clutch control out of the vehicles for combat so they are passable.
The story regards something involving finding a long lost vault of alien technology. While I'm sure it's interesting I honestly haven't paid much attention to it aside from parts of the story which I couldn't avoid. This sort of game doesn't really bank on the story for me.
That's basically it. Quest, kill, loot, level, and become the destructive juggernaut that Pandora always needed while searching for the vault.
Pros:
Great implementation of shooter mechanics
Lots of fun loot
Good multiplayer
Straight forward and simple RPG elements
Graphics
Cons:
Graphics
Wonky loot controls
Maybe a little cliché at times
I love this game and would highly recommend it.
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So I got my copy of Borderlands last night and played up to level 11. Here are my impressions one day in.
-The game is beautiful. I personally love the cartoony style of the graphics. Extremely detailed and even the barren wasteland is nice to look at. The characters while not customizable are all highly detailed as well and look great. You can change the name and colors, that's about it.
-Controls are excellent. Feels like COD4 with a few changes. Any FPS player can pick it up and play very easily. The one vehicle I've seen so far controls exactly like a warthog from halo.
-Guns, guns, guns. Only a few hours in and I've seen so many kinds of guns I can't count them. One of the best parts of the game is that you'll never know what will drop out of the next enemy. Could be that acid rocket shotgun you've been waiting for! The pure crazines of the weapons is awesome.
-Story. What story? Your looking for a vault full of alien technology. That's it so far. If your looking for deep story, this is not the game for you. Try Fallout 3. On that note, this game is nothing like Fallout. Other than the fact that both games are set in a wasteland like place in the future there is no comparison. It's more like COD4/Halo meets Diablo/Baldurs Gate.
-Co-op. Tried the co-op last night and it was the best online experiance I've ever had. I sent my friend an invite and he joined my game with his levleed up character. No lobby, no re-loading, he just appeared in my game, we played for a few hours and when he left I was back to single player. All seamless. Amazing. Can't wait to try it with four players.
-In the couple of hours I played it I was glued to the XBOX360. If I didn't have to work today I would have played all night. Now that's a sign of a good game. Well spent 60.00. I'm sure I'll more than get my monies worth on this one for a long time to come. With four characters that you'll not likely max out on the first play through this game has some legs to stand on. Enjoy.
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I wish I could give this game three and a half stars but I can't. I also wish that I could climb aboard the "this game is amazing" train but I can't do that either. To be clear: this is a fun game and if you enjoy copious loot and you're FPS/RPG hybrid genre fan I'd recommend this game, even at retail price. On the other hand if you find yourself leaning more one way or the other in terms of either a solid FPS or a real PRG then there are safer bets coming down the line for your $60. It's a good game but it just didn't live up to the hype more for decisions that the design team seemed to have made than for any failing in execution.
With that said everything that Gearbox set out to do it looks like they accomplished. The game looks great, the mechanics are solid, the audio is good and the art direction is absolutely fantastic. I'm also happy to say that with the exception of some very questionable decisions regarding pop up windows in split-screen play there are no bugs or obvious quality control oversights. This game is highly polished, a treasure to look at and smooth to play. Technically speaking this is quality software. From here on out if it seems I'm ragging on this game a little hard it's because there are already a ton of 5 star reviews on here so it's easy to find emphasis on the better aspects of the game if one desires.
The problem with Borderlands is that it doesn't really do any single thing really well. It's not a solid combat FPS and the RPG elements are so insignificant they're essentially just a mildly customizable scaling system. The vehicles also appear more an afterthought than anything. There aren't enough options to really customize your character and leveling decisions are more tactical considerations than broad gameplay choices. There's just no role play in the role play. There are also exactly zero interesting or functionally interactive NPCs, the towns are simply a series of empty buildings and vending machines where you conduct business transactions. The few NPCs that do exist are immobile "come here and get you next quest" cut-outs. Borderlands is a dead world alright, just not in a good way. This is very disappointing and retro in an age of complex NPC AI and living, breathing worlds. There appears to have been a design decision along that way that "more is better". I'd generally agree but here that ends up being a "tons of guns" gimmick that only leads to you simply hauling "tons of guns" back to vending machines to sell, only looking at their price tag. The other thing this leads to is a long series of uninspired missions that are largely "go here, collect item/kill boss, return". With little or no depth to the missions they quickly start to feel less like a series of epic quests and more like a list of errands.
The FPS combat element is only adequate. Again, the feel is retro. The level deign is very dated with transition points between maps which are largely a series of canyons or other linear pathways interrupted by bizarrely unpleasant loading screens. Often at the end of the canyon is a load point which takes you into a building. Guess where that widget you have to find is? Yep, at the back the building in the big room with the boss. At least you won't get lost, there's generally only one way in or out. In the day of open, persistent outside worlds this is pretty unacceptable for a top shelf game(paging Bethesda). The enemies along the way have sufficient by undeniably rudimentary AI. The number of animations is limited and the group tactics non-existent so instead of fighting groups of enemies that work together and utilize cover and flank you instead you just fight multiple independent enemies simultaneously that strafe back and forth and advance or retreat depending on their health. It's rather uninspired and the game uses a leveling system for enemies that radically alters the game's formula for dealing and being dealt damage. This is used to prevent you from "playing ahead" by having enemies that are almost impossible to defeat without leveling. Having all your FPS skills be thrown out the window because you can only do 10 damage per shot instead of 50 and you take 50 instead of 10 because the game wants you to be a lvl 20 and you're "only" a 17 is frustrating. Die hard FPS traditionalists will also be very unhappy with the HALO like shields and the checkpoint save system. Oh, and your little robot helpers are a blatant rip off of Grrr from Invader Zim.
Still, with all my complaints this is a solid game. It's fun and can draw you in. On top of that there is more than enough unique gaming hours in it to justify a purchase instead of a rental. Bottom line: FPS fans would be better served waiting for Modern Warfare 2 and RPG and RPG hybrid fans should wait for Dragon Age but it's still a safe bet if you have time and money to burn.
Pros:
*Very polished, had no bugs. Quality coding.
*Beautiful art direction and smooth, engaging graphics.
*Simple, fun controls.
*Very large world, plenty of unique game play hours for your buck.
*Achieves "just one more quest" syndrome at times.
*Easy learning curve.
Subjective qualities and food for thought:
*Very light on RPG elements, this isn't Deus Ex or Fallout 3.
*Not a run and gun shoot 'em blood and guts ride.
*Not a lot of variety in the loot just guns/shields/mods.
*Tons of guns. More likely to be sold to a vending machine than shot at anyone though.
*Check point save system.
*Shields.
Cons:
*Irritating inventory.
*Simple AI.
*No interesting NPCs, no interactive world.
*Little true character customization.
*Vehicles end up as mere transportation.
*Dated level design.
*Unreasonable level scaling system that takes away from the FPS element.
*Boring story.
*Slow to start.
Honest reviews on Borderlands - Xbox 360
Borderlands is a perfect hybrid of Halo and Diablo. The shooting feels satisfying, the loot drops are spaced out perfectly, the world is gorgeous, and 4 player co-op works great. It's the type of game that keeps you saying to yourself "just one more quest" until it's turned into the wee hours of the morning. Good times!
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Borderlands is a game most of you have heard of, if you haven't, then you're hearing of it now. It is a Role-Playing Game/First Person Shooter developed by Gearbox. With that in mind, most of you will think "Oh, it's just a Fallout 3 clone." Well don't, it's far from it. If you need a game to compare Borderlands to, it would be best to think one of Blizzard Entertainment's massively successful games: Diablo II, or World Of Warcraft.
Graphics:
If anyone has been following this game for any length of time, you know that about halfway through development that Gearbox made a dramatic change in style from a grimdark realistic look to the now, cel shaded-esque "Concept Art Style". Typically you loose a lot of detail in cel shading, but with Gearbox's method you maintain the style, while keeping tiny details like a wrinkle on cloth. The graphics are very suiting of the game, but there are hitches here and there. Water effects are nonexistent, and on-character shadows tend to be fragmented. With previous few I cannot say for certain if they are a product of the Unreal Engine or not, however, the ridiculous texture pops are. You would think that people would either find a work around or license a better engine. Oh well, I guess it can't be helped.
Audio:
The sound fits the game unbelievably well. Walking unknowingly past a skag nest, only to hear one running at you from behind is at intense at it gets. Guns sound different to the point that really fell them for what the are. Be it an assault rifle that sounds like an anti-aircraft gun or an SMG that sounds like you could kill ten people without them even noticing, it's really amazing how many different sounds they have. The background music is a bit western and use a lot of plucking in strings to give it that authentic feel. Needless to say, if you enjoyed the music of Firefly, you will feel right at home here.
Gameplay:
This is where Borderlands truly shines. The game consists of either single player, or up to four player co-op in Borderlands' nice open world. You have buggies that come in various colors and in either a rocket launcher or chain gun variant where one player drives and the other guns. Borderlands has a quest system set in place to where you find a quest giver, fulfill the requirements, and return for the reward, not too different than you standard RPG. Quests come in the "go here, kill that", "go here, find this", and "go here, find this, and kill something with it". If you have ever in your life played an instance on World Of Warcraft you know exactly what to expect from "dungeons" on here. You go into an area, fight your way through many a "peon" and several sub-bosses to make it to the final boss. And when I say sub-bosses and bosses, I mean exactly that. Be prepared to have yourself killed SEVERAL times in the process of fighting through the instance as well as burning through most of your ammo supply. Dying consistes of two stages. 1) You are knocked to the ground and can either kill someone while downed to get up, or wait for a teammate to pick you up. 2) if neither of the previous happen you will respawn at the last checkpoint marker you passed, aptly named "New-U", You'll come back with no real penalty other then a loss of money. You really feel the need to work together, and I'd say doing so is more important than Left 4 Dead. On to one of the most touted aspects of the game. Guns. As has been said, this game has guns, guns, and MORE guns. You will literally never find the the same gun twice. Even if you find a gun that has the same sight, the same barrel and same name, they will not have the same stats. The amount of variety in the game truly does match that of Diablo and World Of Warcraft.
As an obvious statement, no game is perfect. And Borderlands is no exception. You will come across bugs here and there such as getting stuck between a ramp and a rock. The only way to get free, being dying. The occasional graphic glitch during respawn, or shadow not lining up correctly. But in all honesty, you will be enjoying the game too much to care.
Graphics: 8.2/10
Audio: 8.9/10
Gameplay: 9.7/10
Overall: 9.2/10
