So the other day, it arrived. I finally acquired a copy of one of but two (at the moment anyway) games that I absolutely have to have – Borderlands. Here’s a checklist of features required to make an awesome game:
- Post-apocalyptic-style survival: Check;
- Robust FPS interface: Check;
- Comic-book character design: Check and double-check for the rendering in general;
- Diablo-style RPG mechanics: Check (though not a long, “swooping” check, more of a “meh, I suppose so” check);
- A smattering of black humor: Check!
That’s pretty much a running list of things that makes Borderlands great. Seeing stills of the graphics doesn’t really do them justice – the “stroked comic-book” rendering has to be seen in motion to really get the concept of how gorgeously it’s pulled off.
The idea of being on some shit-hole planet looking for a vault filled with treasures (plz o plz o plz jewels and gold bullion) that may or may not exist is just a fun time.
What’s not so great? First of all, the story is a little flimsy in places – I believe another reviewer’s called it “paper thin”. I can live without this though, because I grew up with video games where the only story was the short blurb in the front of the manual, or a short scrolling message on the screen.
The most annoying thing is the slow-down on the PS3. It is possible my PS3 just needs cleaning, but I somehow doubt it. A good PC will run it flawlessly obviously (though it’s a pity I can’t afford one), and cross-platform games generally tend to suffer on the PS3… admittedly the slowdown didn’t happen too often, but when it did it was pretty annoying.
A far more common manifestation that I experienced is the voice chat getting choppy while the game is loading each area – the game will throw you into an area without fully loading it (which is nice, because of the shortened load times), then load the full-res textures while you’re running around. The only bad part about that design is that while the textures are loading, voice chat goes to hell. On the whole though, the voice chat is far better than that of say, Modern Warfare 2 – which somehow manages to show off their voice codec’s handling of packet loss all the bloody time.
Why are the RPG elements “meh”? The builds for the character classes I’ve played are reasonably well done – there’s no right or wrong way to build-out your class and you’re free to pretty much do whatever suits you. I have a rather spread build for my Siren, which leans heavily on my class-mod for two skills and works pretty well for my playing style (by the way, the skill builder flash app on the website is a really great touch). It’s also nice how you can reset your skills at any time for a modest cash-sink, so you don’t have to re-roll if you “screw up”.
The only downsides are that there’s really only one “active” skill for each class. Sure, Lilith and Brick can modify their respect skills for different approaches and using melee attacks adds a little something extra to it… but for Roland and Mordecai, it’s pretty much a case of just deciding when to use it, then waiting for it to cool down and repeating the process.
The game’s also quite short, and IMHO I found the difficulty curve to be backwards – the game’s first few bosses were quite difficult because of my relatively low level… and I found the final boss fight rather easy even though I made it there at what most people consider to be the “average” level (level 34 Siren). I soloed the boss only dying once because I screwed up and walked off the edge.
There’s very little strategy on most of the bosses as well – pretty well it consists of finding the weak spot and hammering on it with everything you’ve got.
The game’s longevity is helped substantially by heaping helpings of DLC. MediaMolecule take note, this is how your DLC release schedule should be! I’ll probably be picking up the first pack any time I have a spare ten bucks. Since the “arena” modes didn’t really appeal to me I’m not so sure about Mad Moxxi’s – the “bank” mode would be nice to have but I’m not entirely sure that’s worth $10.
The next expansion, due “whenever” is looking fantastic though. They’re going to be raising the level cap, which will be great – if it goes to 70 like the rumors say, given the XP curve I’d guess that’s about twice as much game… assuming there’s quests enough to get you there.
A new class wouldn’t go astray in the future either. 
Finally, this game was the first game I got a platinum trophy in, and it’s the last game I bought at the time. I’d had the game less than a week – it’s ridiculously easy to platinum if you play it through to completion… honestly there’s no reason everyone couldn’t do it.
On the whole, this game’s worth the money. If you’re not prenatally poor like I am, it’s worth the $60 if you’re looking to pick up the DLC as well. If you’re in my boat, try to pick it up on Half for around $30 and you won’t be sorry if you like the things in the above list.
It’s pretty everything I thought it’d be… “Call of Duty” meets “Diablo 2″.
