Borderlands

So, I haven't technically finished the game, nor have I even played any other character class besides Mordecai, the sniper. Still, I think I've played enough hours now to get a good feel for the game.

Borderlands takes place on the bandit-ridden world of Pandora. In a brief initial cinematic, you choose which of four classes you would like to play as. Mordecai, the sniper, Roland, the soldier, Lilith, the Siren (relies on elemental attacks and teleportation), and Brick, the berserker (fists and explosives). Each class comes with their own special ability and skill trees. For example, Mordecai's ability is to summon Bloodwing, a bird that flies out and attacks a target you designate. His skill trees are essentially oriented towards either sniping, improving Bloodwing, or pistols.

After choosing you're dropped off in your first town, Fyrestone. You arrive just in time to find it overrun by bandits, and have to kill them all and save the town. This is when you begin to discover the true magic of the game. Remember Diablo 2? How it consumed many of our souls for years and years, and still continues to be awesome? And how most of that was because of the massive randomization of weapons, equipment, and maps? Well, while the maps are the same, Borderlands uses the same kind of randomization for weapons and shields, allowing for a total of approximately 17 million weapons.

17...MILLION. And with the new expansion packs it can only be assumed that number has increased.

The main story is actually that you're in the search of some kind of Vault that contains unimaginable treasure, and a mystical Guardian Angel speaks to you to tell you what you need to do to reach it. Along the way you help rid Pandora of hordes upon hordes of gangs and weird but deadly wildlife. At least, that's supposed to be the story. But really this whole game is one long quest for better loot. There are TONS of side quests along the main one, some promising their own unique weapons, but the funny thing is that often by the time you finish one of these quests you've actually found a random drop that's better than the quest one. Nonetheless, there are still some quite funny things you do (unclogging crap from some pipes is one example) that make each quest different and fun to go on.

The terrible thing about this is that just like Diablo 2, it's terribly addicting. You're always on the search for something better, and the good drops are random enough to keep you going for hours. Not only that, but once you've played through the game you're allowed to go through again just with harder enemies (Nightmare difficulty anyone?), and once you've done that...you can do it again (Hell difficulty). Technically there's 4 person online co-op that I haven't tried yet, which could add all sorts of fun to it, but the single player campaign is enough to keep you hunting for a long long time.

The graphics aren't that great honestly. Yes, I realize they're "stylized" but it mostly looks like an excuse to not focus as much on it. The settings all look similar as well. Perhaps this will change as I move into new areas, but the first two are both bland desert with rocks and some weird plant life. Oh, and some caves. There are vehicles you can ride around that not only make it easier to move around the giant maps, but also make it ridiculously easy to take out anything you come across by running it over. Unfortunately, at least on PC, it suffers from the same ridiculous mechanics as Resistance, where you push forward or back to accelerate or reverse, but it will only do it in the direction the camera is facing, creating endless annoyance as you try to strafe and can't. Thankfully it at least lets you lock on to enemies, making it somewhat easier, but still it's a hassle.

Essentially Borderlands takes Diablo 2's randomization, plugs it into an FPS with RPG elements, and then sits back and leaves you on a mad search for better guns. Still, the characters are funny, the battles are challenging, and even though I know that the entire game is essentially one big experiment in variable reinforcement, it's still a whole lot of fun.

Borderlands gets an 8/10.