Brutal Gamer

Borderlands (Xbox 360) Review

By Zeth - November 20, 2009 - 12:31 UTC

A BrutalGamer.com review.

You have to admire Gearbox’s persistence.  After the poor financial performance, of the actually pretty good, Brother in Arms: Hell’s Highway they took a big chance with their latest title.  Not only did they hang their future on a new IP but Gearbox decided to junk the entire art style of the game 12 months before release.  A pretty damn brave move and an absolute master stroke, but we will explore that a little later on.

Borderlands has been given many snappy summations over the past few months.  ”Diablo2′esque”, “Resistance 2’s co-op expanded”, “FPS RPG”, “RPS (RolePlaying Shooter” and the list goes on.  What they should of said was that Borderlands is completely bat-shit crazy and the ultimate party game for people who like to get their gun on.  Seriously this game is nuts but of so much fun!  What this basically boils down to is an interesting hybrid of FPS and RPG, the likes of which was attempted in Fallout 3.  Enough of that for now, lets get the paper thin premise and plot out of the way shall we.

Borderlands has you picking from a selection of 4 characters to start the game.  Roland, your a-typical grunt/soldier who is good at weapons play.  Brick is your standard Beserker class type specialising in close combat and melee combat.  Lilith, the Siren is basically a Mage/assassin class and finally Mordecai, the hunter, is your run of the mill sniper class.  To be honest no matter which you choose at the start there is very little difference in their starting abilities (apart from their class defined special ability) and it is the choices you make in the 21 XP areas that defines the character fully.  The plot sees you travelling the lands of Pandora, a planet on the outer reaches of the known universe.  Each character has come to Pandora for their own ends, for example Lilith is searching for another of her species.  The one thing that drives all inhabitants to Pandora is the tale of a better life and the discovery of many rich deposits of materials in the grounds.  The real shit hits the fan when Pandora enters it’s first Spring, after 7 years of Winter, and all manner of beasties crawl out from under the icey landscapes.  The tale of a sanctuary know as The Vault is scattered around the planet, giving rise to the only real hope the inhabitants have of survival.

There we go plot done, don’t expect a rich tale as found in Fallout 3 in this wasteland my friends, oh no.  Yes we find ourselves in yet another ravaged wasteland landscape.  This one being a mixture of Mad Max and a cowboy movie.  What I can say is that Gearbox made 100% the right choice in changing the art style.  For anyone not familiar with the story Borderlands started life looking like 100 other Unreal 3 powered fps.  The art department stepped up and say “Check these concept pics, we can make the game look like this” and the top fellas at Gearbox (namely Randy Pitchford) said “go for it!”.  Go for it they did as Borderlands looks incredible.  Not superlative, shiny sexyness like Killzone 2 or Uncharted 2 but a unique arty, almost sketched look that is not quite Cell Shaded but something else entirely.  The engine runs at a fair old clip with only a moderate amount of slowdown or frame rate hitches that never fully distract from the manic gunplay to be found.  Animations are great and your little robot buddy ClapTrap is awesome – kinda like a really, really annoying & whiny Wall-E.  The art style may not be to everyone’s tastes but it certainly looks good to everyone here in the BG dungeon.

Audio wise the game performs very well.  The in game music is well produced and the Intro music, ‘Ain’t no rest for the wicked’ by Cage the Elephant, is pitched perfectly and sets the game up wonderfully.  The voice acting too is pretty sharp and well done.  Your characters blurts out little phrases when taking down enemies or during certain situations.  These are fun but can be a little tiresome after hour 18 and it repeats for about to 2000th time.  Environmental sounds are good, if a little sparse in places.  Each and every weapon is accompanied by a suitable dramatic sound effect.  The popping of the small pistols to the cracking explosive nature of guns that fire lightning – it all sounds great.

The big seller for this title was the millions of possible weapon combinations available to you.  What Gearbox managed to create is a procedural method for gun creation.  This means the system lets you slap together various parts of the same weapon class to make a new weapon.  This sound spectacular in theory and lets be honest it is pretty sweet to do but ultimately you are making small variations to generic weapon types.  A shotgun is a shotgun, a pistol is a pistol etc.  The procedural weapons is a great touch and very good fun but could ultimately be throw away.  That said the gun play itself in the game is great, drawing on Gearbox’s history in shooter creation.  We are talking proper shooting this time not the dice-roll shooting of Bethesda’s Fallout 3.  A head shot is critical every time not just when the dice allows.  The combat in this game is what most people wanted from the combat in Fallout 3.  To be honest Borderlands is almost as much of a grind-fest as Aion was a month or so ago.  The thing this time though is that you barely notice it as you just enjoy ploughing through wave after wave of enemy, levelling up just as you start to become fed up with the levelling.

The quest-explore-kill a-collect b cookie cutter gameplay can get a little wearing after a fair few hours of play.  The grind can certainly get to you especially if you are playing this through in single player – this game is built to be used in co-op.  To be honest if you are playing this offline or solo then I would say knock 0.5 point off the score – I’m not being harsh it is just the truth.  As a single player title it can get very monotonous and laboured over the 20+ hours of gameplay.  As a multiplayer co-op experience this is superb fun and the ultimate party game for people not attracted to cutesy rabbits or fat plumbers.

The length and depth of Borderlands is both a major plus and a minus point.  The game comes in at around 20+ hours on a single play through; a pretty meaty chunk of game by anyones standards.  You can beef up the time even more by undertaking extra side missions and grinding away to improve you characters skills.  The down point, as mentioned above, is that the game can get very monotonous.  A lot of missions repeat in structure and the main cut and thrust is pretty much go to a, kill b/collect c and come back.  The single minded nature is glossed over well if you are playing in co-op but can really become apparent when in the single player mode.  The multiplayer element makes Borderlands shine though.  Taking on the same quests but in either split-screen 2 player co-op or online 4 player co-op is truly awesome.  The game will ramp up the difficult to adjust for the number of players taking on a situation and the mayhem increases ten fold!  This also reveals another issue with the game – loot trading.  At it’s heart Borderlands is a massive loot-fest.  Enemies drop items galore and there are plenty of stashes of supplies and cash laying around.  The problems come when you have something someone else wants.  To trade your item for their item you both have to place that item on the ground then go pick it up.  All good if you are playing with trusted friends BUT online with strangers could be a problem.  There is nothing to stop you dropping you Uber-Shotgun down to trade for some cash only to have the other player just pick it up quickly and then shoot you in the face with it.  It all works on an honour system – and on a console game, especially Xbox Live, this is just not going to work long term.

The game also employs a duelling system.  This is configurable but in essence let’s you issue a challenge to any other human player in the game – there by allowing a little 1-on-1 death matching to take place.  This can be taken further with the advent of Arenas in the game.  Here you and upto 3 others can take on wave after wave of enemy in a bid for survival (think Fable 2’s Arena or 101 other titles that use this mechanic – I think Another World was the first though…).  These are great fun to take part in and offer something akin to Horde mode.  Another neat feature is the ability to revive fallen team mates, the vehicle combat is great too.  A neat feature added is the once chance left feature.  This happens when you are basically dead.  You drop to the floor and the screen slowly starts to fade etc.  In Borderlands you still get to keep shooting and if you manage to kill something before you die you get a second wind.  This gives you a minute health increase and allows you back on your feet to try and survive.  A small but neat touch.

There are a few problems with the AI system that leave you frustrated.  For instance if I shoot a Skagg (small creatures found by the ton in the wastelands) from a distance with a sighted gun it will work out I have shot him and he and his buddies will make a run for you.  Now this is all well and good but if I run backward a little sometime they forget it even happened and just go about their business!  Another one is the first couple of Skaggs will charge and you take them down and others will come out of the caves and just stand there looking at you from a distance, not even bothering to do anything as you shoot them in the face.  It is by no means broken, just a little janky at times.

Final Thoughts:

Borderlands is a great game.  Gearbox deserves a large dollop of success with this title as it has put them firmly back on the map after the lacklustre Brother’s in Arms sales.  There are issues a plenty with the game; the AI is thicker than a whale omelette (see above comments), the repetitive nature is grating, there is barely a story and a trading systems for divvying up loot is desperately needed.  All that said it is hard not to thoroughly enjoy your time with Borderlands.  It sucks hours of your life away without you realising it. Single player is good, but it is the multiplayer co-op where Borderlands shines and is the method of play I would recommend.   If you liked Fallout 3, if you like shooters with a little more depth, then go grab this now you really will be lost in the world for absolute hours.

Related posts:

1. Borderlands: The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx (Xbox 360) Review Brutal Gamer’s review of the third expansion pack for Borderlands....
2. Borderlands on Xbox 360 and PS3 patched Happy Halloween! If you’re like me, you’ve been playing Borderlands...
3. New Borderlands patch for the Xbox 360 incoming Hooray, more patches of bug-fixing goodness. All the problems which...
4. Gearbox “Already fixed” Borderlands issue for PS3 Ah why does it always have to be the PS3...
5. Borderlands: General Knoxx DLC arrives tomorrow Yet more shooting goodness for Gearbox’s FPSRPG. It only seems...