Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox
Year of Release: 2009
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Ah Borderlands. How different a game could be, just based on its art style. When they first announced this post apocalyptic shooter way back in the days of yore, it still had the same grimy brown look as used in every other Unreal Engine 3 game that has ever been made. A few months later, and after a full on rebellion from the art team, we instead got a new “concept art” style of graphics. Oh and a witty change of humour. And yes the game is also good if you didn’t know that by now.
Borderlands is set on the planet of Pandora, a wasteland world covered in desert where it is rumoured that beneath the planet there is a vault full of advanced alien technology. As usual with all these treasure hunting stories, many people do not believe in its actual existence thinking it to be a trap to lure people to the planet. However, you arrive on the scene as one of four treasure hunters (Mordaci the hunter, Brick the berserker, Lilith the siren and Roland the soldier). You then proceed to travel around this world, through each of the differently styled areas in search of the keys to the vault, doing quests for various people and wiping out most of the criminal leaders on the planet. To be honest, the story is actually a little crap – the whole “guardian angel” side of it is rubbish with some terrible dialogue. She pops up every so often to simply say “well done, but you haven’t faced you hardest challenge yet” and at one part uses a line from Bioshock that stands out a mile away.
Borderlands is a combination of RPG and FPS, focused more on the shooting dynamics side as opposed to turning it into a combat system closer to the dice rolls that were blatantly behind the combat in Fallout 3 and the pit of eternal horror that was Hellgate London. The shooting is solid; feeling slick like any other modern shooter should do but also showing its RPG roots by the numbers showing damage amounts flying off enemies and a big red critical flying off an enemy when you hit their weak point. On top of that, the game also has various elemental damage systems which add some benefits, such as extra damage over time and rather excellent effects when you kill.With quest completion and kills you level up as you’d expect, which grants you more action points to upgrade you abilities. The different characters you choose at the start are actual the different classes. The Hunter is effectively the sniper, Brick the tank, Lilith the mage and Roland the healer/support person. The classes are brilliant, not limiting you to a certain weapon type but rewarding you for playing in a certain style. Each class also has a special ability, such as the turret from the soldier. These abilities are most useful when playing as a team when they combine together. Pairing a soldier’s turret to heal and attack while a siren uses phasewalk to sneak behind an enemy allows masses of enemies to be mown down. In fact, the game has several moments where it simply throws masses of enemies at you to deal with which sometimes may be best thing ever. However at other times when every enemy is at level 30 it can be a little bit frustrating. However, death holds no terror as if there are some enemies around you at low health. If you manage to take one enemy down then you receive a second wind, which brings you back to life with full shields and half health. This is a brilliant feature that helps to get rid of some of the frustration of this sort of game.
A brilliant feature of Borderlands is its massive number of guns. I’ve done around 2 playthoughs and can back up with the fact there are many guns. How many I hear you say? BAZZILIONS!!!! Many admittedly are only simply stat changes, such as swapping out a scope in exchange for a damage boost, but the system can lead to some surprising setups. One weapon I found is a revolver with only two rounds in a magazine but has a scope, does fire damage and each round does 300 damage before the effects of fire. Another weapon is a shotgun with massive amounts of damage when fired or used in melee, but has no accuracy – meaning of course you need to be in an enemies face in order to use it. This system means each weapon feels slightly different from the last. However, there is one issue. It is quite possible that you may go through a play through and pick up weapons that aren’t actually that good. On the other hand you may, like me, find a weapon that is over powered and then use it through the rest of the game and possibly take it into the second game.
The graphics of Borderlands are awesome. If you liked the look of Crackdown, this has taken it to the next level by rendering a more organic landscape with this method. It really suits it, especially in the design of the enemies. The skags, small dog like creatures (not the female members of Eastenders), are among just a few of the many enemies model who despite fitting into several groups, still each feel unique. The characters all looks like they are straight out of a comic book, with pencil lines bringing out every last detail. The only slight disappointment is that although there are millions of guns, nearly all of the same type look exactly the same with a few changed parts based around the same basic model. This good sense of art design is coupled with a stellar piece of sound design. The voice acting is excellent, but unfortunately you don’t get very much use out of it. Apart from your characters, or the enemies, little quips (“Critical Biatch!”) and the occasional story section there are no long sections of dialogue which is probably to the developer’s credit. The game also has a brilliant sense of humour. Some come through in the dialogue, but many are simply from little things. Fans of Firefly will rejoice when they reach Jainynestown while Mad Max fans will be seeing references flying out of the screen. The game introduces with a snappy grindhouse style character intro, giving each a tag line. This includes the first boss Nine Toes. I won’t spoil it for those few of you who haven’t played Borderlands yet but believe me, it actually made me laugh so hard the first time I dropped the controller. You won’t laugh a minute like in Brutal Legend, but it will still give you a chuckle.
Finally the other important things. Borderlands was designed to be played in co op and supports it 4 players online and 2 players in split screen. When played in co op, the game feels more like an MMO than a simple co op game which does means it’s disappointing when it misses out several features. First of all is that the trading system is based upon dropping items and letting other players pick it up. This works fine with trusted friends but as soon as you play online, it does not work. You can’t trust 90% of the players online, and if you trade with them something important you won’t ever see it again most likely. However, don’t let that put you off trying it out. Another minor fault is for a game that is packed with millions of cool pieces of equipment, there is no storage system in the main game, leaving you to bid farewell to any kit you don’t use. Finally, the achievements are a very good mixture of things you would find normally just by going through the game such as discovering area alongside others which are a little bit strange. My advice is to try anything – like getting on a boat.
I do need to also make a quick mention of the PC version. It runs really well on low end PCs while the higher resolution textures also means it looks a lot better than the console alternatives. You can also export the details of any excellent guns you find as JPGs allowing you to brag to your friends about them (if that floats your boat.) However, the UI isn’t changed from the console version, making it feel a little clunky when controlling with a mouse.
Borderlands is not the world’s most perfect game. But it has all the best parts of an MMO in a competent shooter and one of this year’s greatest co-op experience. This is one game which really did need to get away from the usual grime of Unreal 3 and into a new and almost unique look.
DLC
Borderland’s three DLC packs all add something else to the game as all good DLC should do. However, you shouldn’t really feel you need to buy all three of them as they each have their flaws. I have written about this before in this article but I’ll reprint some of my thoughts here.
The first pack, The Zombie Island of Dr Ned, added more of the main game, with a whole extra set of missions outside of the normal story. It takes place on the aforementioned island, where the ministrations of a certain doctor (who isn’t just Doctor Zed from the main game wearing a moustache) have lead to no one dying and instead wondering around pissing off the Jacobs Corporation who own the island. It is the basic zombie fighting story (discover zombies –> fight zombies –> find out main villain –> ??? –> Profit!) which also threads in werewolves and claptraps shooting each other. What’s not to like? This pack also ramps up the comedy – some of the character descriptions are even better than last time and the tannoys throughout the island have some of the best instructions for how to deal with zombies.
Although it is pretty good fun, it is just more of the same play style you’ve had from the start of the game. But it feels like something that wasn’t 100% finished when the game was getting close to release and so had to be delayed.
Unfortunately, the second pack is not quite so good. Mad Moxxi’s Underdome shifts the focus to the combat in a simple arena which is not quite the way to go. The arena mode takes some inspiration from Halo with its differing rules each turn, such as your health constantly dropping or certain weapons being more effective. It does make the action slightly more challenging. However the round system is retarded. 5 stages per round and 5 rounds per starting game. Each match takes ages with no chance to properly rest between fights making the achievement for finishing all the matches a pain in the backside to complete. The pack also ruins the aim of the game by removing the rpg elements. When the game is focused on drops, xp and stats this change does make this pack only for completionists.
The final pack, The Secret Armoury of General Knox, adds on a load of extra things to Borderlands. These range from new vehicles and weapons to quests, but the best part is the new increase of the level cap up to 61 (turning it up 11 extra levels). It takes place after the end of the main game, with the evil Atlas Corporation sending General Knox after you, much to his displeasure. You have to work with your friend Scooter and a rogue Atlas employee to stop him and discover the secret armoury. Along the way you deal with Mad Moxxi and a bunch of midgets riding skags.
The DLC is great fun but my main issue is its design. The base game could easily be played by yourself and online – either way it was still fun. However, the DLC is next to impossible to play by yourself due to its difficulty as it seems they have turned the scaling off. Bit of a shame when you can’t get a group of people to play properly. Also all the new vehicles and enemies only turn up in the new area, so you can’t drive the new 4 person car in the main game.
Overall, I recommend buying the Zombie Island of Dr Ned for definite as it as some of the best bits in the entire game in it. The others are less so good unless you have a group you can work through all of it.
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