Borderlands Game of the Year Edition (PS3, 360, PC) Review

Posted by Trace Aber on 10.30.2010

Borderlands gets its own Game of the Year edition, featuring all of the DLC and some other goodies, which should be more than enough to entice the few people who haven't experienced this great game.


Game: Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition
Genre: FPS/RPG
Players: 1-4
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: 2K Games
Rated M for Mature

Last year, Borderlands was released to high critical praise and boasted nearly infinite weapon combinations, tons of loot, wacky characters, and a great co-op experience, as well as successfully combining first person shooters and role playing games, two of the biggest genres out there, together. One year later, a Game of the Year edition was released, featuring the four downloadable content packs, as well as a few other incentives. While the marketing for this game is geared towards those who have yet to pick up the original, didn’t purchase the DLC, or who really need their Duke Nukeum Forever fix, that doesn’t mean we can’t review it!

For the six of you who aren’t sure what all the fuss is about, Borderlands puts you in the shoes of a bounty hunter on the wasteland of Pandora in search of a mysterious and ancient alien vault, filled with untold riches. The biggest draw of the game is its online capability, which allows up to three of your friends to join you in a game in a hunt to find the ancient vault. While local co-op is supported, the split screen doesn’t do this game justice and, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, isn’t worth playing unless you absolutely have to (or have a large TV).

The planet of Pandora is large and diverse, with the one constant being that just about every living thing in the world is a little disturbed. The enemies you meet are vast and varied, and each enemy type has various levels of difficulty. What this means is that while you might be taking on twenty skags with your group, you’ll be facing skag pups, adult skags, and eventually a Badass Skag. It keeps the game from getting repetitive, because no matter how many guns you have, you want to shoot different things. The enemies don’t differ in just name and stats, they also have various looks to them that help identify who and what they are. Even better, they feature different attacks as well, meaning no two enemies are exactly the same.




You’ll also end up taking on bosses that the term “badass” doesn’t do justice. These can range from guys that just have way too much health (that was my excuse, anyways) to incredible creatures that seem damn near impossible to beat. Of course, when you finally do beat them, you’re usually stuck asking yourself how you didn’t figure it out sooner, and also feeling extremely proud of your accomplishment. This is where having some buddies along the way helps, as playing this game solo is much harder, and not nearly as rewarding. To keep things fair, the difficultly and number of enemies jumps with each player, but to me, the game is hardest alone. Either way, the boss battles do a great job of keeping things fresh and the often rare loot drops are the icing on the cake.

Pandora itself is vast, meaning there’s plenty of exploration to do along the way. Some of the areas can blend together, but there are plenty of diverse spaces such as swamps, urban areas and dungeons to explore as well. A lot of the game takes place in generally wide-open spaces, however, which to me tends to add to the combat experience. When you have four people battling twenty or so enemies, it’s not like you want a really cramped space anyways. Gearbox was smart in recognizing this, because the areas where you are cramped can be more irritating than rewarding. Still, these areas are few and far in between.

Traveling by foot would get old pretty quickly in the world of Pandora, but luckily transportation vehicles abound. Up to two people can be in one vehicle, meaning a lot of the travel time online is done with two people driving and two people manning either machine guns or rocket launchers. You don’t necessarily need to use the vehicles in the game, but they’re an absolute blast and running over groups of bandits while someone else is gunning them down is more fun than it has any right being.

One of the game’s most often praised features is its diversity in guns. There are a ridiculously high number of gun variations you can acquire, as each one is randomly generated using what they call a “Procedural Content Creation System.” Altering firepower, rate of fire, accuracy, elemental effects and other special bonuses, the PCCS is able to generate millions of different gun types, though they are categorized by manufactures and gun types, which give you a rough idea of what to expect from the gun. It can be a bit daunting at first, but after a few hours in you’ll begin to know what weapons are best for your character, and the handy comparison screen that pops up makes it even easier.

Now that I’ve covered the majority of the FPS portion of the game, it’s time I focus on the RPG portion. As you complete missions and take out enemies, you’ll gain experience that allow you to level up. Players choose from one of four characters; Mordecai the hunter, Lilth the siren, Brick the berserker, and Roland the soldier, and each of them has their own separate skill tree. Each character has a primary attack (such as Roland’s sentry turret), and three other skill trees with four tiers. This allows you to create the perfect character for a long standing party, but if you’re dropping in and out of games you might find the skill tree you chose isn’t going to work. Character customization comes down to name and a color change, and how you decide to outfit them with weapons and skills. The RPG elements are there, but does not constitute as the meat in the game. Some of the abilities you earn might not even be noticeable to you, but still impact the game. This will lead some players to choose only those stats that do have noticeable effects…and those characters probably won’t last too long in the world of Pandora.

The game of the year edition includes the four DLC packs that have been released in the last year in the form of a voucher listing all of the unique codes. Entering these four 25-digit codes can be a real pain, but seeing as how it saves you $40, it’s hard to complain about 100 digits.

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned introduces (obviously) zombies to Pandora, 25 new missions and investigating Dr. Ned himself. You’ll explore Jakob’s Cove, which is a colorful, Halloween-themed area that is a nice change of pace from the rest of Pandora. It doesn’t do much to change or add the main game, but it’s more of the great Borderlands experience, and distinct from the rest of the world.




The second DLC is Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, and perhaps the most disappointing. While it does change up gameplay quite a bit, the DLC is nothing more than a series of arena battles. Don’t get me wrong, defeating wave after wave of enemies can be great fun, and they do throw in some modifiers (such as restricting you to only SMGs) to keep it interesting. It’s just that the enemies don’t drop loot, nor do they give you experience points. Sure, you can complete some side quests to fetch some XP, but it’s nothing truly substantial. This is best suited for four players, as the game doesn’t scale and you tend to die a lot by yourself.

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, the biggest DLC, continues the original Borderlands story, increases the level cap to 61, and features new gear, 44 new missions and a slew of other tricks. One of the best parts about it are the three new vehicles, including the Lancer that holds four players. You’ll be doing a lot of driving in this one, which can get tiresome, but it’s not enough to ruin the experience. It also features some of the game’s most difficult enemies, including one that pretty much forces you to reach the new level cap with three friends. Of course, you’re rewarded with the chance of getting an item so rare that it requires its own level of rarity.

Finally, we have Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution, which was released just last month. There’s a rogue Claptrap on the loose and you must stop him and his robot-brethren. This one, along with General Knoxx, has the best humor of the DLC packs, and feels like a true add-on to the world of Pandora. It’s not as beefy as General Knoxx, but the short story is supplemented by facing various enemies you’ve defeated in the past, and is filled with little nods and winks here and there. You’ll get twenty new missions in total, which should fill up a bit of time.

Purchases of the GOTY edition will also receive a fold out map of Pandora, which I currently have hanging on my wall. It looks nice, though it’s not the most practical map of the game. It also features entrance to the Duke Nukeum Forever Early Access Club, which grants players early access (go figure) to the Duke Nukem Forever demo. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there’s no release date for that demo.

Pros
-Same great Borderlands action
-All four DLC packs included ($40 saving)


Cons
-All of the DLC takes up 4.5 gigs of hard drive space


The 411
Borderlands proved to be one of the best games of 2009, and for those who missed out, this is your chance to find out what everyone else has been talking about. There’s very little not to like about Borderlands, and a ton of things to love. The co-op is great, there’s loot everywhere, tons of weapons, huge, vast worlds, slews of enemies, vehicular combat and a zany cast of characters. The game has a great sense of humor about itself and isn’t afraid to admit it. You might have to free up some hard drive space, but trust me – it’s absolutely worth it.

Graphics	8.5	The game uses cel-shading perfectly to create a unique and interesting world
Gameplay	9.0	Whether you play with friends or play alone, this is a great game for players of all skills
Sound	8.5	Everything sounds great and really help flesh out the world
Lasting Appeal	10.0	Here's the thing - you get the base game, and all four DLC packs, all of which can be played through twice. And there's four characters to choose from. If this doesn't last you, nothing will
Fun Factor	9.5	I can't think of a time where I didn't enjoy playing Borderlands, though some bosses can be so frustrating that you want to put the controller down. Still, this game is made of awesome and fun.
Overall	9.0   [  Amazing ]

Screenshots
All 10 Borderlands Screenshots