Borderlands: Blow Your Brains Out With This Review

November 4, 2009 by MarioAna
Filed under Featured, Review

Cell shaded graphics, a strange combination of an FPS and an RPG, online only in the form of co-op, very little hype or publicity, characters with names like ‘Lilith’ and ‘Brick’. All these things seem to point to a game of potential monumental failures. The promises were huge: “It’s like Fallout 3 but with a proper FPS focus”, there are hundreds of thousands of weapons, full 4 player drop-in-drop-out co-op action while retaining everything your character has in any game-play mode.

So Gearbox unleashed their game upon us and we took if for a spin, in one line I can sum up how the game lived up to it’s promises, how well it integrated the FPS and RPG elements and if the thing is simply fun or not:

I stopped playing Uncharted 2 when I started playing Borderlands.

Not many appreciate what cell shading brings to gaming, and many simply hate it preferring the realism that conventional graphics give, especially when dealing with a shooter. I loved it in PoP4, I felt it gave everything a surreal, beautiful and smooth-as-silk look. I was unsure how it would work in a gritty shooter based in a barren wasteland. Well it works pretty damn well; it helps give the wasteland a look that is palatable (unlike Fallout 3’s depressingly monotonous desert of death), the characters still look awesome and enemies look seriously badass. Cell shading also eliminates jaggies so once again everything looks smooth and polished, I was a fan of it’s use in PoP4 and I think it really works well in Borderlands.

The gore factor is still high; limbs get shot off, heads explode, blood sprays just like we like it. It all looks great and the artistic feel of the game is immensely well done. You won’t get tired of the visuals as there is so much variety in the game that you are always looking down a different barrel or through a different type of scope, even thought the enemies may be the same.

In the sound department we get what we have been accustomed to for shooters. The weapons sound great, battle cries, insane comments from baddies, roars, yelps and screams from beasties. Your characters have a set of predefined one-lines they say at appropriate times but it won’t take long to hear all of them. Worse are the NPCs you deal with who only seem to have 2 lines and you’ll hear them very often. When accepting missions etc you will have to read what is required, there is very little real voice acting in the game.

Accompanying the game is a rock-esque soundtrack that tracks the in game action perfectly, adding just the right touch the get the adrenalin pumping in all the right places. When there is no action the music serves to sooth and comfort you along your long journeys across the arid planes of Pandora.

The only real disappointment so far this is the story, missions are very basic and follow a similar formula. Like: go there and kill this guy, or go here and collect some item. Even the story as a whole is a bit thin with the main objective to simply find a vault with tons of stash and alien tech. Fortunately the story plays 2nd fiddle to the gameplay, but in comparison to something like Fallout 3 well, I wouldn’t even feel right comparing them.

Gameplay is where Borderlands will win you over and keep you in for the long haul. The controls are tight, movements are precise and very accurate. The gameplay elements work so well it’s astonishing and the characters are varied enough so that trying each one out becomes a must. Each character has a special power, but more importantly is that each starts off with strong and weak aspects and as you level up you can strengthen weak aspects to a tolerable level or simple take your strong points to new highs and play to that strength.

The weapons are plentiful to say the least, there are a number of base weapon types (Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, SMG, Combat Rifle, Repeater etc), but within each you get a number of weapon characteristics such as damage, accuracy, fire rate, reload speed, zoom, elemental effects (shock, fire etc). They claim that there are over 1.5 million combinations, needless to say as much looting as I have done I haven’t come across the same weapon twice.

Looting is key as it’s the best way to find good weapons and shields as well as grenade upgrades. The RPG elements come into play with levelling, each character has a “skill tree” and with each level gained 1 point is given to spend on your tree. This has to be planned as you will not get enough points to build even half the tree so you need to focus on a path (like building you special power or going for weapon damage increases etc). Along with this is a weapon proficiency progress for each weapon type, the more you kill with a weapon type the better you get at using it, gaining you more damage or faster reload times etc.

In single player mode where possible you’ll start most battles with a sniper rifle and once the action gets up close and personal you’ll switch to your close range weapons and melee attacks. Special abilities should be used as frequently as possible. With accurate shots you can do critical damage and it’s very satisfying to shoot a limb off or simply make a guys head explode, there is no end to the combat and while there is a certain amount of grinding going on you’ll love every second of it.

Online takes Borderlands to a new level, the co-op is simply awesome. You can drop into any game at any time and you fully retain your character, go back to SP and your character retains everything gained from the online game. Comms work extremely well and if you have varied characters playing you can form proper attacking strategies playing off each others strengths. Plus it’s always good to have someone around to heal you when dying, and a ton of fun to drive around with someone manning the gun.

The co-op also ups the difficulty level, so you always have a tough fight on your hands. Sharing loot is the best way to advance the team but if someone isn’t playing nice you can duel them, which is a fun little distraction to the mayhem. Really this is where you should spend most of your time, get a buddy or 2 or 3 and try play through the campaign together.

In concluding I can say that Gearbox has delivered something unique, which is hard to do these days. They have not only given us something different but have made good on the promises and delivered a very fun game to play. The shooting elements are tight with great weapons, the RPG elements are deep, varied and well thought out. The story is a let down and the missions are basic but you won’t care, get online and you might start to forget that MW2 is even coming out. This game will keep you busy and happy for a long time to come.