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Today we're going to talk about a recently released game called Borderlands. The game, developed by Gearbox Software, has taken two relatively separate genres (role playing and first person shooter) and combined them into one experience. Gearbox has truly created a one of a kind game with Borderlands, and the experience you can have in game is definitely one of the better ones this writer has had for the past few years.
Borderlands itself is a four player cooperative shooter, with role playing elements tossed in. Both elements are nicely balanced, and neither overshadows the other in terms of gameplay. Both single player and multi player components are included, although the game truly shines in multi player with friends, as any cooperative game should. The game itself takes place on a desolate and inhosiptable planet named Pandora, populated by bandits and raiders, the occasional decent person, and some very unfriendly wildlife. If you want a good idea of what the game feels like, think Mad Max.
Although Borderlands itself is an impressive game in its own right, something that really shines is the art style the game is presented in. Borderlands utilizes a form of cel shading - that is, the game almost looks as if you're playing inside of a drawn-by-hand world. While some might be turned off at the thought of cel shaded graphics (after all, the market standard today is to create bleeding edge graphics that take extremely powerful systems to play), it is a refreshing change from the norm.
A screenshot of Borderlands, showing off the new art style. Within the shot are Lilith and Mordecai, two characters the player can take control of in game.
Another selling point for Borderlands is the utterly astounding amount of weapons that are available in game. Within the game's advertisements, one can find the slightly hard to believe quip "over 87 bazillion guns." While it's uncertain there are really quite that many, after playing the game for a while you will see that the developers definitely delievered on their promise - no matter what kind of gun nut you are, there's always something new and different to pick up, and it's extremely rare to find any duplicate weapons.
As stated previously, Borderlands is a combination of the role playing and first person shooter genres. For the role playing segment, players get to make a choice of who they want to play as. The choice is between four mercenaries, who have come to Pandora in search of something called "The Vault." Players can choose to play as either Brick (think Arnold - big guns, ripped, and very angry), Mordecai (a stealthy / sniper type of character), Lilith (the only playable female in game; she makes use of elemental weapons), or Roland (the standard soldier type of character). Each one posesses their own "action skill," a unique ability that can tip the scales in favor of the players in combat, and building off that, each character has their own "skill trees," which can modify how you play the game. For example, one skill may give you a faster fire rate with weapons, while another can increase the amount of damage you can deal out. It may sound a bit complicated here, but in game it plays out very smooth and is a blast to utilize.
Borderlands makes great use of the "loot" system found in most role playing games - every time you kill an enemy, there is a chance that it will drop something valuable and potentially useful. The game makes use of a color coded value system - white, green, blue, purple, and orange colored items denote their rarity and value, orange being the best. The system works well, and gives players something to work for while playing.
Unfortunately, Borderlands does have a few faults. In this day and age, most developers use their own proprietary server browsing system. However, Gearbox decided to go with GameSpy Arcade this time around - a service that isn't exactly known for its quality or speed. There's also a few in game glitches (text not being in the correct font size, missions being bugged, and a few other minor problems), and some AMD users may find the game unplayable. Some video options that gamers have come to expect (anti aliasing and vertical sync) are not available in the game's menu, and require file edits within the game's directories in order to be enabled.
However, none of these problems can really detract from how cool this game really is (and, all of those problems are easily patchable, not to mention most problems can be fixed by the players themselves with a little elbow grease). If you're looking for a new experience that's fun and unique, give Borderlands a try.
Pictures from PC Gaming Corner and Shack News.
