Borderlands

Rated: M

Score: 9.0/10

Fallout fans, rejoice. There’s another new game on the block that blends RPG (Role Playing Game) elements with First-Person Shooter elements. Borderlands, unlike Fallout 3, relies more on First-Person shooting, and plays differently thanks to that feature. Is that enough to send Borderlands skyrocketing, or will it fall out in Fallout’s crushing shadow? This game is available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

On paper, it does look very, very similar to Fallout 3. Both are set in a wasteland, where you shoot raiders and level up yourself and your weapons. Both based their stories around a mysterious vault and both have you running around huge, open worlds at your leisure. The huge difference between both games is guns and ammo, which aren’t as sacred as in Fallout. This, oddly enough, is enough to shift it to a First-Person Shooter with RPG elements as opposed to Fallout 3’s First-Person RPG with shooting.

Borderlands not only increases the number of weapons you can get, it greatly increases it. You have, no joke, millions of different types of guns to find and try out. Different brands, different versions, different styles of gameplay. That’s right, the brand of a gun is important too. “Jakob” guns are well-known for extremely powerful firepower, but low firing rate, while “Maliwan” guns are designed balanced with elemental effects.

Elemental effects are another thing that Fallout doesn’t have. Some guns have one of four elements: Fire, Shock, Explosion, and Corrosion. Fire is effective on un-armored baddies, while Corrosion works well on deteriorating the armors of armored baddies. Each has different uses, but don’t become needed until very late in the game, when enemies have heavy armor that only a corrosion gun can take down quickly.

In Borderlands, even if you’re down, you’re not out. While downed, you can still desperately gun down a foe to get a “second wind”, and get back up with some health back. In some cases, it’s easy to abuse, but you certainly can't rely on it completely. Enemies can jump out of view, leaving you left for dead. You can also fail to take down some stronger enemies in the allowed time, forcing you to warp back to the last checkpoint with a lighter wallet (and depending on where you are in the game, it can be a MUCH lighter wallet).

You have the choice of four unique characters from the start of the game, each with their own abilities. Roland is a military soldier good with shotguns and combat rifles, with the ability to put up a turret in the heat of battle. Mordecai is a hunter effective with revolvers and sniper rifles, who has a pet falcon that he can send to attack foes. Lilith is a mysterious witch who masters sub-machine guns and can turn invisible. Brick is a berserker effective with just explosives and his own fist; his ability, of course, consists of him turning berserk and smashing everyone’s face in. Each has their own “skill tree”, which they can spend the skill points they get from level ups after level 5 to increase the power of their ability or increase their offensive or defensive stats in some way. It’s a great way to make every character unique to each player, since the physical customization is a joke. You can change the color of the stripes on their shirts, and that’s the extent of it.

It’s not a wasteland you should explore alone, you should bring everyone else along for the ride! That’s right; you can bring three other friends to enjoy the game with you. Each player picks a different character, and off you go! Be wary though, enemies become stronger the more people you bring along. Nonetheless, tougher enemies bring better loot. If possible, you should play this game with at least one other person; the wasteland is pointlessly empty and boring otherwise.

There are few things to complain about in this game. The physical customization is a joke; it’s quite empty to play alone, and the final boss is ridiculous. I won’t reveal too much about the final boss, but I will mention it has one big, obvious weak spot and it’ll take about a minute to take down. Not only that, but the boss drops poor loot when defeated. All other bosses in the game drop a strong, unique gun or shield to add to your collection, but all the final boss drops is a lot of disappointment.

For being a game that looks a lot like Fallout 3 on paper, it plays very differently. It’s a proper First-Person Shooter, tried and true. The combat is fast-paced, the wasteland is fun to explore, and with a bunch of friends, it can be even better. It’s only the small things that bring down an otherwise amazing game.