When Borderlands came out this past fall, I was still heavily into World of Warcraft. In the various chat channels there were dozens of people talking about and singing the praises of Borderlands. They cited the RPG elements they enjoy with World of Warcraft being coupled a modern first-person shooter. My interest was peaked as I enjoy those aspects of gameplay. Later in the fall, once I had dropped World of Warcraft, I picked up Borderlands and was pretty excited to get into the game.
The first thing you’ll notice about Borderlands is the art style. It’s a very unique presentation and I appreciated it for that. It’s not a realistic looking game such as Modern Warfare 2, and for that reason, I didn’t find myself being as critical on the graphics as I would have had it looked realistic. I’m a fan of the art style for various reasons. I appreciate that the developer went away from the norm and tried something new. It felt more like a comic book than your modern RPG or shooter. I suspect some gamers did not like the art style and will criticize the game for it. I can understand that point of view but I think it worked in this case. That’s not to say I want to see every game turn into a comic book, because I certainly don’t, but seeing a developer take a chance and make it work is refreshing.
I guess what I want to really focus on are the two main genres Borderlands pulls from; role-playing games and first-person shooters.
I’m more familiar and comfortable with the FPS genre, so I feel more confident in speaking to that. As a first-person shooter, Borderlands really falls short. With the saturation of superb shooters on the market today, it’s hard to look at a game like Borderlands and applaud the work done there. It’s a mediocre shooter at best and considering how much of the game you’ll spend firing your weapon, that’s not enough. Many of the enemies you’ll face will not be armed, or human (or even analogous to humans), and so they’ll fight you in close combat. With a gun and the camera angle, I found it difficult to adjust the camera quickly to perform a melee attack or fire on the enemy. There’s a lot of this early in the game and it’s just not that entertaining. It can get frustrating and it definitely was for me.
As a alluded to above, I’m not a huge role-playing game aficionado as a few of my friends are. I don’t really look at Borderlands and think of it being an RPG. It has a few RPG elements such as leveling, weapon upgrades, and a talent tree. However, it’s missing what many feel are core aspects to an RPG title such as story progression through choices, full gear progression (armor, weapons, abilities, etc), and a crafting system among other things. To me, Borderlands is an FPS with some very minor RPG elements. If you’re looking for an RPG and thought Borderlands might be that game, it’s definitely not. I don’t necessarily think the developer wanted Borderlands thought of as an RPG but it’s gotten that notion post-release by gamers in the community.
One thing that I really have disliked about Borderlands is the pace in which you receive weapon upgrades. The game prides itself on having a bajillion, or some such figure, of weapons. I can safely say it does, but I don’t think that it’s a good thing. The game is like a loot pinata. Every time you turn around there’s a new and improved weapon sitting on the ground. It’s to the point that I felt no significance when I received a weapon. Now, lets compare that to the experience of obtaining a new weapon in World of Warcraft. You could literally spend months working on getting that 2% upgrade in World of Warcraft, and when you finally get it, it’s a great sense of accomplishment. I appreciate that experience and the extremely oppose found in Borderlands really put me off.
Borderlands has gotten most of its critical acclaim for it’s co-op experience. You can seamlessly hop into a 4 player co-op and progress through the single player experience. Granted, I haven’t done a lot of this as I’m not interested in playing co-op with people I don’t know and none of my friends were playing Borderlands when I was. I have tried it just to experience it and it’s definitely the most seamless co-op experience I’ve ever seen. The game is tougher and the loot is better as you have more people playing together to accomplish the objectives. Even with the flaws I’ve seen, if you have a group of friends who you can play Borderlands with I can definitely see a lot of fun being had with this game.
Borderlands is a title I put down after the first 15 levels or so. From a single player perspective, I found the game repetitive and lacking in the core gameplay areas it is trying to represent. As a multiplayer title, I think Borderlands has a much higher upside. I would pick it up again to play through with other people just because of the co-op experience. If you’re on the fence about this game, I would say look to those on your Xbox LIVE friends list. If you have some people who are still playing it, I would say give it a rent and see what you think. If you’re only anticipating on playing this solo, I would say there are far better titles out there that deliver a more interesting experience.
This review is based on the Xbox 360 retail version of the game purchased by Skeptical Gamer.
