Borderlands (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Adam Larck on 11.10.2009

How does an FPS and RPG mix? Find out inside.



Title: Borderlands
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: FPS/RPG
Players: 1-2 (1-4 Online)
Rated: M for Mature

Borderlands comes to the table with an interesting premise: a hybrid of the FPS and RPG genres. These two genres seem like they should never be together, yet Gearbox has put together a great game here. Read on to find out more about it.

Gameplay:

I want to first touch on the games main selling point: the near infinite amount of guns there are to find. The game actually pulls stats and abilities from a database and compiles them into a gun you can pick up. The guns have varying attack, accuracy and firing rates, and can also have elemental effects like burn, blast, caustic and shock.

There are actually eight main types of guns to find: shotguns, revolvers, repeater pistols, launchers, snipers, SMGs, combat rifles and Eridian weapons. With the exception of the alien Eridian weapons, which have infinite ammo that recharges, each type has its own ammo that you can upgrade to hold more of. Ammo can be found nearly everywhere, from enemies you kill to inside toilets.

Each gun also has a different kind of rarity: white, green, blue, purple and orange. While it should be the better the rarity the better the gun of a same level, that isn’t always the case. Often, the best guns I found were blue, green or even white rarity, not the top two.

Originally, you can only equip two guns, but by playing through the main storyline you can eventually equip four. Each gun is mapped to a direction on the D-Pad, so you can cycle through guns with Y or just hit the direction of the gun you want.

In the game, there are four different classes to use, each with their strengths on certain guns and special ability to learn at level five. The classes are soldier, siren, hunter, and Brick, which is basically a tank. The soldier can summon a turret that can help heal and resupply ammo to players while damaging enemies, while the siren can phasewalk to sneak by enemies and damage them going into and out of the phasewalk. It can also heal or cause elemental damage.

The other two abilities, summoning a bloodwing to attack an enemy by the hunter and berserker mode for Brick, were decent, but just didn’t compare to the siren or soldier. The hunter’s ability at least became more beneficial once leveled up, but the Brick’s just didn’t fit in. Using your fist in a gunfight just doesn’t seem like the best idea, and wasn’t really good in use. Abilities can get elemental effects added as well.

Each class can also get various class mods that can be equipped. A lot of these have team effects like healing teammates or supplying ammo. I had the latter one, and the ammo recharged quick enough that my team never ran out.

Every level after five will also give you a skill point to put in one of three trees for each character. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses that are useful depending what type of player you are. Also, you can get various buffs that activate for a short while once you kill an enemy from these trees. Personally, I was a soldier class that focused mainly on healing. Being able to heal your teammates by shooting them came in handy later on in the game.

Another thing about leveling is that each time you level, you automatically get more health, guns do more damage and your health and shield gets recharged. There are 50 levels to go through in the game, and the farther you get the longer it takes to level. Also, each gun proficiency can be leveled as well to give that gun time more damage or more accuracy, among other things.

A quick rundown of the storyline is that these people are helping the Guardian Angel to open the Vault in the world to discover whatever lies inside. To do so, you help the citizens there with various main and side quests to complete for money, experience and items.

Throughout the game, there are various vending machines you can purchase various items from. You can also sell items from your pack here to free up space. You can get backpack upgrades from Clap Traps (little robots) you rescue in the game.

To help you travel quicker, you can use cars to get around or the fast travel system. The only problem with these is that the cars can’t be taken into many of the areas in the game and gets stuck easy, and the fast travel system has to be unlocked during a quest and can only be used from a New-U station.

Speaking of the New-U station, these allow you to change the color scheme of your character (you can’t actually change their look) as well as resetting skill points for a bit of money.

I want to finally talk on another main point I’ve been putting off: the multiplayer. While the single player is decent, multiplayer really makes this game. Depending on how many players you have in, the game will spawn more enemies and harder levels to take you on. Players get the same amount of money and experience, but items go to one person. This can be easily decided by either a duel between two people or an arena battle.

Completing missions in one game can carry over to your own, but it’s important to go into the game of the player the least into the main quest. That way, everyone can advance the storyline at the same time and get the experience.

Another interesting feature in the game is the Second Wind. If you lose all your health, before you respawn at a checkpoint you go in Second Wind. If you kill an enemy, or a teammate revives you, you can come back with a small amount of health to keep fighting. Each time you get downed successively the Second Wind time before you respawn becomes smaller.

Even after you beat the game, you can unlock Playthrough 2 and eventually Playthrough 3. Each of these is the same as the original, but enemy levels are jumped up substantially to match your own. Not only this, but the enemies also start dropping better items.

Overall, the gameplay did a nice job of combining both genres. There’s just enough RPG to create a level of strategy, yet it still feels like an FPS. I really liked the freedom given in the game, plus playing with teammates just really made this game great.

Graphics:

The cel-shading style used in this game really worked well. The enemies are detailed and unique, and the environments are amazing to see. Each of the main characters and bosses also has a unique look, and the bosses were interesting to see.

Speaking of unique, most of the guns have a distinct look as well. Whether it’s a different color scheme or scopes on them, almost all guns will look different from similar guns you will find elsewhere.

Also, the Guardian Angel occasionally pops up in the HUD to talk to you about the main quest. The way they designed this, like a grainy T.V. image, is a nice touch that plays into the game later on.

The cutscenes in the game are good and interesting to watch as well. I especially like the boss ones that show them and normally a humorous saying beneath their names. However, the one problem with these is that you can’t skip them. Even if it’s your second playthrough, you’ll still have to sit there and watch them in their entirety.

There are a few technical problems that hurt the graphics. Whenever you kill one of the midgets, they instantly become one of the normal sized enemies when they die. I’m not really sure why this is, but it just seems like a glitch that wasn’t fixed.

The biggest problem, however, is that when you first travel to a new area, it can take a bit for the environment to actually render the graphics. Until then, everything will be blurry on the screen. I’m guessing this is due to the amount of stuff the game is trying to load at once to cut down on loading in an area, but it still looks bad for the short while it’s not rendered.

These problems aside, the graphics still look good and Borderlands does a nice job blending cel-shading into the game.

Sound:

First off, I want to start off by saying I really like the song they choose for the commercial and opening cutscene. I thought the beat really fit the mood, and it was just great to listen to it.

In the game, the dialogue is good and often interesting to listen to. Most people just have a few generic phrases to say, like traditional RPGs, but the main characters normally have a decent amount of variety and can say some humorous things as well.

Probably the most interesting character to listen to is the Clap Traps. They not only help you out by telling when someone has a new quest to accept, but often are fun to listen to when you find the first one. However, the dialogue for them never changes throughout the game.

Also, the sound effects in the game are also good. There is a decent variety of sounds for the broad array of guns. Plus, the various enemies in the game sound good as well. Whether it’s a bandit or creature, you’ll know what’s coming and how to react by sound alone.

The music in the game isn’t really much to listen to. It’s just a bit of instrumental there basically to have something playing. Still, the dialogue and sound effects more than make up for this.

Lasting Appeal:

There are quite a bit of quests to do in each area, plus various Clap Traps to rescue to get increased bag space or other items, depending on your playthrough.

For completionists, there are 50 levels to obtain and a near infinite number of guns to find to equip. With the ability to group up with friends and take on various difficulties of enemies, you’ll have a lot of game to play here before you even start to get bored.

Fun Factor:

The game is fun enough when you’re by yourself, but becomes amazing once you add friends into the game. Being able to team up with them and develop strategies to take out enemies is nice. It’s also great to be able to develop class systems to help complement each other. Even the duels and arena battles that can be done are a nice touch that gives you a change from the ordinary.

Even if you aren’t a team player, the environments have plenty to see to keep you entertained, and some of the comments are interesting to hear as well. There was never any times where I actually got tired with the game.

The 411:

Gearbox has done a great job with combining FPS and RPG elements to make Borderlands. The guns you can find will always have you looking for something better, plus the skill trees will allow for customization to take place with characters. The game really comes alive when you have friends join in with you. A must have game for FPS fans, and a game that everyone should at least check out.

Graphics	8.0	The cel-shading looks great in the game. However, there are a few graphical glitches and rendering when coming into a new section that hampers the score.
Gameplay	9.0	The gameplay is simple for non-FPS fans to pick up, yet offers a variety of ways to take enemies out. Plus, it really shines once you get three other friends helping you out.
Sound	8.5	The dialogue in the game is good, and the sound effects are nice to listen to. Plus, there is a broad array of sounds to go with the variety of guns.
Lasting Appeal	9.5	Even after you beat the entire game, a second, harder playthrough opens up to get better weapons and a higher level. Also, the game never got boring when you were playing with other friends.
Fun Factor	9.5	Whether it was just grinding levels with friends or exploring the landscape, I was always having fun with this game. There’s a great time to be had here.
Overall	8.9   [ Very Good ]

Screenshots
All 3 Borderlands Screenshots