Borderlands

Gearbox have been touting this game as something of a new thing, a new genre and to some degree - I guess it is. I would however describe it more as a mesh of a lot of different genres rolled into one. There are of course a lot of ways to really mess this 'meshing' process up but I'm happy to report that - for the most part - Borderlands is a well polished and fun experience.

I'll quickly get the negatives out of the way -

- You more than likely will not care about the storyline as the main questline is fairly poor and lacking depth and side missions quickly become a way to get cool new weaponry and experience points rather than a deep, involving experience.

- Mission/Quest variety isn't fantastic but certainly not dire by any stretch. If you have played an MMO, you will know how things work immediately (go there, kill 10 of those, come back and get reward etc. etc.)

- The split-screen interface isn't scaled properly and you will have to aim around your screen to see the entire thing. An annoyance but certainly not a game-breaker.

- Some in-game achievements are bugged currently but nothing a quick patch won't fix.

and now with the positives -

+ Graphically this game is great. Some people won't 'get it' but it's very stylised. In the early gameplay videos it used to be another boring, brown, realistic-esque game but thankfully this new art direction is a real breath of fresh air.

+ Weapons: there have been all sorts of numbers posted around the internet... anywhere from 200,000 to 16,000,000. They aren't all drastically different. There are maybe 20 different weapon models but the point is, they all have different procedurally generated statistics (e.g. one pistol might fire really fast & have a large clip but have lower damage, whereas another might have a small clip but be more powerful & have a chance of doing fire damage). All the weapons are of different rarety and denoted by the colour of their name from white (common muck), to purple (rare) to orange (legendary).

+ Gunplay: Thankfully Gearbox have backed up the insane amount of weaponry with solid shooting mechanics. It's simply a lot fun to play and you won't get tired of finding new weaponry, comparing it with what you have and then killing more stuff. The combat is a lot of fun and CAN be surprisingly tactically diverse when in coop (although most of the time, you will simply opt to shoot something with the force of an angry god til it's motionless on the ground)

+ Coop (up to 4 players): Borderlands comes into its own when played with others and they've made it extremely accessible with the ability drop-in, drop-out as well as sharing experience, missions and money between everyone in the group. Be aware though that there is no roll system on dropped loot so if you're playing with strangers they could quite easily ninja all the good stuff and leave your game. Play with people you trust!

+ Character classes and skill trees: There are four classes in Borderlands and they've all been designed in a way that they can all survive in single player - in that they can all use ALL the weapons and as such if you choose to play single player as Mordecai (the sniper specialist) you won't find yourself in too much trouble if you have to fight close quarters as you can have a backup SMG/shotgun if you wish. Class diversity is instead created via skill trees, weapon specialisations and unique skills. Each character has a unique skill (i.e. Roland the soldier can deploy a turret and Mordecai, can use his pet bird to attack enemies). Skill trees are also present which allow you to customise your character everytime you level. You get one skill point to spend and as a pure example, you could put points into doing more damage with critical hits or adding the ability for your turret to shoot rockets and so on. With this customisation, its possible to compliment your teammates (should you have them) playstyles.

All in all, this is a great game both in single player and in coop but coop really is the way to go. I took one star off the review for the lack of depth to the storyline and meaning to side missions but it certainly won't affect the fun this game provides. There is a definite level of addictiveness to the game because you never know what you're going to find in the wastelands. Happy hunting!

Borderlands is a game I eagerly awaited for quite some time and it was the first game I ever pre-ordered. That said I had high expectations for it but despite that I did not try to fool myself. I knew the millions of guns would never be millions of entirely unique weapons but many would only be different due to statistics and I realized that the storyline would not be an epic tale of hopes, dreams and betrayals. What I was hoping for was something incredibly fun in the same way old-school dungeon crawlers are but in first person shooter style with four player co-op and loot driven gameplay.

What I got was exactly that. From the start you never have much downtime between confrontations with enemies but the quests get gradually more interesting as the game moves on as it is, to start, very similar to mmo's (go there, kill 5 of those). The gameplay is, as I said, very loot driven, that is, through the game you'll spend a lot of time finding new weapons, class mods, artifacts and shields. Some will only be good for a quick buck while others will stay your main weapons for several levels. In single player the game can hold its own but with one to three friends this game really shines. From planning the next combat based on the classes involved to fighting over loot it makes the game come alive.

To mention the storyline a little, it has been one of the main critiques of the game for being practically non existing but saying that is kind of like saying the story in Half life didn't exist. Although Half Life (especially number 2) made the story clearer you can find a good story in Borderlands if you can be bothered with paying attention to your surroundings, quest logs and especially audio-logs.

The first game people usually compare this to is Fallout 3 due to first person shooter and Role Playing elements but the two are totally different games. This is closer to Halo and Call of Duty (due to controls) with fast fps action and levelling up (which gives you a feeling of progress).

If you get this game expecting deep JRPG-like story you'll be dissapointed but if you are looking for pure fun, tons of guns with a bunch of different effects and fast fps action best enjoyed with friends (but great while going solo too) then this game will not dissapoint and you'll find yourself playing this for quite some time as you'll have more than enough to do, given that the game has four characters, a long two playthrough road to level 50 and the recently released DLC Zombie Island it's going to last a good while.

Just great! I've played it both multi and single, and I have to say that multi player is much more fun.

There's no deep story but there is at least a theme to keep you pushing forwards.

Guns guns guns! Open a crate to find what you think will be your favourite gun for the rest of the game, the right effects, reload speed, target option, clip size, etc. You take on some bad guys and teach them a (briefly) painful & bloody lesson, then open a crate to find what you think will be your favourite gun...

Lots of tongue-in-cheek voice acting, nice nods to genres as disparate as wild west and Japanese b movies, and some great set pieces.

Mix in some of the best multiplayer action you'll find anywhere and this has to be a winner. It hasn't the level of realism of, say, Modern Warfare 2, but for me that's a bonus since I find Borderlands easier to laugh at. I like the cel-shaded graphics and the action is just right.

Perhaps the ending is a bit of a let down, but the journey is just so much fun you can forgive it!