Borderlands: A review (wow, this is getting longer than I would think, skip to end for bottom line) - Edit 1
Before modification by MightyYT at 21/10/2009 10:22:45 AM
I picked up Borderlands today and traded in 4 games I didn't play anymore to do it too....being broke sucks.
Anyways, this game is amazingly good and fun. IT is a 1st person shooter, that is also an RPG in the vain of Diablo. No joke and I will explain later in the post.
So lets get the boring stuff out of the way first.
Graphics: The graphics are a little different. It is cel shaded like XIII on the original xbox, or perfect dark zero on the 360. However, the tones and hues are a bit more subdued than those game. It has a comic book feel with the comic book coloring. The makers kept the coloring very life like, if a little dark. Items and things have little pop-up boxes that are quite easy to read. They made sure the it changes from day to night every 20 minutes or so, with the colors of everything changing appropriately during dusk and dawn. Pretty sweet. The closest I can compare it to is Street Fighter IV...only better, crisper, cleaner, yet maintaining a better realiz
The music. Music, aside from cutscenes, is almost non-existent. I only remember hearing it twice, and it was when fighting something that was much stronger than me.
Story: You play one of four characters, who for some reason, go to a certain planet in search of a mythical treasure place called the Vault. There is a lot of humor, some dark, some not-so-dark.
The four character are
Mordecai: The Hunter, who's special ability is to send his pet hawk to hunt down enemies. (The Hawk is quite strong too.)
Lilith: The Siren, special ability is invisibility coupled with super speed.
Roland: A Soldier, who tosses out a automated turret to mow down enemies
And Brick: The Tank, who goes berserk and beats the living s@#t out of everything with a pretty damn evil laugh.
Starting off the game goes a little slow. You kill enemies you get experience. You also get increases in the weapon skills you use, similar to how you gain increases in The Elder Scrolls series. However, the increases to your weapon skills do not affect your level progress. So, the more you use a revolver, the more you become proficient with the weapon type.
You have to gain four levels (become level 5) before you earn actual Skill points. The first one goes into your special ability (no matter what). After that, you can choose to place it in Skills. There are 3 trees for each character, with each tree having two skills initially. Placing your Points in a certain skill tree (enough times) will eventually open up more skills to obtain. The good thing is, nothing prevents you from only increasing on skill tree. AND if you don't like how you placed your Points, you can opt to change how they are allocated at the NEW-U Poles(save points) After Level 5, you get one Skill Point per level gained.
This game is absolutely loaded with weapons. You have a couple of different types: The Revolver, The Repeater(Semi-Automatic pistol), Shotgun, Small Machine Gun, Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Explosive (Rockets), and Eridian.
Each weapon has three main stats. Damage, Fire Rate, Accuracy. And almost all of these are unique. Once you get into the first main missions, you start seeing other stats too. Bonuses to fire rate, damage, critical hits, are common, as are different types of damage. Explosive, Shock, Fire...I am pretty sure acidic/corrosive is on there too, but I haven't seen it...yet. No two play-throughs will have the same weapons in the same places.
Along with weapons, you also get upgrades to sheilds (with their own stats and abilities), grenades (my favorite so far are the grenades that teleport when you throw them.), and class mods. I haven't run into a class mod yet, but I suspect I will pretty soon (I played until level 16, but just went through the first couple of missions with friends over and over as new people joined in and we switched hosts.)
Now for the truly groovy part. The Multiplayer. I REALLY like this. I have played loner, and with 1,2, and 3 other people. I haven't noticed any lag, which is surprising. You can set up private matches, or make a public one, or join someone else. It was kind of freaky when random people joined a game I was in with a friend. But we got along and kept trading weapons back and forth.
The way the missions work is, whoever is the game host (who sets up the game) is the one running the missions. What this means, is he is the one who has to talk to certain people to progress the missions. Although (and this is the major fault), sometimes other people can do it. It isn't really consistent as to who can do the mission objective when the objective is talking to someone of flipping a switch. Some, I haven't been able to touch, and other I can...so it is weird. It might be that certain missions progress the main story and those have to be done by the host...eh...doesn't matter really, still fun.
You can take your character (levels, weapons, skills, and all) into your friends game. You can, conceivably, take a level 40 character, into a game of someone who just started and help him out...then take him back into his own game. Sweet. The enemies do get harder with the more people you have in the game. They hit harder and are harder to kill, but they also weaken when someone exits the game.
Not all is coop-y though. You do have the ability to duel other characters though. You smack them, they smack you back and BAM...it's Gladiator baby!
The Loot drop system is very similar to Diablo. You never know what you are going to get in a chest or when an enemy is going to drop a superior item. Half the fun is checking that stuff out!
Bottom line - The games takes the graphic style of Street Fighter IV, Combined with the best of the FPS genre,set on a world with a post-apocalyptic, swirled in a sweet multiplayer co-op, added a very well done RPG/Character development scheme, set to boil, then added a touch of Diablo-Loot system as it set.
Anyways, this game is amazingly good and fun. IT is a 1st person shooter, that is also an RPG in the vain of Diablo. No joke and I will explain later in the post.
So lets get the boring stuff out of the way first.
Graphics: The graphics are a little different. It is cel shaded like XIII on the original xbox, or perfect dark zero on the 360. However, the tones and hues are a bit more subdued than those game. It has a comic book feel with the comic book coloring. The makers kept the coloring very life like, if a little dark. Items and things have little pop-up boxes that are quite easy to read. They made sure the it changes from day to night every 20 minutes or so, with the colors of everything changing appropriately during dusk and dawn. Pretty sweet. The closest I can compare it to is Street Fighter IV...only better, crisper, cleaner, yet maintaining a better realiz
The music. Music, aside from cutscenes, is almost non-existent. I only remember hearing it twice, and it was when fighting something that was much stronger than me.
Story: You play one of four characters, who for some reason, go to a certain planet in search of a mythical treasure place called the Vault. There is a lot of humor, some dark, some not-so-dark.
The four character are
Mordecai: The Hunter, who's special ability is to send his pet hawk to hunt down enemies. (The Hawk is quite strong too.)
Lilith: The Siren, special ability is invisibility coupled with super speed.
Roland: A Soldier, who tosses out a automated turret to mow down enemies
And Brick: The Tank, who goes berserk and beats the living s@#t out of everything with a pretty damn evil laugh.
Starting off the game goes a little slow. You kill enemies you get experience. You also get increases in the weapon skills you use, similar to how you gain increases in The Elder Scrolls series. However, the increases to your weapon skills do not affect your level progress. So, the more you use a revolver, the more you become proficient with the weapon type.
You have to gain four levels (become level 5) before you earn actual Skill points. The first one goes into your special ability (no matter what). After that, you can choose to place it in Skills. There are 3 trees for each character, with each tree having two skills initially. Placing your Points in a certain skill tree (enough times) will eventually open up more skills to obtain. The good thing is, nothing prevents you from only increasing on skill tree. AND if you don't like how you placed your Points, you can opt to change how they are allocated at the NEW-U Poles(save points) After Level 5, you get one Skill Point per level gained.
This game is absolutely loaded with weapons. You have a couple of different types: The Revolver, The Repeater(Semi-Automatic pistol), Shotgun, Small Machine Gun, Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Explosive (Rockets), and Eridian.
Each weapon has three main stats. Damage, Fire Rate, Accuracy. And almost all of these are unique. Once you get into the first main missions, you start seeing other stats too. Bonuses to fire rate, damage, critical hits, are common, as are different types of damage. Explosive, Shock, Fire...I am pretty sure acidic/corrosive is on there too, but I haven't seen it...yet. No two play-throughs will have the same weapons in the same places.
Along with weapons, you also get upgrades to sheilds (with their own stats and abilities), grenades (my favorite so far are the grenades that teleport when you throw them.), and class mods. I haven't run into a class mod yet, but I suspect I will pretty soon (I played until level 16, but just went through the first couple of missions with friends over and over as new people joined in and we switched hosts.)
Now for the truly groovy part. The Multiplayer. I REALLY like this. I have played loner, and with 1,2, and 3 other people. I haven't noticed any lag, which is surprising. You can set up private matches, or make a public one, or join someone else. It was kind of freaky when random people joined a game I was in with a friend. But we got along and kept trading weapons back and forth.
The way the missions work is, whoever is the game host (who sets up the game) is the one running the missions. What this means, is he is the one who has to talk to certain people to progress the missions. Although (and this is the major fault), sometimes other people can do it. It isn't really consistent as to who can do the mission objective when the objective is talking to someone of flipping a switch. Some, I haven't been able to touch, and other I can...so it is weird. It might be that certain missions progress the main story and those have to be done by the host...eh...doesn't matter really, still fun.
You can take your character (levels, weapons, skills, and all) into your friends game. You can, conceivably, take a level 40 character, into a game of someone who just started and help him out...then take him back into his own game. Sweet. The enemies do get harder with the more people you have in the game. They hit harder and are harder to kill, but they also weaken when someone exits the game.
Not all is coop-y though. You do have the ability to duel other characters though. You smack them, they smack you back and BAM...it's Gladiator baby!
The Loot drop system is very similar to Diablo. You never know what you are going to get in a chest or when an enemy is going to drop a superior item. Half the fun is checking that stuff out!
Bottom line - The games takes the graphic style of Street Fighter IV, Combined with the best of the FPS genre,set on a world with a post-apocalyptic, swirled in a sweet multiplayer co-op, added a very well done RPG/Character development scheme, set to boil, then added a touch of Diablo-Loot system as it set.