Borderlands

Borderlands is a game that slipped under my radar. I was aware of it, I’d heard murmurings. People had asked me about it. I’m ashamed to say I might have fobbed them off a bit. A week before the game launched I got a phone call from Kirsten, then an IM from Simon, then a txt message from Walter. They all said more or less the same thing. “We NEED to play Borderlands Co-op”. As you would expect I sat up and started to pay attention. I devoured some trailers and previews, read up on the leveling system and classes and poured over a ton of screenshots. This was a game I needed to play and I needed to play it with friends, I love a bit of Co-op.

Borderlands is that rare type of game that manages to mix genres into a seamless hybrid. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shooter at its core but this is no Halo or Unreal Tournament clone. The lazy comparison is Fallout 3 but when you think about it there is very little in common other than the post-apocalyptic setting. For me Borderlands is obviously inspired by the current generation of PC MMOs – quest hubs, looting, item collection, huge open play areas, talent trees and of course multiplayer. Not massively multiplayer but still, this is an FPS/WoW-Lite combo and it really works.

Borderlands drops you into the game with a few starter quests to get you going and then leaves you to it.  You head into the world to shoot, collect, drive and blow up stuff to your heart’s content. At any point you can invite a friend to join you on your quest with the game scaling the challenge as your team of players grows. Quests are usually short and simple, weapons are awesome and plentiful, leveling is consistent and rewarding. This game is a lot of fun.

As I understand it, Borderlands was originally conceived with a realistic art style. In development this was changed to the cell-shaded style of the final game and it works well. There is little to moan about visually. All that gushing praise aside there are a few issues I should touch on. The main campaign is fairly short but does lend itself to multiple playthroughs with the different classes. On several occasions I have managed to get myself trapped within the scenery but I will admit I was ‘fucking about a bit’ every time this happened.

Finally, and this is my only major gripe, tracking quests and map usage could have done with some improvement. You can only see the map for your current area and you can only track one quest at a time so getting a few quests done in one trip can become an exercise in switching quests and memorising locations. As you level you will gain the ability to fast travel. I assumed this would be an end to this nonsense but as quests do not specifically mention travel locations it doesn’t help that much. Even your map quest tracker only points to the area exit you need to take. This left me a quite frustrated and wanting to print out a giant map of the game to stick on my wall.