Borderlands - Review - Is It The Love Child Of a RPG and a Shooter?

Borderlands fuses many of the elements of first-person sci-fi gameplay with many of the common aspects of RPGs, Borderlands is a game unlike almost every game you've ever played. In Borderlands your mind will be completely blown away as you take on the role of one of four trigger-happy mercenaries while mowing down whatever stands in your way.

Boasting many features such as addictive action, insane first person shooter combat, one of the largest selections of weaponry ever, elements of RPGs and co-op with up to four friends, Borderlands looks to change the terrain, stereotypes and expectations of modern shooter games. You will play Borderlands through four mercenaries on a ungoverned, godforsaken planet known as Pandora. This is the place where you and your friends, do whatever it takes to find a stockpile of lost alien technology known as The Vault.

Borderlands gameplay has a new revolutionary content generator which brings a near endless amount of missions, environments, enemies, item drops, character customizations and weapons which allow for many hours of replayable gameplay. No, that's not an exaggeration. Throughout the world of Borderlands, there are hundreds of thousands of weapons to find scattered across Pandora.

You and your team will be completing missions across the bombed-out wasteland of Pandora which makes even the Wild West look like your old Sunday School classroom.In Borderlands, you can level up your character in the giant single player campaign or grab some friends and play in one of the many online co-op games.

In the first person shooter/RPG hybrid Borderlands, you are dropped in the shoes of a freelance bounty hunter searching across the deserted mining world of Pandora for a treasure of alien technology hidden in The Vault.

Though when you start making your way across the massive world of Pandora, gaining stronger, more powerful weapons and fighting off the wildlife, you realize that this is no cakewalk of walking in, getting all the goods your looking for in the vault and walking away unharmed. And that's not only because you've got competition from other bandits from all across the planet either.

When you start, you and your team of mercenaries start out on an easier treasure hunt but within seconds you learn that its not the easiest thing to do. You learn that the vault of alien technology you are searching for is hidden and guarded by many enemies on all levels of difficulty.

Also, you aren't the only ones after the treasure. You can take on the role of a high-powered siren, a class which features tactics based on stealth and "elemental" damage bonuses from her weapons, as one of the four playable classes in game.

In Borderlands one of the sirens abilities is to "phasewalk" which allows her to become invisible for a short amount of time to sneak past her oblivious enemies. As you progress through the game and get to a higher level, your phasewalk ability becomes way more powerful as you can sneak right around enemies even in the middle of battle. Also, you are able to get one of many upgrades to phasewalk such as when returning to a normal state, you will deal an explosive burst of damage to nearby enemies similar to how you would wile back stabbing as a thief or assassin in a more traditional role-playing game.

Once you get into the higher levels, the elemental abilities that the siren has allows for the weapons she uses to become even more dangerous. Though the siren, who has less health and nowhere near as many weapons specializations as other classes in Borderlands, is a more challenging character to play, her special abilities such as the enhanced damage from her elemental bonuses make up for her weakness such as poor aim.

Even a few lucky well placed hits trigger a bonus elemental damage that will eat away at your enemy if you or it runs away. Also, some of the siren's attacks cause splash damage to nearby enemies so you don't have to always be accurate.

Boarderlands features a random loot system unlike most other games out there where you will find different weapons as loot (or you can purchase them from one of the games many vending machines scattered across Pandora) that have properties that vary from gun to gun such as rate of fire, weapon accuracy and, probably the most important of these, the ability to cause bonus damage through additional fire, electricity or even poisoning your enemy on a successful hit. 

In Borderlands, its all about what you find and pry whatever loot you can from the dead lifeless corpse of the enemy you just killed. you want everything from money to medkits, shields to guns and the more you can find, the better.

As you get further and further into Borderlands, you'll run into quite a few different parts of Pandora where enemies are extremely powerful. You'll find they are quite a few levels above the enemies in the area and completely loaded out with high-powered sniper rifles, an incendiary submachine gun, and, to make things worse, an over the top rocket launch that fires rockets that are able to divide out into several different shots every time you pull the trigger making it the weapon to drool for.

Once you start packing this caliber of weaponry, you can take some time to learn the basics of your new toys in a bombed-out town in the world of Pandora that's being run by an unusually organized unknown faction of mercenaries

Like you and your team, these mercenaries are after the vault of alien technology as you. Also like you, they pack their own high powered weapons and many turret placements thought their camp. These mercenaries also have shield generators they can place in from of them to create their own cover in the middle of firefights.

With these shields in place, you'll need to either be really accurate with a powerful sniper rifle to take out the few amount of their body they have exposed or have some good luck with your grenades like the incendiary Bouncing Bettie grenades which, like the rocket launch, split off into multiple explosive parts. If you don't have either of these, you'll have to constantly shoot at the shield till it wears down.

If you are a seasoned veteran or just looking for something to challenge your Borderlands experience, the "elite" mode is available the second time you play through it. Elite mode boasts making the game a real challenge as even the enemies you started out with are at about level 30.

You start Borderlands, in the world of Pandora, a dusty desert. As you continue to play through the game, you are taken across many different areas that include the snowy mountaintops which the alien creatures known as the Eridians guard the vault of technology you are in search of. The Eridians seem to be a human insect hybrid race. A few of the weaker Eridians walk around on two legs like humans but can sprout wings and take huge leaps into the air or even take flight.

Though this may seem like a plus that they carry ranged weapons, be ready for them to jump in your face and start clawing you to death. Also, due to the fact that they are aliens with a different anatomy as humans, they are immune to headshots which would regularly kill a human in one shot. Though, if you take the time to look, you'll find they have a few weak spots on their body, such as right below their abdomens in their hindquarters, which deal critical hits.

Luckily, the Eridians have quite a few problems trying to deal with rockets, especially rocket launchers that fire in multiple explosive rounds. I've enjoyed watching many of the smaller Eridians blow up in my face. You will find that there are multiple varieties of Eridians scattered throughout Pandora that vary from small to large that bring backup.

Some even cruise through the skies in ginormous spaceships that carry quite a few enemies. If you and your team are feeling up to it, you can try and take down one of these spaceships but beware, you'll gain the attention of other aliens that won't be very happy to see you.

Borderlands offers all of the many aspects and action of the typical first person shooter, such as different weapon classes, sweet headshots, weapon melee and making use of the cover scattered around you when you need to duck out of the way of fire in order to reload your weapon or charge your shield, while allowing for many of the aspects you've come to love from RPGs, such as an unending loot system.

If you crave the action of a RPG and a first-person sci-fi type gameplay, Borderlands will suit you perfectly.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, so after you check it out, stop by and leave me a comment.


Enjoy!