If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s anything post apocalyptic. I love it. “Mad Max”, “Six String Samurai”, anything that borrows their aesthetic? Good stuff. If you mix this setting with some great action, I like it even more. When word of Borderlands came down the pipe, I was pretty excited to say the least. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on the game and seeing myself staring down the barrel of level 21 one already, you could say that I’m as pleased as a mutant psycho.
Now, I’m aware that Fallout 3 came out first and many may think that they are the same game at first blush, but there are a lot of differences here. Many differences which for me, makes “Borderlands” the better game. I’ve tried my hand at “F3″ a few times now. It is a good game game, don’t get me wrong…it’s just not my cup of team. The first problem is the huge time commitment required to get through the game, the second is that I found the shooting mechanics to be frustrating. This is magnified by the fact that I’ve never been stellar at any shooter, but it bugged me all the same.
Borderlands” comes along and it cures many of the frustrations I had with “F3″, which leads me to being hooked on this game big time. The shooting works, and works well for a 360 controller. There is a good mix of up close sniper fire and run and gun sub machine gun play. Mix this with the sheer amount of guns and upgrades that show up throughout the game and it is damn near staggering. I’ll warn you now, if you’re a loot fan as far as games go, this is going to hook you hard. And don’t go falling in love with any particular weapon that you pick up. Chances are you are going to change weapons four or five times throughout an hour’s playtime. It’s that plentiful.
In addition to the solid gun play, the other hook for “Borderlands” is an RPG system stat system that makes it just that more fun than your standard ‘run to the end’ FPS shooter. The system is weak as far as RPG systems go, but mixed with the shooting and looting, it works great. The quest system also helps greatly as it gives you actual way-points and goals to work towards through the game. Too many times, I become distracted or bored in a typical FPS. It just seems repetitive. “Borderlands” quest system helps to break up this monotony.
Currently, I’m at the halfway point of the game and there are a few problems that have popped up from time to time. One of my main gripes is repetition. The enemies that you see at the beginning of the game? Get used to them, they’re going to come back. A lot. There are different variants of each enemy type but at the core, they’re all the same. Whether this changes later on in the game, I can’t say yet. It is still fun to watch them die though, so that’s a plus! I’ve also found some problems with the way point system, in particular when it comes to tracking down particular quest items. The way-points will get you in the general area of an item but when it points to a location, your item could be anywhere in the vicinity. Not where they make you think it’s sitting. The beauty here though is that neither of these problems are game breaking and are simply minor annoyances. With the fun of running quests and running and gunning throughout the map, you forget about them fairly quickly.
I’m no expert on video games by any means, but I do know what I like. With “Borderlands”, I’m having the most fun I’ve had since playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. And I had a ton of fun with that! The game is simply engrossing over all and easy to lose some hours too, which I think are important traits in a video game.
If you’ve read up on this game, you’ll be aware that the co-op play through is supposed to be even better than a single player run. I haven’t tried this out myself as of yet, so I can’t speak to it. I can tell you that friends who tried out a 4 player co-op run this past weekend are still talking about it, so that’s a good sign. The difficulty scales with the number of players, as does the loot, so if you’re an Xbox Live aficionado, you should definitely keep that in mind.