End Boss Visits Lands of the Border Variety.
By End_Boss 24 Comments
Don't Worry, Bro; No Spoilers Here.
I just finished playing the first hour or so of Gearbox’s RPG-shooter, Borderlands, and I’m left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Borderlands brings its Diablo-esque “loot everything” appeal home nicely, as I began to get that familiar giddiness every time I opened a chest, be it big or small. On the other hand, the PS3 version has some significant technical issues that kept me from fully enjoying the game. Among these were some pretty alarming frame rate drops (more severe online, but also present offline), texture pop-ins and disturbingly long load times between zones.
As for the content itself, it has the kind of charm you’d expect from the game’s art-style; though it’s gritty and at times gory, it never takes itself too seriously, and that’s definitely to its benefit. The quest line I played through was a fairly simple “fetch this, kill these and assemble this so you can fight a boss” affair, and in the context of an MMO-esque game, that usually wouldn't bode well; however, Borderlands is also a shooter, and let’s face it, if the RPG elements were entirely absent from it, you’d still be shooting shit, so the “kill this many of so-and-so enemy” quest style never really detracted from the experience.
Aside from the issues mentioned above, Borderlands is a mechanically sound game. The guns feel pretty good, and enemies (despite their “attack until you can’t attack no mo’” AI) pose a pretty healthy challenge.
Borderlands really is the Diablo of the firearms world, and if it can overcome its technical issues, I think it will find a healthy user base, particularly among those who played the Diablo series; if you liked (or loved) those games, you’ll definitely be down for what Gearbox’s newest title has to offer. I know I am.
Thanks for reading,
End Boss.