Borderlands (PC/360/PS3)
Posted by Jon | Filed under Video Gaming
I wanted to wait until I had a good handle on this title from Gearbox. Originally a company that concentrated on porting games to and from consoles, they finally broke out on their own with the Brothers in Arms series. This is their most ambitious title to date, and a game to focuses on FPS elements, with a dash of RPG skills, and a real penchant for replayability. Die hard Diablo fans themselves, they wanted to recreate similar elements in an FPS, and did so quite well with this title. Players can be one of 4 characters… a “tank” who specializes in melee combat, a “hunter” who prefers pistols and sniper rifles and has control of a pet bird who can attack enemies. Then there’s the “siren” who can increase the damage deal by some of her weapons, and can enter a 4th dimension where she is invisible, and a soldier, who can spawn a turret to aid in battle. All these characters work best playing together, naturally, and while the game suffers from some multiplayer connectivity issues, they mechanic is very sound (more on gripes later in the article)
Further nods to the Diablo genre come in loot, the true draw for games like this. As players crawl towards the level cap (50) they will have the opportunity to hunt out literally THOUSANDS of weapons. Based in colored quality from white to green to purple to orange (similar to World of Warcraft’s system as well.. another Blizzard offering) loot is randomly spawned and generated using a formula.. so there are millions of combinations available. This makes the game endlessly fun, as weapon lockers are always skipped to with such joy, hoping for a purple or even orange weapon nestled therein. Although the super rare orange weapons (I have found maybe 10 in the 50 or so hours I have played this title) are stupidly powerful, most of the other loot is quite balanced.. for example, a shotgun that does 150×10 damage will only chamber 2 rounds, whereas a machine gun that shoots extremely fast, is super accurate, and has a massive clip, will do very little per bullet.
The graphics and sound are very well implemented, and Gearbox opted to use a cel-animated style, which again focuses on smooth gameplay versus hyper-realistic, often frame-rate-reducing graphics. This is always a good decision, because this increases the fan base who can buy and play the game, allowing you to team up with all your friends, instead of just the ones with quad-core processors (a la Crysis)
Now to get to the nuts and bolts. The game can be played through 3 times, and as you go through each, the difficulty ramps up considerably, as does loot quality. Now, there are a few tips I will offer those who are looking to really enjoy this game. If you are a casual gamer, one playthrough will get you to around level 35, and might be all you play. more hardcore gamers will prefer to st least get through the second time around, of not even the third. So here’s where the advice comes in. There are story missions, and there are side missions. it doesn’t really matter if you just focus on the former, or the former and the latter together. They seem to be pretty balanced, so even if you ignore the side missions (of which there are many exciting ones) you will still end up at a similar level to the player who completes everything available to him. I mention this because it does get somewhat tedious on the 2nd walk through doing all the side quests again, like the game is dragging its heels a little. Not all missions feel this way, and there are definitely favorite areas, bosses and quests that you will be stoked to do again. So, which I suggest is that as you start playing, if you get really addicted quickly to the style and gameplay, that you bust through the game as fast as possible and get that first playthrough done and under your belt. Ignore 75%+ of the side missions, and only play ‘em to level up if the plot ones are too hard. That way, once you get into the second time around, you will:
a) Know what to expect from the general gameplay dynamics and plot
b) Really enjoy the challenges of a lot of the side missions, and get the most from the game
Now you might speculate that you want to save everything for the 3rd playthrough, but since you will get to the level cap about 1/3-1/2 of your way through the second, the 3rd is really a very tough game, and incredibly challenging. Only those who are hardcore and probably playing with a few friends online might get into the 3rd time around.
Now, as with most games of this type, there is additional DLC or Downloadable Content, to enhance the experience. This game is no different and currently there are 2 available, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot with a third in the works, so named “The Secret Armory of General Knoxx” The first is a halloween/zombie themed expansion, and can be completed for a challenge at any level (the enemies simply are automatically changed to provide a similar experience of difficulty to any character) however the bosses in this expansion are quite weak. The second is an area fighting challenge that changes many of the aspects of the game, and is INCREDIBLY tough (players must complete 5 rounds of 5 waves each for a grueling 25 themed battles per area – there are three of those. ) In order to beat the challenge, players must survive for the 25 rounds WITHOUT DYING ONCE. Any death, even deep into the 25, results in a severe drop back penalty. A friend of mine and I, for example, both died in the final wave of the final round, and were dropped back a staggering 10 waves when we continued. There is no experience given per kill, and no loot is dropped, except by the “host” Moxxie, at the end of each round. The final reward for completing all 75 waves is a single extra skill point. Weak. Only other reason to get this expansion, other than the “bank” which is a pay-to-upgrade glorified stash, is the insane, forks-in-your eyes challenge. Oh, and if you don’t have it, and your friend does, you cant play ANY of the game online unless you both purchase it.
The third one promises to be a massive DLC that will up the level cap and provide more content and mission than either one before it. It is one thing i really do look forward to.
Gripes. Naturally, most of your know my reviews by now, and know that I’m very picky about a few things that seem like glaring omissions and mistakes. First off… no Private Stash. This was an excellent thing about Diablo II. You had a big chest that had the same contents no matter what town you called home, and you could store loot in it for other players, yourself at higher levels, and so on. While there are ways to increase your backpack size in Borderlands, even fully maxed out, once you hit 50, you will still grumble about not having enough slots to store all the gear you want to, and throwing away things you wished you had the room to keep. Second… and I know a friend of mine will be happy I added this, there are some enemies that throw axes as weapons. This in and of itself is fine, but when they are throwing them with unerring accuracy, from 400 METERS AWAY, even when you are almost completely hidden and trying to snipe off baddies.. is terribly unrealistic. Raiders can also toss grenades much further than you, which is a bit of a nuisance. Final real gripe is the speech that enemies make… there simply isn’t enough variety. The majority of them only say about 3-4 things each, and love to taunt you while attacking, so these get tiresome really fast. I thought it would be neat if Gearbox allowed players to record their own and add them as they saw fit, or upload them to the website to allow others to use this user content. Aside from a few minor details like
-no HUD overlap map while driving the cars in the game (and ergo having to switch back and forth between the map and driving)
-known issues re: connecting to friends using the multiplayer options (it seems to randomly work or not work, requires restarts of the game and/or machine, etc, before it suddenly decides to co-operate)
-*Note* My friends and I all now use GameRanger, which is free, plus Skype, and now have no issues with playing together. Get it here
-a few minor clipping issues, and other minor things not worth mentioning, the game is pretty solid in the most recent patch.
Anyways, that’s one of the longest, most thorough reviews I have penned in awhile. I give this game a solid 8.9/10
Hope you enjoy it, Pete! (A friend asked for my thoughts on this game, and this gave me enough motivation to do this review!)
