General Info
Background Info
Borderlands is set on the planet of Pandora. Lured by its apparent vast deposits of minerals, several colonization ships journey to the planet and create a society there. However, they soon discover that there is little else of value on the planet except for the presence of alien ruins. Those who are rich enough to do so left the planet, leaving the rest of the population to scavenge for themselves. While some isolated settlements were formed, much of the rest of the colonists became bandits, living out in the barren wastelands or trashheaps across the planet. Further investigation of the alien artifacts leads to the discovery of “The Vault” – a supposed treasure trove of alien artifacts, technology, and of unimaginable wealth – but those that had discovered it were wiped out by a protective force, leaving few clues as to its location or purpose but creating a myth of its marvellous treasures, you’ll be trying to find this vault and acquire the riches that lie within.
Characters
The game starts out in a bus where you have to pick 1 out of 4 available characters: Brick, a Berserker strong with his fists and capable of entering berserker mode which makes him almost invincible and able to kill almost anything that moves with his fists. Mordecai, a hunter who can summon his pet Bloodwing, a bird of prey that attacks his enemies from above, and he’s also skilled with either a sniper or handguns. Lilith, a siren that can Phasewalk, with which she can enter another dimension and then reappearing in a group of enemies causing a shockwave blast. And Roland, a soldier that can deploy an auto-firing turret with a shield around it.
Gameplay
After you chose your character you’ll exit the bus near the town of Fyrestone where you’ll be greeted by a little robot known as a Claptrap. after this some bandits attack the town and you’ll have to get rid of em. You’ll start out with a weapon relevant to your class of choice, and you’ll be able to pick-up a handgun shortly after.
So I entered the town and was attacked by a few bandits, being the first enemies in the game they die pretty quickly with a few headshots from my Sniper Rifle, the controls are intuitive and are slowly introduced at the beginning of the game.
The questing mechanism is easy to use and thought out well, you’ll have a diamond in your HUD that shows where to go for the quest and you can also find it back on your map.
Shops are done in the form of vending machines: one for weapons, one for ammo, and one for healing related items. You can also sell items to them and there’s a buyback tab if you ever sell something by accident. These vending machines are plenty throughout the game and can be found at the entrance of almost all zones.
When you die you’ll be returned to the last checkpoint you’ve been at these are poles that will either be colored green or red depending on if it’s the last checkpoint you’ve been to.
You’ll also get a quest to fix the catch-a-ride station, this will give you access to a vehicle (Car) with either a Rocket Launcher or Machine Gun. The colours can be customized and you have a boost button.
Loot
In Borderlands there’s a huge amount of different weapons and mods, just like Diablo it has a random loot generation system that makes sure you almost never get the same weapon, some even have Elemental damage, and for everyone there’ll be a gun to your liking.
Multiplayer
I started out with the single player but as soon as my brother got home I installed borderlands on his PC and we started co-op. The game is intended to be played with multiple people. The enemy’s strength and loot quality will be adjusted to the amount of players (Max. 4) and the level of these players. Money found will be shared between the players and other items are kept by the one that picks em up.
Now there’s a few things in the multiplayer that are missing: There’s no way to trade items (Except dropping them), You can’t trade money or ammo, and there’s no loot distribution system. Now the last thing will only be a problem when playing online with some ninja looter, but it would’ve been nice if it was implemented
Graphics
A while before the release the developers of borderlands decided to switch from a realistic to a cell-shaded style. Many found this a bad decision it actually looks pretty good, and I doubt that I would’ve played borderlands this long if it weren’t shell shaded.
The graphics fit, even though it’s a bloody shooter the shell-shaded style looks good. The world is shapen nicely (Well for a desert) and the graphics just work. I’m just not a fan of barren lands (Deserts) and alike, but that’s just a matter of taste.
Conclusion
Borderlands is a great and addictive game, the scenery just looks good even though it’s shell-shaded and even with the shortcomings of the multiplayer it’s still a great game. I’ve stopped playing after a good 8-10 hours because it started feeling repetitive, however most people say the game is just starting after playing for 8 hours so I might play some more in the near future.
System Requirements
| Intel Processor |
Pentium 4 2.4GHz |
| AMD Processor |
Athlon XP 2400+ |
| Nvidia Graphics Card |
Geforce 8600 GS |
| ATI Graphics Card |
Radeon X850 Series |
| RAM Memory |
2 GB |
| Hard Disk Space |
8 GB |
| Direct X |
9 |
Update (August 2010)
I had picked up Borderlands again a while ago to play with a friend, we finally completed the main storyline and the Zombie Island expansion, I can highly recommend zombie island I really enjoyed playing it.
We have now lost interest again because the other DLCs are quite hard to do and we don’t feel like playing the storyline again, still the game enjoyed us for over 40 hours so it’s an awesome game.
Even though Winter Veil started at the 15th I just recently logged in to play again, I had a dream last night that made me reactivate my subscription and so far I’ve been enjoying it a lot.