Borderlands Review

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I remember the day I purchased Borderlands I was with my flat mate standing in a long, agitated queue that consisted of pig mouthed northern dudes all waiting to grab a midnight copy of the latest Call of Duty at the time. Walking into the store at the midnight launch, we finally got to the till and asked for a copy of Gearbox’s latest. The cashier person looked at us with a confused look and said “Borderlands? You sure you don’t want Modern Warfare 2?” After collecting our games I spent the majority of the journey home pondering what that pimple faced man asked me. But after placing the freshly produced disc in my console, I instantly forgot my worries and embraced the adventure to come.

Borderlands sees you the player and potentially three other friends step into the dusty wastelands of Pandora. On this planet you have one goal within your circle of “Vault Hunters” which is to seek out the legendary, yet mysterious ‘Vault’ that could possible contain the jewels and desires of whoever unlocks it. Surprisingly enough this major plot point is actually shoved as side for most of the game’s rather empty story. Instead of taking control of a desert warrior that thrived for the chance to break into the vault, we actually gain control of a bunch of do gooders that would like nothing more than to get distracted by some scmuck’s needs than gain ultimate power and wealth.

While Borderlands does this in spades, you will find yourself ultimately not caring about the paper thin plot and more about taking in the world and its funny band of inhabitants that you bump into along the way. Everything in Borderlands is filled with charm and a dark sense of humour that even the highest standard of person will find something to smile about. Borderlands doesn’t want you to take it seriously and in doing so works as hard as it can to make sure you know that this universe you’re in isn’t just some everyday land.

While story is generally what drives us, it is the cast of characters and their incredibly likable personalities that are helping us push through the quest heavy adventure that lies before us on Pandora. It is thus interesting to find that even when you finally come to the incredibly disappointing ending that you will find yourself loving the game for what it gave you along the way to the predictable climax. From little dancing dustbin robots to midget bandits, you will be constantly gagging for air as this world dishes amazing characters one after the other.

Pandora is definitely filled with plenty of people for such an abandoned planet, but you will also find that this world is also bulging to the seams with something even more fun filled, and brings a much bigger bang into your journey. This is of course the guns.

Gearbox hasn’t been shy about boasting the crazily supposed amount of guns within Borderlands, which comes to a whopping 87 bazillion. This is clearly something you won’t be able to count on just two hands and even after three playthroughs you obviously won’t have even broke the 5% of potential varieties that are randomly available. The game dishes these tools of destruction out like a jar of unlimited golden honey. You will never get the same gun twice, and you will quickly find yourself having your personal favourite gun manufacturer ten minutes into the experience.

As you obviously can tell, Borderlands is a first person shooter. What you may not know though is that the game takes on the job of a role playing game AND an everyday shooter that allows you to build diversity within the abilities you choose from the small roster of selectable characters. It is cool though that each character comes with their own set of multiple skill trees and stat bonuses ends up making you realise that there isn’t just one play style within the combat.

A nice variety of spongy enemies come into view too, each waiting for you to fill them with holes as they charge at you with a never ending blood lust. While these enemies all come with a range of different attacks, you will find more than often that everyone will be charging towards you, even if they have a gun. This zombie horde type AI means that you can sometimes find yourself killing enemies in mindless droves, and just hoping to build up a higher critical hit counter instead of putting your mind to work and using tactics. Overwhelming odds will generally not be a major problem though thanks to the great balancing done by Gearbox, meaning you will never feel outmatched unless you yourself are significantly under the required level to fight enemies. If you do find yourself in need of a helping hand though, Borderlands comes with a very well established multiplayer feature that allows for you and three friends to pick up and play in the world of Pandora at any point in a friend’s game. You can even play with a friend through couch co-op in easy to use split screen, though sadly without the option to have a choice in screen layout, you will find that split screen play can suffer run chopped off player menus and a sheer lack of screen space.  One thing to note as well is that while I found the networking to be solid in the console versions of the game, the PC side of things seemed to suffer a lot of spikes in lag and untimely disconnect issues.

It finally comes to the point where I mention the game’s visuals. Thankfully Borderlands is an incredibly beautiful game for the art style it chooses to be. Cell shading has always been something of a hit and miss process, but Borderlands is available to be portrayed in such a way that you will wish the game was originally based off the origins of some old comic book franchise. The amount of detail in each character and environment feels like you are seeing a graphic novel’s pages come to life and it is obviously that a lot of care and attention was put into the universe and what is represented within it. This is especially obvious with the mouth water array of guns that all feel great to use and even greater to look at. Users of the console or PC platforms will also find that they will be able to share this amount of beauty on either version. So really it is down to which poison you decide to pick.