Gearbox’s Borderlands arrives in a cloud of dust, post-apocalyptic trappings, and an extreme attitude. Borderlands is an RPG by way of a very carefully designed FPS. You could call it a “Roll Playing Shooter,” if you were so inclined, but its heart lies with the shooting, and never the roll playing.
The game is most often compared to Diablo and its successors, or baring that, Fallout 3. While both of these comparisons have their merits, neither of them conveys the peculiar sentiments that drive Borderlands. They scratch the surface of this rather shallow game, but prove inadequate when used as critiquing tools in any more thoughtful capacity.
From its (unskippable) opening cutscene to every one of its mid-game cinematics, Borderlands is both conversant in a brand of schlocky genre references and a forced brand of cool. The catchy, grating “Their Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” accompanies said cinematic, and is perfectly emblematic of just how “cool” Borderlands wants you to know it is.
While this tone often feels forced, the game does have its own carefully modulated version of unhinged humor. Enemies, vehicles, fonts, and voices are all exuberant in their presentation. More outrageous still is the ease and destructive creativity with which you can off your enemies. Killing is never boring in Borderlands, it is everything else that you have to stay awake through.
Rest assured, you will destroy a lot of things in Borderlands. The game has a body count that makes Call of Duty and Halo look small. Enemies constantly spawn around you, and will often respawn if you enter and exit one of the larger hubs. It is very much a shooter take on the Diablo looting mechanic. You will kill innumerable hordes of space dogs, space mutants, space raiders, and space spiders. And then you will pick through the weapons and items they drop.
Borderlands really revolves around two things: shooting and guns. While these two might sound similar, they are not. The combat is really the only method of interacting with the world (aside from all of those important conversations started by pressing “E”), and thus it is important that it be enjoyable.
It is, thankfully. Gearbox has been making and modifying shooters since their inception, and it shows in Borderlands. They are at the top of their game (and really, the industry’s game) shooting feels great, and the enemies are carefully modulated to give you a tough fight, whether they’re melee chargers, snipers, or a cross of the two. Shooting things just feels great. Any kind of damage done to an enemy appears as colored numbers over their head. This is both a clever reference to the game’s RPG parents, and a humorous way to boldly throw damage (and your own violent power) into stark relief.
Of course, if you just had seven set guns like a more traditional FPS, the game would get old fast. That is why Gearbox made Borderlands into a gun creator. The game has the capacity to randomly generate an impressive number of guns, all with unique (mostly abilities). Guns can be categorized by make (certain manufacturers favor fast reloads, while others enjoy elemental damage), by performance, and by look. They are the most important things in this game. They make the combat exciting and ever changing, and they provide you with tactile, visually exciting snapshots of your progress through the game.
Every new gun possesses better stats, or exciting new abilities, or just makes an amazing sound when fired. This game is like a Diablo version of Black. Guns are everything to it, and it never takes itself seriously (although it takes its lack of seriousness very seriously). Borderlands is lucky to have this vast host of weapons with which it can dazzle us gamers: it has absolutely nothing else to offer us.
As an RPG, Borderlands is a paltry offering. The four different characters each possess a different Main skill, around which many of their other skills revolve. Brick the Tank has a berserker melee attack, Lilith the Siren has an AOE phase walking power, Mordecai the Sniper can call upon a vicious raven to attack his enemies, and Roland the Soldier can set up a deadly turret in the field.
While these powers all revolve around different methods of killing things, the characters’ secondary skills never allow them to really head off in their own direction, build-wise. In fact, the secondary skills that don’t align with your main power are generally focused on several kinds of guns. Thus, a soldier can specialize in rifles and shotguns, while the sniper can invest points in revolvers and pistols or sniper rifles.
When you get to higher levels, it becomes apparent that Gearbox has created an amazingly addictive action RPG where the traditional RPG elements are not that important. The guns are your skills, your levels, and your new abilities, all rolled in one. While you might use your main power to kill enemies or support friends, your guns are your best friends. Elemental damage, critical chance, reload speed, special abilities (unlimited ammo, say), and other attributes make all guns exciting, vital parts of the game. It helps that each gun just looks cool, no matter what it looks like.
The world of Borderlands is dead, in every way. The game may be outlandish and exaggerated in its presentation, but as a world, it is extremely uninteresting. There is nothing to interact with (besides the countless chests), and you can only talk to people who have quests for you. Even Diablo 2 – a game whose ludicrously self-important plot should be held up as an example of hackneyed storytelling – let you talk to NPCs and learn a bit about the world you were exploring.
This might not seem like much, but it makes all the difference. In Diablo, Titan Quest, and many other RPGs, the people you meet are part of the environment. There voices add little tidbits to the overall feel of the game world. The NPCs of Borderlands might as well be robotic quest vending machines. In fact, it is telling that you will often forget who gave you a quest: the computerized “Bounty Board” or some badly characterized NPC.
Borderlands attempts to mitigate the creeping boredom created by its failings by allowing you to play four-player co-op. This is a smart move. With three other people, the game becomes extremely fun. It will even stave off boredom for an extra twenty levels or so, if you can stick it out.
With other players, Borderlands' countless (and increasingly boring) enemies grow stronger and more numerous. Battles become hectic, entertaining spectacles, with powers, guns, and grenades going off every half second. It’s one of the best things about the game, at least as good as its abundance of weapons.
Unfortunately, Gearbox shipped the game in a “completed” state that resembles nothing so much as a car crash. Getting multiplayer up and running involves an unpleasant port forwarding ritual (that must be repeated if you have more than one machine you want to host on in your house). Even then, it is impossible to turn off in-game voice chat, making more popular (and versatile) communication options redundant. You cannot trade items between players; you must drop them on the ground. You also are not allowed to see your friends’ inventories. What ensues is a complicated dance, whereby you and your friends spend long minutes asking each other who needs what and when will you be able to drop that gun you don’t need.
What is especially galling is the revelation that Gearbox included instructions for their unpleasant port forwarding minigames in the readme for the game. They made a broken game, they sent it to us, and then they told us how to fix it and washed their hands of the whole thing. Once you get past the inventory problems, you will face another inconvenience: if you complete every quest with your friends, you will be hugely overpowered from about level 25 to 35. The later levels ratchet up the difficulty a bit, but you will still tear through most enemies with ease. Even worse, starting from the second main hub (New Haven) until you start a New Game +, you will find crappy, forgettable guns. In a game that lives by its guns, this sucks even more fun out of the experience.
The game is unbalanced and broken, and after 40 or so hours, the thought of returning to it makes me sick. Take what you will from that: I played it more than I have played many games in the past months, and yet I despise it. It is by no means a bad game: it just doesn’t deserve to be as fun as it is.
The Good:
We’ve got guns here!: You will find amazing, exciting, dangerous, fantastical guns everywhere. It never gets old.
Oooh, Pretty!: The world may be inert, but the effects, characters and landscape pop with a certain brand of color. It will get old quickly, but when you first play, you might spend minutes looking at beautiful rocks. I did.
The Bad:
I want a game that works: For PC players (and for some console players), various parts of the game are broken. And they want me to fix it!
The Ugly:
There Ain’t No Rest… Oh Wait, I’m Done: This is the kind of game you will be obsessed with for a few days. You will play it obsessively. Then you will wake up and quit, as fast as possible. There is absolutely nothing to this game after you’ve had your fun the first time through.
Playthrough: Played various co-op campaigns for a total of 40 hours, beating the game with a Siren. Played using a purchased Steam copy.
Recommendation: I did play this game for close to two full days, so this is a strange thing to say: buy Borderlands with the full knowledge that its fire burns bright and fast, and when its gone you will feel betrayed and disappointed in yourself. It’s not a bad game, you just will not believe how much time you sunk into it before wising up.
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