Borderlands is a sci-fi role-playing shooter developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. Famous for having a bazillion guns to choose from, Borderlands takes you to the planet Pandora in search of the Vault. Is it worth your time finding the Vault? Find out what makes or breaks this game.

Requirements

• Microsoft Windows
• 2.4GHz or equivalent processor
• 1GB RAM
• 256MB graphics card or better
• 8GB HDD free space
• Keyboard/Mouse
• Compatible soundcard
• Internet connection (COOP)

Installation

Buying Borderlands from Steam, I was able to pre-load the game quite early. All I had to do was wait for the day it was released (Oct 26, 2009) and bam! Time to play. If you look at your My Games folder under the Documents folder in Vista, you'll see the Borderlands folder where you can change a couple of settings i.e. skipping the intro movies. So keep that in mind before you start the game up. Who knows, you might want to change some settings before playing.

First Impressions

I've always been a fan of cel-shaded animation and one of these was one of the first things I noticed while playing Borderlands. The game looks amazing but I guess it's either you absolutely love it or you absolutely hate it. A lot of people are complaining about the field of view, they said it's giving them headaches but I've never actually experienced this. Maybe I just don't notice it but I believe the game just looks fine. I also don't get any headaches, so who knows.

I was greeted by the famous Claptraps, a robot that helps you while you are inside friendly towns. Thinking ahead, I thought I was going to see some action after 15+ minutes. I was wrong though! Action started right after the game starts or when you save your character. Good thing I looked at the controls first before playing the game. Otherwise my character would have died already.

Singleplayer

The controls aren't flimsy at all for me. others will probably need some time getting used to it but having playing other games based on the Unreal Engine 3 I was pretty much at home. I choose Lilith as my character since I really wanted to try out her Phasewalk ability wherein you get to make yourself invisible for a couple of seconds and (possibly) do some ninja moves like assassinating your enemy from behind! Moving around Borderlands and trying to look for items or item boxes was really hard at first try. My eyes weren't trained yet to look for boxes/cabinets with a green light. They all blended perfectly with the environment.

It's not all rainbows and butterflies playing Borderlands though especially when your character dies (I know...I'm a n00b). When your character dies, every single enemy that you've fought would have their health back at 100%. That's really annoying especially if you were running away and you somehow manage to die just right up front of your respawn area bringing with you a couple of your enemies. So each time you respawn, their HP's back at 100%.

Having the monsters and bandits respawn after sometime was also quite annoying especially when you quit and then reloaded your game. I don't really know what Gearbox was thinking but I guess they want you to always be in the lookout or something? I hate it though. I absolutely hate it. I hate going back to an area and end up cleaning it up again and again.

Multiplayer

As of the time of this writing, there's a couple of problems with Borderlands online play. Several players were losing their achievement and skill points right after playing an online game with other players. That's something I don't want to happen especially when I've spent more than 12+ hours already with this game. I myself was having problems because everytime I login with my GameSpy ID, the game just crashes and yep, you guessed it right I can't play COOP right now. Hopefully Gearbox fixes these issues.

Final Thoughts

You know, Borderlands would have been a great game if it weren't for the irritating thing where all of the monsters and bandits respawn again right after you load your game. It was a hit or miss with players and frankly, it was a big miss for me. Again, having to kill the monsters and bandits again in an area where I just wiped clean a couple of minutes ago before lunch break is just downright annoying.

 

Ratings

Installer - Steam lets you pre-load the game. I was able to download the game off the Steam servers before it got hit hard when the game was released.

Graphics - Cel-shaded animation definitely takes the cake home! This game definitely looks different that most of the games out there, but it's different in a good way.

Sound - Sometimes, the game will play a background music it thinks will suit the current situation your character is in i.e. while killing bandits. It could backfire on you though if you kill the bandits fast enough since the music will still be playing.

Gameplay - When you're played the game for more than 10+ hours now, you'll notice four things that just breaks the game. First the AI is just lackluster, almost 90% of the time, the enemy will come down running straight at you. Second, after awhile the bazillion guns start to feel familiar with each other. Third, if you quit the game and then you load it up again, most of the monsters and bandits that you've just killed last session are back making you kill them again if you just want to visit that place again. And last but certainly not the least what happened to plot and character development?