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It’s not well known, but a few years ago Halo and Warcraft had a little bit of a fling. At an E3 after show after drinks they bumped into each other and got talking and, to be fair, they had a lot in common. They talked about their cult followings, their upcoming book, comic and movie deals and other commercial tie ins. They shared a laugh over the homophobic rantings of some of their fans, chuckling that those same loud mouths were probably so deep in the closet they were finding Christmas presents. As the evening grew late and the Bacardi Breezers flowed things became a little more intimate. At closing time they stumbled back to Warcraft’s hotel room and continued the party themselves. When dawn arose it witnessed a shame faced Halo ducking out the door, pants clutched under one arm and tank top under the other.
The worst case of crabs you'll ever have
They didn’t talk again, not when Warcraft found out she was pregnant. How could they even be together, an FPS and an MMORPG? What would their parent (company)s say? So when Warcraft had the baby in secret she did what she felt was her only option, abandoning the child on the door step of a friend who might understand it better. A crazy old RPG called Fallout 3. That little abandoned baby grew up to be Borderlands. While visually it may appear at first glance to be cut from the same cloth of its foster father a few hours of play indicates that Borderlands takes inspiration more from both its biological parents.
To start with, when you first start shooting in Borderlands the controls feel like pure Halo. Naturally as an FPS on a console the controls can’t deviate too much from what’s been established as a working format. But for me a lot of little things hinted at Halo such as the energy shields, the jumping, the height differences among you’re enemies and above all the vehicle controls. You’re usual vehicle in Borderlands is a buggy that handles and is controlled almost identically to a Warthog, there’s even a turrent seat in the back for one of your coop partners to shoot from. I found myself playing the game very similar to how I played Halo: ODST the week before. So in summary the shooter controls are pretty solid.
If I shoot him first, I get all the loot...
The Warcraft influence (maybe it should be Diablo, but it felt more like WoW to me) is up front as well. The game is built around quests, you pick them up from characters or on bounty boards, go out and do them, then come back. The quests all break down into three types, gather this, go here, or kill that. Despite this limitation I didn’t come across a quest that felt like a chore in the way so many of the gather quests in Warcraft are such a slog, all of them were as rewarding in the doing as they were in the actual reward. That’s because the ‘that’ you have to kill could be a gang of raiders, or a giant, brightly coloured moth that spews exploding fireballs. Almost everything that dies drops something; health, ammo or money and in some lucky cases a weapon. Weapon drops run from the common place to the super rare, coloured in the universal language of weapon drops from green to orange. Some weapons also have a number of elemental effects including corrosion, fire, blast or shock. Of course some enemies have particular immunities and weaknesses to these effects.
Always nice to have you're friends around when you face some badass psycho
The four class choices in Borderlands breaks away from the shooter mould as well giving the game a much bigger RPG pedigree. Players have the choice of the long range focused Hunter, the rogue like Siren, the tank and melee focused Berserker and the all rounder stroke medic Soldier. At first these classes play in a pretty similar capacity, but as soon as you reach level 5 they get to access their first class ability, the Hunter can attack with his pet bird Bloodwing, the Soldier drops an automatic sentry gun, the Siren can turn invisible and the Berserker... goes berserk, dealing huge melee damage. As you level up you can pour experience points into one of three areas to improve your class ability or improve your skills with certain weapon types. Each class also has a favoured weapon set and its to your credit to play to your advantages.
So, Borderlands borrows a lot of clever elements from other games, but it also compensates by providing some pretty terrific elements of its own. The art work and visual look of the game, as has been well publicised, is like a comic book or concept sketch sprung to life. Compared to the grimy, dusty world of Fallout 3 the alien wasteland of Pandora seems to pop from the screen with bright colours and larger than life characters. The world of Pandora is candy for the eyeballs. The alien animals are brilliant, the ranting crazy raiders hilarious (although the screaming midgets give me chills) and the jive dancing helper robots adorable.
Sure it's just a guy with an axe, unless he pulls out a grenade and jumps on you, or sets himself on fire first
The coop gameplay in Borderlands is another standout feature. Much like Halo 3 the game is a treat in single player but a whole new world of cool in coop. The game feels very RPG like when you have a Berserker charging into the fray and engaging the enemy leader in some explosive fisticuffs (literally with the Blast element attached to the berserker skill!) with a Hunter backing him up at range and picking of the underlings. As an added bonus enemy encounters are instantly harder in coop play which equals greater loot rewards for both players, coop players can revive each other and friends can switch between single player and coop easily. It’s not the case that Borderlands is a let down without coop, it’s a cool game on its own, but each friend tagging along multiplies the fun by five. The ideal setup and one I haven't often experienced sadly, is to assembly a team of four at an equal level from each class. I've only played one game that had a full complement of players and each class represented but it was the best the game could be.
There are, unfortunately some gripes to be had with Borderlands. There are some dreaded technical issues behind the scenes. As an abandoned foster child you can expect some issues. Some of these are minor such as achievements and tophies not popping up when they should. Others are a bit more major, for instance my level 10 Berserker had his five experience points disappear the first time he levelled up in a coop game. I’m quite attached to Bazz the Berserker and have continued to play him but as yet those missing points haven’t rematerialised. I’ve heard of other issues with quests not completing and weapons disappearing from inventories; but apparently patches are soon to arrive to address most of these problems. It’s still a slap in the face for us day one fans though.
Relax baby I've got protection, this shotgun does plus fifty corrosive damage with every shot
I was also pretty disappointed by the plot of Borderlands. The game has a fair number of interesting characters and a simple goal, find the mysterious vault and reap the rewards of the alien technology inside, with a mysterious ‘angel’ giving you instructions on how to get there, although exactly who she is and how she contacts you is never explained. Despite you’re four class characters all having interesting back stories, hinted at in the introduction and spelled out in the instruction book, these don’t get resolved in the course of the story. Fingers crossed that the promised expansion content will feature some class specific quests and answer a few questions. Last but certainly not least, the game is just too damn short, playing single player takes longer but with a good coop team you can smash through the main quests in about five to six hours. The finale will leave you decidedly wanting and again theres no bonus, like a tailored cut scene, for completing it with a specific class. You're free at the end of the game to traipse back through Pandora and fight all the monsters and bosses you've killed all ready but without any quests to complete its no fun on your own. Again, this might be a deliberate ploy on Gearbox's part to keep us salivating for the DLC. There's also the replay element of going back and building a character up in another class.
From its opening cinematic and Cage the Elephant’s Aint No Rest for the Wicked providing the background music Borderlands wants you to know that its loot, driven quest based gameplay made cool. With millions of weapons available to find and swap with mates and a host of aliens and bad guys to shoot pieces of, it makes a pretty compelling argument that it has achieved its goal. Some much needed patching and a weak plot undercut what is otherwise one of the most exciting and original games of the year. Whether you like shooters or RPG's Borderlands should ring your bell either way without distancing you if you're decidedly not a fan of one genre or the other. Borderlands parents should be very proud of their baby.
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