Borderlands Review
PC
In my early impressions I described Borderlands as a solid fusion of full-on role-player with full-on first-person shooter. I was only half right. The technical elements of RPGs (stats, mods, loot, xp) are indeed seamlessly integrated into a solid FPS engine, the cracks in which only show when sniping from long range (and particularly through scenery), lacking the pixel-perfection of, say, ODST.
But the softer aspects of RPGs are lacking. The plot, such as it is, is fed to the player in scraps, and does not permeate the game-world to anything like the extent of Mass Effect or Oblivion. The potential for painting a rich and diverse political landscape in an off-world colony gone wrong is sorely missed. By RPG standards, Pandora is an uninteresting world. The vast majority of NPCs you meet have nothing to say, except those that dole out missions; missions that fail to amount to anything meaningful in the context of Borderlands' narrative or characters.
The cooperative multiplayer mode works, and the ability to open up your single-player campaign for a cooperative session is a nice touch, but the addition of strangers inevitably ups the pace. Players looking to extract every morsel of the RPG experience may wish to play through once in single-player before noodling with the cooperative mode.
If RPGs, more than any other genre of game, are about escapism, Borderlands does not present a compelling world in which to spend time: indeed, it's a bleak, grim setting. But, its technical strength is just enough to see you through to the end. Borderlands feels a strong title and worthy experiment only in the context of the first-person shooter.
Daniel New
James posted early impressions of Borderlands, which you can find here.
Reader Comments (1)
To be honest James While you maybe in esssence right in what you say here if you stand back and look at the game as a whole and as what it was intended to be i think at best you only have it half right again. The basic reason for this is that the game was intended as 4-way co-op and more than that drop in drop out co-op so that while the plot may be paper thin or even thiner some might say. If you join a game with folk you may or may not know your not overly concernd with the plot points and certainly not if your on your second playthrough with your first character or your first playthrough with your second character. Borderlands has so many good things to offer(random weapons and a huge sense of humour among others) and indeed a few great ones one of which being that every now and again it pulls something you wernt expecting out of the cupboard and cuffs you round the back of the head with it (the cupboard that is) so please folks go out and buy this and play with some friends and a big smile.