Borderlands (X-Box 360)
Riv , 2012/09/14 02:08

Publisher:	2K Games
Genre:	FPSRPG
Players:	1-4 Players
Rating	Mature
The Good:	What happens when you take a tired genre like FPS and mix it with some of the best elements of the RPG and some fucked up humor? The most original game to hit the consoles in years.
The Bad:	Navigating the menus while in split-screen mode is somewhat of a nuisance. Never enough bag space even by the end of the game (a bank later helped this problem in Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC, although not by much).
The Ugly:	Brick.

…Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked…

It’s been three years since the release of Borderlands so you’re probably wondering why the hell I would release a review of this game in 2012, less than a week before the release of the sequel, Borderlands 2. Well, for starters, I prefer to max out a game’s achievements before doing a review. This is probably why videogame reviews are few and far between on JasonRivera.com – that and the fact that other than Justin nobody else has bothered to try to bolster the review vault in a long time. Secondly, I realize that some people are late to hop on Marcus Kincaid’s bus and get into Borderlands. The sequel has generated a lot of interest but for those on the fence can the first Borderlands title give you something good for all you cheapskates out there? The answer is a resounding “yes.”

Here’s a little story about how I entered the Borderlands. I was going to Gamestop to put a few dollars down my annual WWE Smackdown Vs. RAW title for the year and I was told by the guy at the counter that Borderlands looked very promising and that while he knew I can’t stand shooters he also knew I was an RPG guy, and that this was going to be the game that combined both. Reluctant at first, I went ahead and put the $5 down. From the screenshots and gameplay footage it definitely looked to be something different from the likes of HALO, Rainbow Six and Call of Duty already. I don’t really want my art to imitate life as long as the art looks fuckin’ good.

Any game that features "violence on midgets" as a selling point is alright in my book.

A couple of weeks passed as we got closer to the release and while I hadn’t seen much online or heard much about the game other than what the guy at Gamestop told me, I started to see the odd commercial for Borderlands and it definitely impressed – a nice little video package set to Cage the Elephant’s single “Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked” told us the RPG and the FPS had a baby. For the record I don’t truly hate FPS games but I find that most of them are cookie cutter and don’t bring much new to the table at all. Eventually the time came and I picked up my copy of this game and from the minute I started playing, I was hooked, as were many others. And once word of mouth hit that this game was worth buying, the success of Borderlands was essentially viral. Pretty much half the staff of this site caught the Borderlands Bug and virtually none of us are shooter fans.

As I started the game up again I heard the Cage the Elephant song as we were told that we were in the future on the distant planet Pandora where every 200 years a vault opens said to be filled with fame and fortune and that the character of choice would step off the bus onto the planet for the first time, kill everything and anything that got in the way and find that vault, but that everyone else was hunting for its contents too including a few power hungry weapons manufacturers that would want us dead if we continued to get in their way. While the story wasn’t deep it was definitely intriguing as I got to pick one of four possible vault hunters:

Roland, the Soldier - A balanced type of choice who can use an automated turret as cover, Roland is also the only negro on the planet.

Mordecai, the Hunter - A marksman with a pet falcon that can pick off enemies from a distance, and often mistaken for a Truxican wrestler due to his strange costume.

Lilith, the Siren - a woman with the ability to “phase” in and out of being visible who prefers SMGs and smaller guns, and also happens to have a decent rack.

Brick, as... Himself. - Brick is, well, umm… Brick. He’s great with rocket launches and he likes to beat things with his bare hands.

The four character types were definitely diverse and interesting but how can you pass up the ability to turn invisible, Lilith for me it was. Immediately you’re briefed by what’s going on here on Pandora by a witty little robot that says a bunch of silly little things known as a “Claptrap,” and you run through a brief tutorial on the game’s mechanics as well as get to rename your character and alter their color scheme. Lilith became my Bottombitch. The Borderlands were easy to get into – instead of having that unwelcoming “blah” feel that pretty much every FPS that gets everyone else’s dick hard but mine gave me, the game felt intuitive, instinctual. I opened the menu to see that there were a few things that were very familiar to the RPG and MMO fan.

Borderlands takes the 2nd Amendment of the United States VERY seriously.

The weapons in the game had their text color and glow based on quality, a concept borrowed from the iconic MMORPG World of Warcraft Green being a decent weapon, Blue being somewhat better, Purple being “epic quality” (thus something you really want to hold onto), and Yellow-to-Orange being “legendary” weapons that really pack a punch and deliver something special. Later patches introduced “Pearlescent” weapons with a teal font that were damn-near game-breaking. And weapons? There are tons. The game generates the weapons stats and abilities at random – you could have a sniper gun that sets people on fire, or a pistol with acid burst rounds, or a rocket launcher that electrocutes anything that it doesn’t kill on hit. Magazine size, zoom, reload speed, everything is random for something like 8 billion plus combinations of weaponry meaning no two play-throughs will get exactly the same loot. It also means your buddy might get some kick ass weapon that you want… and you just can’t have it. Of course maybe if you’re nice he can trade it to you in multi-player games.

We got ourselves a badass over here.

Borderlands is somewhat lacking in the multiplayer department as it’s not a player-vs-player sort of game (although you can duel). You can however co-op to tackle quests and bosses together with up to four players, or play locally via split-screen (although I’m not too fond of trying to navigate the menus in split-screen which is annoyingly difficult). This game didn’t want to center around the cliché of “capture the flag” and “death match” player-vs-player – that’s for every other FPS on the fucking planet. It’s still amazingly fun when you have a highly difficult quest and bring a few friends, though. Back to the game, the atmosphere of Pandora is amazing with even the music of the main planet being a little catchy and entrancing… as it suddenly shifts to a theme of danger meaning that there are enemies nearby and there are enemies aplenty, often also somewhat randomly generated. The bestial skags are pretty annoying in standard form but when they’re able to spit corrosive venom or lightning, they are far worse. There are tons of bandits that are trying to shoot you with weapons just as randomly generated as your own, and even the odd midget (yes, midget), trying to shoot you with a shotgun or run at you with an excited shriek as it tries to chop you to bits, or blow itself up in front of you in an attempt to take you with it. This sounds disturbingly amusing and it is, not to mention satisfying when you pull out a gun and blow the fucking midget’s brains out all over the floor.

you can't spell "skills" without "kills."

As you kill these enemies you actually LEVEL UP like in an actual RPG earning skill points to invest in a “skill tree” which is also reminiscent of most MMOs. The deeper into the skill tree you go the more powerful the abilities become and are usually somewhat affiliated with a role (healing, elemental damage, etc.) You can mix and match to find out what’s right for you and come up with abilities which allow you to heal yourself while invisible and then explode in green acid all over anyone near you once you’re visible again. There are a lot of possibilities here and some people go hardcore into trying to mathematically figure out what does the most damage – to you people: GET A LIFE (and please send your findings to me, kthx).

While the plot rarely has cinematics, what is there is interesting whether you get a call from a strange NPC or find an ECHO recording chronicling a scientist’s slow descent into madness and satisfaction/disappointment the fat girl that was assisting her is now dead. Borderlands has a rather dark, satirical humor, often times referencing other popular action games, science fiction books and/or movies, and you’ll find yourself laughing at just the general weirdness of the population here on planet Pandora whether it’s Scooter, the vehicle store owner who tells you that he was “named after his sister” and that some asshole “ruined his momma’s girl parts,” or Dr. Zed who tells you that you don’t need a real doctor when you have his machines and their scary needles, the humor in this game that randomly appears during quests will definitely appeal to your inner nerd and/or your morbid sick freak.

The face of free healthcare.

The game manages to do all of this without overly flashy or telling cinematic scenes and it comes off very genuine, very new. Many of the things in this game haven’t been done in the same game with just the right chemistry or effectiveness to make it work but Borderlands manages to get the job done.

There are a lot of quests and missions and content, some of it very apparent and some of it cleverly hidden meaning the game will take you a while and Borderlands has just the right amount where it’s not too little to the point you’ll feel it was a waste of money and not too long that you’re begging the game to end. Additionally if you managed to purchase DLC or the Game of the Year edition of the game which comes with it, there are several downloadable scenarios all moderate in length and worth the price of admission, something that is rarely said about downloadable content with each one coming with new areas, missions, and achievements, although Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot is more of an arena/multiplayer add on and somewhat tedious, although it does add extra storage space to the game in the form of a bank where you can store weapons you don’t want to carry with you. Generally you’re made to feel that the developers, Gearbox, had as much fun making Borderlands as the gamers who are playing it and that’s a sincerity often lost by today’s developers.

Graphically the more cell-shaded, comic-like look manages to add to the atmosphere of the game in a world where pretty much every other game is trying to be more realistic, and serious. This game doesn’t take anything seriously and finds nothing sacred and graphically has a more fun, enjoyable look to it – initially the more “drawn” look turns a few people off but seeing it in action is more impressive because the game has its own distinct look that sets it apart. This is definitely one title you can’t judge based on its cover – actually you probably could if the cover was holographic so that the Psycho on the front of the cover exploded into body parts, but since it doesn’t, you can’t judge and just have to trust me on this that Borderlands is worth the price of admission, even now three years later and I am anxiously awaiting the sequel (to kill midgets). If you haven’t played this game yet, and you have a few extra dollars to burn while being skeptical on whether you’ll like the sequel or not this title comes with my highest recommendation. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to buy a Maliwan and light some people on fire!

-- Riv - jasonrivera@jasonrivera.com