Review: Borderlands

Give me a game as a gift? Hell yeah I'll play it. That's where Borderlands comes in for me, though I would have played it even if it wasn't gifted to me. That being said and the game now beaten, I'm happy that it wasn't my money that put this game in my possession. What?! I'm not on my knees for Borderlands like every other reviewer out there?! Let's see why.


I actually liked the game contrary to what it already sounds like. Borderlands is a solid game and absolutely worth a play and it has story mode co-op. It looks great, provided you can handle cell shading (Gearbox says that it isn't cell-shading, but if it looks like a duck and we're discussing looks...), and I do like cell-shading. There are a couple really good visual moments in the game, most of which are in the box art. The humor in the game is great. A few main quest givers, claptraps (the mascot robot) and bad guys will get you laughing. Also the trash mobs that respawn while you play — oh wait, we're not there yet — the normal bad guys spout off some funny one-liners as they fight.

I keep wanting to rip on this game so I'll just get to it. Let's start with my slip about trash mobs.

Borderlands' questing system is best compared to that of an MMO. The quests felt meaningless and empty. Talk to quest giver X on your map, kill 30 skags, turn in, rinse and repeat. There were a few that almost felt like something out of a real RPG but not enough. Even the more connected quests still had no depth to them nor did the objectives involved.

Unlike an MMO, Borderlands did not have a minimap. If ever you really needed one, it's when your in the desert waste areas in Borderlands, which is 85 percent of the game. The desert waste areas are nice for the first five hours of play but not the last 15 hours.

The bosses are absolute jokes. They are only bosses in size and/or the time it takes to kill them.

On a nuts and bolts note, the weapons were interesting and fun... for the first five hours and not the last 15 hours. While there are supposed to be a large variety of weapons, once you realize what is different about them, they were as humdrum as the landscape. The weapons in Borderlands are like EA's Madden NFL series — they are all different, new and worth upgrading to. The same thing should be said of the other equipment in the game (shields, grenades and class specific bonuses). I use the same weapons and gear that I found sometime in the first 2/3's of the game until the end. Nice randomization and scaling Gearbox.

To Gearbox's defense there were a few weapons that were interesting, like a shotgun that shot out a wave of bullets (a sine wave). The only problem with all of the funny firing guns was that it's all they were, funny firing guns. Oh, and completely useless and sold at the nearest vending machine. BTW vending machines (just like a soda machine) are the vendors in this game, and just like the aforementioned weapons are cool at first and then not. The vending machine's main contribution was probably adding to the general disconnected feeling that pervaded this game.

I compared the quests to that of an MMO earlier. Taking that further, I felt like I was playing an MMO for most of this game. I mean these MMO references in the bad way and I know that not all MMOs suffer from boring, cookie cutter quests and a general disconnected feeling in the game world (right?). Anyway, you know what I mean. And if the game world wasn't meaningless enough there is a fast travel system. So every zone (which takes a serious minute or two to cross on foot) has one or two travel points. They work just like you think they do — teleport locations. I think there was an Ozzy song called "Goodbye to Immersion" or something like that.

Borderlands really is an alright game, but that doesn't make it good or worthy of special praise. Its mechanics worked as they should, the art style was nice, the dashes of humor were appreciated and it was all a nice effort. A nice thing to add would be a decent story (avoid the, "Oh no, a random large thing that is completely new and has nothing to do with anything is here and you have to fight it to continue," ultimate plot hooks/twists). Oh, let's not forget the co-op play that I barely mentioned. Thank you for having it in your game, Gearbox. It works as co-op play should. That's all I have to say about that.

Borderlands is worth a rent. Play it with friends if you have any.