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

Razer is one of the best companies for gaming mice, together with logitech. The reason I purchased a Razer mouse instead of a Logitech one is because Logitech mice are known to emit a Very high pitched sound.

Content of the Box

After I got home I opened the box, it’s made of quality cardboard and the box is sealed by a circular patch of sticky tape like stuff. After cutting through this and opening you have the mouse in plastic.

And on the backside of this plastic thing there’s a cardboard thing attached, containing the manual and some other things.

This cardboard thing can be opened and it contains a few things: the manual, a certificate of authenticity and the driver CD.

After this I opened the plastic thing and took my brand new mouse out.

Installation

So after unpacking everything I plugged in the mouse and started the driver installation. Clicked next a few times, set the installation directory and let it run. The first 2 times I ran it it tended to disappear and didn’t finish installing. The third time however if popped up properly instead of minimizing without coming back. It seemed it was asking to install Raptr (More on that in a separate paragraph) so I installed it and just let the installation run.

After that I had to reboot, and once everything booted up again I could check out the driver menu. I have to say it looks pretty cool, and the features are also pretty neat. Ofcourse the first thing I did was set the polling speed to 1000hz (1ms), and after this I had to reboot again.

So after rebooting again I started up the configuration again and set my side buttons to increase DPI and decrease DPI, after that I decided to start up Call of Duty 2.

Performance & Comfort

So time to try this baby out in a game. After launching COD2 and joining a server I immediately noticed that it’s a lot more precise then my old mouse (a Logitech EX110) and that it’s a lot easier to rapidly move it. My scores on COD2 were substantially better compared to when I played with the EX110.

It has some special foot thingies so that it glides a lot easier, and it also does compared to my old EX110. the mouse also fits perfectly to my hand, it’s comfortable and it has an anti-slip layer on the top that makes sure you’ll never loose grip.

Durability

The mouse is build from high quality plastic and it has a solid feel to it. Even the mouse buttons feel like they’re high quality and will last a lifetime. The only thing that might wear out is the anti-slip coating, but time will tell.

Conclusion

The Razer Deathadder is a great mouse and that for a good price, at the time of writing this article it costs 60$ on the Razer website and I paid 50 euros for it in a store in Breda. It’s comfortable, precise and fast, and feels very durable. So I’m very positive about it and till now I love it, if I encounter any problems with it I’ll write about it but I doubt it. So I say if you’re looking for a good gaming mouse go for the Razer Deathadder.

In this review we’re taking a look at the “Logitech Digital Precision Gaming Headset” it’s an entry-level pc gaming headset, and the name sounds like it’s a good product, and lastly, and it looks pretty impressive. Logitech sais it’s designed for casual and pro gamers. But is it really that good as it looks and sounds ?

Specifications

• Frequency response:
• Headset: 20 Hz–20 kHz
• Microphone: 100 Hz–16 kHz
• Input sensitivity: -58 dBV/µbar, -38 dBV/Pa +/- 4 dB
• Speaker size: 40mm
• Cable length: 10 feet
• Connections: USB and dual gold-plated, analog 3.5mm

Comfort

After opening the box the first thing I did was try it on. The first thing I noticed is that headset is worn with the head thingie in your neck instead of the usual on top of your head. so I tried it on and well it wasn’t very comfortable, tried rotating it a bit, etc. but it just didn’t feel right (and it’s also kind of heavy), I asked my mom to try it on too, she did and was also trying to make it fit comfortably, but to no avail. it just isn’t comfortable. She said it might just need some “Getting used to”, after this I was already dissapointed so I decided to google a few reviews on it.

So I read to a few reviews to find out 90% of the reviews say: it’s uncomfortable, sounds like shit, and is heavy. as I’ve concluded myself.

Sound

Haven’t even tried this after reading  the reviews, but according to most it’s crap.

Conclusion

This headset is nothing but a waste of money. It’s uncomfortable, has bad sound quality, and the price is high for such a crap product. I didn’t even test the sound. if you want a cheap headset get a cheap Trust Headset and if you want a good gaming headset go for a Sennheiser (Thinking about getting the PC 151).

Please give me some feedback on how I did in writing a review, or if you want to say something about the headset feel free to do that to.