Borderlands Review - An exciting and entertaining experience all the way through

Borderlands is an example of a game that successfully merges two popular genres, creating an exciting and entertaining experience that's hard to forget. Those two genres--first person shooter and RPG--are melded perfectly by Gearbox Software and together they make Borderlands the addicting and long-lasting game it is. It is fortunate that neither aspect of the game falls short, leaving the other to carry the load. While the game is obviously built around the first person shooter genre, the developers manage to implement and work in the role playing aspect with near flawless results.

There are some really cool set pieces

Let's get the weakest aspect of the game out of the way first: the story. Borderlands takes place in the future on the planet Pandora, where an ancient and legendary Vault is rumored to contain untold riches. The character of your choice has traveled there to try and unravel the mysteries surrounding the Vault and to discover the mythical treasures inside. The notable lack of cutscenes and spoked dialog (there is some of the latter, but usually only a few lines from major characters) means that in order to understand anything, you'll need to read all of the text that comes with each quest. However, there is a chance that you'll end up skipping most of it and by the end of the game you might not know what happened (this actually happened to me on the first playthrough). Even if you do choose to read the text, you'll probably forget most of it anyway. And since you really don't accomplish much by the end of it, it's probably safe to say that the story is mainly there to serve as a reason for doing everything that you do in the game, and not much else. The humor in Borderlands, however, certainly makes up for the rather weak story. There is a satisfying amount of forth-wall breaking, suggestive insinuations, and references to popular culture that thankfully prevent the game from taking itself too seriously. And in a messed up world like Pandora, who wants to go through life feeling down all the time?

It's a good thing, then, that Borderlands is a blast to play. At the beginning of the game, you choose to play as one of four different characters. Each character has a unique action skill that they can use. Roland, who is efficient with assault rifles, can deploy a turret; Lilith, who is good with elemental weapons, can turn invisible for a short period and move about at increased speeds; Mordecai, who is best at sniper rifles, can throw out a vicious bird that attacks enemies; and finally, Brick, who can use rocket launchers better than anyone else, can go into a furious rage and beat up opponents with his powerful fists. There's enough variety to draw players with different tastes to the game, but I found that Roland is usually the best choice due to his prowess with automatic weapons and useful turret ability. The combat in the game feels especially good; all enemies in the game have weak points that you can exploit to cause massive damage, but not all of them are as obvious as Lost Planet's bright orange blobs. Boss battles are also present, but none of them really require much strategy. It is a shooter after all.

Guns that shoot lightning rounds can produce comical results

Where the RPG elements come in is leveling up. Every time you kill something or complete a quest, you'll gain experience points. As you level up, you'll receive skill points that are used to acquire perk-like abilities for your character, and each character has a unique set. Some of them you've probably seen before, like increased weapon damage or reload speed. Others, like Roland's ability to heal teammates by actually shooting them, make Borderlands stand out on its own. You won't actually be able to acquire every ability by the time you hit the level cap. This created many situations where I sat at looking at the screen deliberating with myself on how I should use my skill point. In addition to these are mods that you will acquire that you may use to modify your class or grenades. Some class mods may benefit yourself (like increased damage with a certain weapon) or the team if you're playing with others (like one that increases the XP that everyone gets). Grenade mods are probably the most interesting, since they can do anything from shooting multiple grenades out of just one or causing the grenade to suck life out of enemies and give it to you. All of these combine to create some truly chaotic moments in the game.

Borderlands' gameplay is essentially loot-driven. Chances are you've heard about the plethora of guns in the world of Pandora, and it's this unique feature that helps make Borderlands stand out. You find guns everywhere: in lockers, in special weapon chests, on the bodies of dead enemies. And while a lot of the weapons are just vendor trash, nothing beats the excitement you feel when you open a weapon chest and find a gun that's better than the one you were using. The guns themselves have many variables, like reload speed, accuracy, the type of scope it has, and others that differentiate them. This often lead to moments where I would find a submachine gun that's drastically more powerful than my other weapons only to find that it shoots slower than a revolver. Gearbox's method of creating all of these weapons really paid off well, and I'm very excited to see what they'll do with the technology in future Borderlands titles.

As I hinted at earlier, Borderlands includes a coop mode where you and three friends (or strangers) can tackle Pandora together. The cooperative play would have been great if it wasn't plagued by frequent lag issues. [Note: I have only played the game on the Xbox 360, so I can only speak for that system]. Lag is a major killer in games, so it is unfortunate that a lot of the games I got into were almost unplayable because of it. When matches are lag free is when the strong online component really shines through. You can use your single player character online, so any neat weapons or gear you found in your game can be shown off to your friends. On the contrary, any weapons or gear you find in multiplayer can then be brought into single player. Such a system should be enough to motivate players to head online, as you'll never know what you'll find when playing with others. A big hit to the multiplayer, however, is the lack of a trading system. All loot in the game is up for grabs, although money is shared. This means that there is nothing stopping a player from grabbing all the weapons in a weapon chest or all the ammo from a dead enemy. It would certainly be wise is Gearbox implemented a trading system should they decide to make develop another Borderlands game.

One of the things that really drew me to Borderlands was the visual style. Were it not for the loot-driven gameplay and the beautiful cel-shaded visuals, Borderlands would have felt like another generic shooter. Everything in the game has the nice hand-drawn look with the dark outlines and slightly cartoonish feel. It's a nice break from the depressing sea of brown and grey you find in many modern shooters nowadays.

I sincerely hope that more developers will be willing to combine several genres into one in the future, as such a thing was done brilliantly by Gearbox Software. The combination of RPG and FPS elements, cel-shaded visuals, and satisfying piles of loot make Borderlands a remarkable game that shouldn't be missed.