WELL! Welly, welly, well-well. Borderlands it is then!
I first played this back in 2010 when my flat mate Ben came bounding up to me like a randy Labrador shouting something about "1 BILLION GUNS!" to which my skeptical reply of "Oh really?" lead to a good 8 solid hours of playing Co-Op. A few more long sessions and we'd finished the main story through, but with no audio. To be fair, Cage The Elephant is better than exploding heads as background music to a game, but that's by the by. When Steam decided to throw out 4 copies of Borderlands GOTY edition for £14.99 I was sold, gifting three copies to 3 friends of mine with the intent of co-op. They all abandoned me. I'm not bitter, honest.
Lets get down to it though, shall we?
Borderlands is a first person shooter/rpg of quite some scale. Think Fall Out 3 scale. But with less decent story and more "this is your mission, you can read this paragraph for the "story" behind it if you want, but its not compulsory." The protagonist can be one of 4 characters, each occupying a sort-of archetype in the shooter universe; the hunter (Mordecai), the soldier (Roland), the tank (Brick), and the....specialist? yeah lets go with that (Lilith). Each of the 4 characters has their own unique suggested play style. Now I say suggested because you don't really have to follow them. For example, my most recent (there have been 3) play through was as Mordecai, an expert in snipers, revolvers and all things high critical hit damage. All of his offensive upgrades are centered around rate of fire/critical hit damage/reload speed so you can be melon poppin' all day long. However, considering as I was playing alone, I figured eventually I'm going to be swarmed (by spiderants, its always bloody spiderants) so I'll invest some time in shotgun proficiency. In Borderlands, the more you use it, the better you get, simple as that. Levels of proficiency increase damage, rate of fire, reload speed and critical hit damage. Something that I enjoy, as it allows simple multi-classing.
With progression through the game skill points earned for each level up can be allocated into upgrades of various tiers and across three branches of the skill tree. Mordecai's, for example, has Rogue, Hunter and Gunslinger. Rogue focuses on Bloodwing upgrades (the hunter's action skill, a pet hawk that can be on fire/full of lightning/spit acid/explode, depending on what rock you strap to it. I'm serious) Hunter focuses on upgrades to sniper damage/accuracy and eventually 100% shield bypass with all weapons, and Gunslinger, as the name suggests, deals with pistol upgrades. There aren't enough points to upgrade everything so choice and consideration is paramount, especially early on when you can't afford to pay to have them reassigned too often. This means that, though all (and I mean ALL) of the missions eventually feel like grind, experience is proportional to your level, so there's never a need to hunt down herds of respawning enemies just to get that last 10% for a level up. Having said that instead of enjoying doing each mission it quickly becomes a case of activating as many as possible so you can work your way clockwise round the map doing them all. This is an immersion/story failure not a grind issue in my opinion. If I cared more about each mission things might have gone differently.
The leveling system is harsh. Biblical levels of harsh. 2 levels above you, especially in the early stages of the game, is enough to seriously trouble you. By the end of my second play through my character was level 62, and nothing was a bother at all, until I replayed one of the DLCs for a second time, and basic enemies were level 63 and 64. This means that there is rarely a stage, even in the end game, when you can waltz about an area and be reckless with tactics, this probably more so when playing as Mordecai who has the lowest health of the 4 characters.
So it would appear, so far, that we have a fairly generic shooter/rpg. Well, that is partly true, but then again I've yet to touch on the game's USP or Unique Selling Point. Remember Ben? Innocent, excitable Ben, with his love of a billion guns? Well he was, as usual, over-exaggerating. (He'll tell you he's owned a snake. He hasn't) According to the Official Borderlands forum the current standing is 17,750,000 different weapons. This was achieved in a surprisingly simple manner. "What manner?" I hear you say? No...none of you want to know? Well then skip the rest of this paragraph, and remain unfulfilled. There are a number of manufacturers of arms within the game. Each manufacturer produces 8 types of weapon (pistol, revolver, repeater, SMG, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher) within each weapon type there are, at a guess, 5 different sub-types (e.g. assault rifles, "Rowdy Machine Guns" are high rate of fire, large clips whereas "Cobras" are very small clips with high damage). Within these sub-groups are the addition of scopes, elemental damage, higher level version etc etc Very quickly you can see how they reached 17,750,000. And, to be fair, when playing the game I probably used about 10% of what I found. Seems a bit of a waste really, but at least it means every chest you open could have the best gun in the game in it, and that has more appeal than even I've given it credit for. I say that, as now I've got the best sniper in the game I don't even bother opening them anymore, and there is something missing.
The humour, especially surrounding NPCs and bosses, is a gem in this game. From T.K. Baha, the one-legged, shotgun toting hermit to Marcus the Arms Dealer with his endless catchphrases.
Not to mention everyone's favorite, Scooter. This Appalachian son of a gun has some of the best lines, including:
"The Catch-a-Ride near Fyrestone is more busted than my momma's girl parts. Really appreciate you takin' a poke at that. The uh, system, not my mom. Hot dog down a Skag den, know what I'm sayin'?"and
"Lucky's an old buddy of mine - and by old buddy I mean asshole that ruined my momma's girl parts. Sounds like he's in trouble so you go on ahead and try and keep him alive long enough so I can kill him at a later occasion."Thankfully, he's back in Borderlands 2. Hopefully talking about his "Momma's girl parts" some more. If you know who his mother is (revealed in one of the DLCs) you'd want more.
Anyway, that's all just fluff. Here's the review-y bit of this post.
Gameplay. Well, as I've said, its good fun but eventually gets grind-tastic. Much much better with co-op, if you're going to get it I suggest on PC rather than console, 4 player steam co-op > 2 player local co-op. (I'm suggesting you play with people you actually know.) The 4 characters support each other well, each with a niche that is well defined and exploited by their skill point upgrades, and hopefully everyone should be able to find a character that suits them. I personally enjoy sniping and one shot kills, whereas others I know enjoy using Lilith's Phase Walk ability to nip around in between the enemies setting them on fire, or burning them with acid. There is certainly enough here to warrant playing at least some of the way through with each a character.
Which brings me onto longevity. Because there are only 4 characters, there is really only a limited number of times you could play through on your own. Unlike, continuing the comparison, Fallout 3, there is nearly no customisation, only prioritisation of of one skill over another as it isn't possible to fill every skill. There is, however, a very good chance that I'd happily play through as any of the characters were I to find 3 willing and reliable co-op players, so I shall term this as a game I will definitely revisit.
Visually.....well, it's cell shaded. And we all know that usually means "we ran out of money for shiny next-gen graphics.....uhhh, just Wind Waker-it guys." I personally like the look of Borderlands, and yes, they probably did prioritise things like entertaining gameplay, good physics and length of game over smearing it with the browns and greys of the usual palette these days. By being cell shaded, it lends itself to more creative design and colouring, something this game displays well.
The DLCs. Urgh.
Considering I bought the GOTY edition, and all 4 DCLs were included (The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution) I very much wouldn't have minded if they had never been made. In a quick break down, Dr Ned's is basically the same game with an interesting Hallow'een twist, the Underdome is useless on every level as all it adds is 3 arenas of wave-based combat that don't give you experience and The Secret Armory takes the term "vehicle section" and goes all out on it with vehicles that are frustrating to begin with.
Claptrap's Revolution, however, is good. Its a continuation of the main story with a fairly climatic final battle, it brings back some old characters and introduces some new ones and is pretty much the same style of gameplay as the main game. Its the only DLC worth having.
Overall, most definitely worth a few quid to enjoy. I would dissuade most RPG fans, as there really isn't enough of that to warrant your attention, unless you're looking for a little respite from your Oblivion Kingdom of +5 Grind to the Palace of Borderlands Excellence +10 enjoyment. Fans of hard core shooters like Gears, or Resistance for example, probably would enjoy this as a change of pace. Fans of CoD (post MW1) can, as usual, jump up their collective arse and die.
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