Title: Borderlands
Platform: PC
Genre: First-person Shooter RPG
Borderlands is a new hybrid first-person shooter game with strong RPG elements from Gearbox Software. This game combines some of the best elements of first-person shooting, with some familiar role playing elements such as randomized loot and character customization, into a very strong and unique package. The game also features a very stylized comic book feel to it and also features the Unreal 3 engine making the game very aesthetically pleasing as well.
You start on the planet of Pandora as a bounty hunter of sorts looking for ‘The Vault’, which is said to be an alien cache of riches, weaponry, and power. At the start of the game you choose to play as one of four character classes — Hunter, Siren, Soldier, or Berserker — which with their own unique abilities and customization options. From there you set off in Pandora, taking a series of quests eventually leading you closer and closer to the vault as your character subsequently becomes more powerful, and more of your own.
Gameplay video and thoughts after the jump.
Pros
There is a lot to like in Borderlands. For starters, as hinted at above there are the aesthetics. The art style in this game is absolutely gorgeous. All the textures in the game are highly stylized as if from a comic book, with thick bold lines defining characters and environment, along with vivid colors. This was absolutely one of the best things the developers could have done for the game. While there is certainly more to love here than just the surface, the selection of this type of art style does two things: it makes a game that could have been very bland (brown desert planet) pop with color and flair everywhere, and it distances itself from the competition (i.e. Fallout 3). In relation to the graphics, the UI in the game fits in perfectly with this style as well.
The heart of this game though is the game-play mechanics, that successfully merge the first person shooter and role-playing genres. On the role-playing end you start the game by selecting a character class, each with it’s own ability set. For example, the Soldier can drop turrets in the middle of battle to support themselves and / or their allies, and also even heal allies as well. Once a character is chosen and you start the game you take on a series of both main and side quests as you progress through the game. As you kill enemies, complete quests, or obtain achievements your character gains XP. Once you gain a level you can increase base stats such as heath, accurate, ammo, etc., and then (similar to WoW) there are three talent trees per character class that you can allocate skill points into to further customize your character with specific attributes or abilities. Another point on the ‘RPG side’ that this game is famous for is the random loot system, similar to Diablo. What this means is that the loot (guns mainly) is all randomly generated based on different basic weapon types, barrels, scopes, ammunition types, elemental effects, etc. The number of weapon combination in the game according to Gearbox is about 17,000,000 which is a staggering number. When you put all this together it winds up making progressing through the game an incredibly rewarding and fresh experience, going very far in supporting the more action oriented aspects of the game.
On the first person shooter side it’s incredibly solid and fun to play on a visceral level, but with the inclusion of the random loot system it takes it to the next level. You’re constantly picking up new weaponry and depending on what luck you have — and how good the drops are — it subsequently forces you to frequently re-evaluate your arsenal. With that many potential guns at your disposal it helps to keep things fresh, especially when you’re so used to other titles in the FPS genre already that (obviously) have a very finite selection of guns to pick up. Depending on what character class is chosen in the beginning of the game and subsequently what special ability you’ll have, it help so diversify the combat and tactics you employ during battle.
One of the things I absolutely love about this title to is that the difficulty feels just right. Ammo is easily obtainable through vending machines throughout the game, and drops from enemies, but in the middle of intense fire fights there is always a fear of either running out of ammo, or having to adjust tactics by equipping different weapons to balance out your reserves. In addition, enemy A.I. seems very solid and engaging throughout the game. One of the mechanics added in to help you through some of the more difficult fights is called second wind. Basically once you die your character goes on the ground, similar to Left 4 Dead, and you get a few seconds of life to shoot your enemies. If you happen to take down an enemy you get a second wind, which revives you with a bit of health to continue the fight. The mechanic works well along with the game’s difficulty and it doesn’t feel cheap or overused. It very well could be very cheap if everything else wasn’t balanced so well.
Lastly, one of the biggest features in this game next to the graphics and guns is the online multi-player. This is mostly in the form of PvE cooperative online play, in-between yourself and up to 3 other players (4 total). You can invite players into your game or create lobbies and as players join in on the game the enemies get harder to defeat, subsequently dropping better loot as well. Once you start bringing in separate classes with their own unique abilities it makes an already fantastic single-player campaign even more fun by allowing multiple people to work through it at once. While this isn’t a perfect experience on the PC (see cons) it certainly is welcome and I wish more titles employed co-op game play even half as good as this.
Cons
While co-op is one of the best things about this game, on the PC it can also be one of the worst. Borderlands is also available on the PS3 and Xbox 360 gaming consoles. The online aspects work well there because you have the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live services to link players together, respectively. But on the PC the developers decided to go with a weird choice using both GameSpy as a way to have users register for accounts and have user names / handles, but then also rely on direct connections to host games as well; the result is absolutely dreadful. PC users sitting behind network routers will need to configure their routers to forward multiple ports in order to host games online, which can be a little daunting for a lot of users, not to mention this information is not easily accessible without reading archaic text files in the installation, or Google searching on forums. Also, the GameSpy system itself does nothing to make it a more user friendly experience once you are in the game. Once you are past the issues with hosting games it works, but so much more could have been done to make it an easier experience to connect with friends (NOT choosing GameSpy to facilitate online games on the PC, for starters). Buying the game on Steam (or simply adding it to Steam) does have alleviate this just a bit, but it’s not native within the game’s interface.
The presentation in the game is solid along with the core game play elements described above in the pros section, but the story is a bit lacking. Once you start the game the story line takes a bit of a back seat in relation to the overall game play experience. The story is there and it does progress as you go through the game, but it doesn’t take emphasis on what you’re doing, nor is it really a driving factor to your progression by motivating you to continue to see how it all plays out. What motivates you is how fun the core game is, which granted is still more than a lot of games out there. This could have been an absolute classic title if the story was a little more epic, and a little more present throughout the experience.
Overall
This game is definitely one of the stand outs of 2009. It may not quite appeal to straight FPS fans, or straight RPG fans that want a more purist experience, but for those gamers looking for a unique and fun game play experience combining these two genres I cannot recommend this title enough. I hope that this is the beginning of a series for Gearbox because I’ll definitely be excited for another title, and hopefully no GameSpy next time on PC!
Gameplay Video
Links
http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/
