Finally finished Borderlands today!
Borderlands is a 2009 RPG FPS game from Gearbox Software.
Going into Borderlands my initial thought was "Oh look another "RPG FPS". I've heard about the game for years from friends and the humor just didn't grab me at the time.
I was miserably wrong on all counts. Borderlands was surprisingly involved and satisfyingly long (you know my distaste now for short games).
The story picks up with the arrival of several mercenaries on the planet Pandora (take that, James Cameron!). Pandora is a planet full of insane bandits, equally insane settlers, and countless deadly wildlife that makes Pandora the Australia of the video game world. The mercenaries are all in search of an alien Vault. The Vault, is rumored to be full of alien tech, weapons, and riches that will help whoever controls it control the fate of Pandora (i.e. the economy).
Through a harrowing adventure across Pandora's wasteland and into the foothills of a nearby glacier the Vault Hunters discover they're not only racing to become rich and famous, but to save the universe itself.
Each mercenary class gets unique skills that compliment he and if playing multi-player, their teammates. The skills are purchased through a typical skill tree and except for the class action skill are all passive. Weapon control is what you'd expect in an FPS and tool and map selection is pretty fluid. Where the game fails is the vehicles. You have a choice between a rocket turreted buggy or a machine gun turreted buggy. Weapon controls on the vehicles are okay - but the driving is a friggin' nightmare. If it wasn't for some of the distances on the maps, I would have stayed on foot. There was a fun part to the vehicles, you could run enemies over and as long as they were smaller than you, you'd kill them outright. Larger enemies required a couple of runs. There were times when the game's over the top mentality was a little exasperating and it became difficult, even for the tank class, to make its way through the game. Thankfully, those were only a few spots.
The sound in the game was superb. Good, moody-worthy music and good voice overs (I'm pretty sure I heard some old favorite voice actors in there).
The graphics were comic book style cell shaded. I saw a video today with test footage of the game using realistic graphic rendering but they chose to use the cell shading to give the game more personality. I'm torn on this because usually I don't like cell shading to the point it looks cartoony, but they're right, it gave them game a pulp comic book feel that was fun.
Summing up:
Control: 3/5. On foot you're fine, but the requirement to use the vehicle which was a nightmare to control took away from the experience. I also wish they'd have shown a little restraint on how many super armored opponents they sent at you and I'm curious as to why the rocket launcher actually seemed to harm NOTHING in the game.
Sound/Music: 5/5: Fun music, good voice, and a catchy opening theme that I still can't stop singing. THAT is impressive.
Story: 5/5: Good, engaging story. Not so much twisty as it is logical and makes sense. It easily could have been a sci-fi cartoon or even movie. And it was a full game. Way too many modern games are short and rely on DLC and add-ons to tell their story. While Borderlands has DLCs you don't have to have them to be satisfied! I happily did every mission save some of the Clap Trap rescues.
Graphics: Comic book, sci-fi feel but a little hard to read and differentiate some objects unless you were right up on the TV and for the size of my TV, that should NOT be the case. And no, my vision is fine, thank you.
Playability: 4/5: The game was a lot of fun and I'm glad I gave it a chance beyond my initial skepticism. I coming to honestly believe that older games tend to play better.
Well, on to Borderlands 2!