Finding Loot Has Never Been as Fun
Borderlands is one of those games that comes out of nowhere to capture the hearts of fans and critics. The specific color scheme, the quests, and the million plus weapons all combine to create an extremely addicting and satisfying experience. Over the course of the 20-hour campaign, you will meet a colorful cast of characters that include a quirky robot and a Russian arms dealer. You will also come into contact with dog-like monsters, giant bats, bandits, soldiers, and other enemies (we do not want to spoil the later portions of the game).
The first thing you notice about Borderlands is the humor that is introduced. The character that introduces you to the world-a little robot named Claptrap- shows you this humor when he makes a rude gesture to a bus that is driving away. This humor is continued as you meet the different cast of characters. Zed, a doctor in the small town of Fyrestone, is first shown chopping the head off of a corpse while he makes jokes about losing his license. The enemies of Borderlands continue the humor in the way that they are introduced as well as what they yell at you. Many of the humorous situations of Borderlands cannot be specifically mentioned because they are borderline offensive.
One of the main draws of Borderlands is the sheer amount of guns that are available to the player. Gearbox Software, the developers of Borderlands, boasted that they had included over a million guns in the game. These boasts were not false. Throughout the game, you will find guns in treasure chests and junk piles. The enemies will also drop various weapons and items that help in your quest. Our favorite items from the campaign were modifications that granted regenerating ammunition and health to all of the players.
This brings up the next point, which is the cooperative mode of Borderlands. Two players can play in split-screen mode, or four players can play online with each other. This option helps make the game infinitely more interesting because having more players causes the game to increase the amount of loot dropped and increase the value of the loot. The cooperative players can also choose one of four unique players with special skills and perks. The soldier character can unlock the regenerating ammo, and the ranger character can unlock the regenerating health.
The one thing we found while playing this game is that the missions can get repetitive after 13 hours. If Gearbox had included some more varied mission types, the value would have gone up. Having a cooperative partner does keep some the repetitiveness at bay. The strange thing about the repetitive missions is that they did not keep us from wanting to play Borderlands a second and third time to try the different guns and pathways through the game. One other downside of Borderlands was the final mission. We won’t spoil anything, but this mission was extremely underwhelming.
Borderlands is definitely worth playing alone, but it is better to get a group of friends together to power through the campaign. The endless amounts of guns and whimsical characters keep the game interesting until the end. The repetitive nature of some missions and the underwhelming final mission should not keep you from playing this game.
