Bloody's thoughts on: Borderlands

[BloodyThoughts]

For my fourth review I shall be reviewing *cue drum roll* BORDERLANDS!

Yay! My favorite kind of character!

I went into Borderlands expecting Sacred 2 Fallen angel only in a rocky, dirty, trash world and with guns. Now, I HATED! Sacred 2 Fallen angel. It was a generic fantasy multiplayer RPG with a camera that was like trying to film an ant fall into a ditch from 70,000 feet in the air! The multiplayer was horrible. It took the Fable 2 approach to co-op and made it so that you can only move 5 feet from your buddy. Now combine that with the camera I just explained. Yeah, it's bad.
Borderlands on the other hand, was different. It took almost everything I hated about Sacred 2 fallen angel and made it into a slice of awesome cake. And awesome cake tastes gooooood!

Story​

Now, I can't really say anything is new about Borderlands story. But then again, making an original game is pretty fucking hard right now in the gaming business. Everything is either done or closer to being done than you. There are times when you do that un-original idea better than everyone else, but all you get from that accomplishment is the thought that someone else will do it better than you soon. Borderlands presents a simple concept: you are hunting for the sacred Vault(NO! Not Fallouts vault get that outa your head right now mister!), which opens every 200 years and gives its finder their deepest desires: money, power, and women. When you begin Borderlands, you have just arrived in Pandora and you progress through the straightforward main quest, collecting pieces of the Vault key taken from several boss-type characters. Almost all of the bosses are injected with a combination of personality and humor; for example, at the start of the fight with Nine Toes, I had to momentarily pause the game because I was too busy laughing. Although the boss battles are interesting, the story in Borderlands is rather shallow is the main concept of the game is forgotten in the wake of the never ending side quests. There is only one main goal of the game: to get into the Vault. The ending of this game leaves the player confused and extremely disappointed at the lack of description or explanation. This is a major disappointment to RPG fans, especially those who like to invest themselves into the story of a game. This leads me to believe that although this game is a self-proclaimed role-playing shooter, it is catered more towards the first-person shooter crowd.
The story is one of the weaker points in this game.

Dude I so like, set explosives in that!
Radical dude!

Characters​

Now, I thought that this was an important part of the game to talk about. The characters in this game are very flat; they are presented with no back story and a limited personality. All that is given to the player is a name and a description of some of their talents. The only characteristics ever given are the reactions by the characters to kills made. That being said, looking at the characters from a gameplay point of view is the complete opposite. There are four classes that can be chosen: the phasewalking, SMG-loving Siren; the murderous bird carrying, sniping Hunter; the iron-fisted, rocket launching Berzerker; and the turreted, assault rifle using Soldier. I originally saw the Siren, my character of choice, as a bit of a weaker link, because her phasewalking ability appears to be rather weak in the beginning, but after applying modifications through elemental artifacts, class mods, and abilities gained through leveling, she has the ability to become an extremely deadly character.
The majority of the creativity in regards to characterization was spent on the bosses and supporting characters. Many of the characters encountered have humorous, unique personalities and the presentation of each of the bosses must be commended. The aforementioned Nine-Toes and Flynn are two that I would like to commend, as well as Dr. Ned if the downloadable content is purchased.
Although the characterization is lacking in depth, characters are presented better than the story and do provide some well-needed humor. Claptraps give this area an extra point.

OMG! GIANT PURPLE LOBSTER ATTACK! Men, tonight we feast!

Gameplay​

Gameplay, in my opinion, is the highlight of this game. It takes the simple concepts of a first person shooter - such as the groups of weapons, shields, and health, and adds its own twist. Each of the classes has their own action skill, each of which is deadly when used properly; or, in the Berzerker's or Hunter's case, when used at any time. Weapons instead of ammunition are elemental, and have the potential to deal corrosive, explosive, incendiary, or shock damage. This adds a new, albeit slightly sadistic element to combat, and it is unusually satisfying to use a corrosive submachine gun on an enemy and watch his face literally melt. Although the amount of elemental damage inflicted appears minute in comparison to the damage of a good weapon, the new concept of elemental damage helps gain interest in combat. The incredible variety of weapons must also be noted; Gearbox promised that Borderlands offered millions of weapons, and they kept their promise. Very few repeat weapons were found, and even when similar weapons were found the decision had to be made on whether power, fire rate, or accuracy should be sacrificed. There are only four weapon slots available, and with several different weapon classes each having advantages in different combat situations the decisions of equipped weapons must be made wisely. There are mods available for grenades and for each class, allowing even more personalization so that each battle can go as the player desires.
One of the most notable negative aspects of gameplay is driving. The vehicles are extremely difficult to control because the steering controls are the same as the vision controls, making it impossible to shoot an enemy behind you or shoot an enemy that isn't directly in front of you. However, the car does not come into many combat situations, and once fast travel is implemented it does not need to be frequently used.
The difficulty of this game is a controversial aspect. Many have problems with it because there is no save option, only an autosave, and enemies regenerate health when the player is killed. However, I didn't find it too difficult for the enemies did not respawn after they were killed, which made certain battles, such as the boss battles where the bosses have 'sidekicks', not as difficult as they could be. However, when an area is re-entered that was previously cleared, all enemies (bosses included) respawn, albeit at the same level at which they were defeated. The difficulty curve in Borderlands is also very accurate, as long as all of the side quests are completed; each quest comes with a recommended level for completion, which very much helps the player decide when the appropriate time is to take on a boss battle or move onto the next area in the game. In general, I was concerned about the difficulty of this game after hearing about it from several different sources, but I did not experience any major problems.
Humor is what makes the gameplay truly enjoyable. With a combination of crazy characters, pop culture references (the "You're on a Boat" achievement is brilliant) and Claptraps, the humour brightens up the game and is another factor that makes this game stand out.
Borderlands offers not only a good single-player campaign but a split screen or online co-op option as well. This maximizes the abilities of each class and provides a great opportunity to use true teamwork, since the enemies become more difficult with the addition of more players. Anyone who plays this game has to try the co-op, for it makes you truly appreciate what a great game this is.
Gameplay is great in Borderlands, with smooth controls in battle including no problems switching weapons. The length of the game is good in comparison to many other games in the same category.

Oh! What! Now we are playing Rock band!

In conclusion, Borderlands is a really well made FPS RPG. It's was done better than others and worse than others. I think I forgot this in my review, but it is better played with friends (if ya got any), and I highly recommend it for anyone who is a fan of the FPS genre, or for anyone to rent it if they want to have a lot of fun with their friends.

Spoiler: Up and coming reviews

Modern Warfare 2
Rainbow six Vegas 2
Red Faction Guerrilla
Halo 3/ Halo ODST
Mass effect 2
Robot Unicorn attack
KOTOR
Skate 2
Saints row 2
L4D2

NOTE: I will be posting my Review Wars review soon.

 

[JonnoStrife]

When it comes to elemental guns, the base damage is little more than a coefficient to calculate the damage of random (hate the term) "procs." On the 1x elemental weapons, damage is fixed. Then 2x has a small chance to do, total, double damage. 3x has a medium chance of double damage and a small chance to do triple damage. The 4x has a high chance to do double and triple damage with a medium chance to do quad damage. Why this wasn't explained somewhere, no fucking clue.

Combine 4x elemental guns with the sheer amount of quests available, and its very easy to simply eradicate any trace of difficulty. Hell, just one guy with a 4x gun can solo everything on 4-player co-op.

Maybe in play through 1.

 

[Snotnarok]

Half of your images are "No hot linking"

 

[GloatingSwine]

When it comes to elemental guns, the base damage is little more than a coefficient to calculate the damage of random (hate the term) "procs." On the 1x elemental weapons, damage is fixed. Then 2x has a small chance to do, total, double damage. 3x has a medium chance of double damage and a small chance to do triple damage. The 4x has a high chance to do double and triple damage with a medium chance to do quad damage.

It's not as simple as that. The multipliers are different for different elements, with Fire and Corrosive adding somewhat less than their multiplier on proc, but explosive adding somewhat more. For instance, the most a corrosive proc can do is an extra 2.8x main damage on a x4 weapon, but a blast proc can do 5x main damage.

Also the proc rate is affected by the fire rate of the weapon as well as the multiplier. Elemental weapons have a hidden property which represents their elemental "charge", firing depletes that charge and it won't proc when it's empty, so slow firing weapons like snipers and revolvers will proc more often than fast firing ones like Combat Rifles because the tech pool has time to recharge between shots. (SMGs and Repeaters have a discount to their tech cost, so they would proc more often than an equivalent fire rate combat rifle).

 

[GloatingSwine]

The only downfall to the online co-op mode is that people use modded weapons (which gets me super pissed!) as you can stroll through the warzones blasting everything to pieces whilst having another mod that gives you 6bn shield HP! takes all the difficulty and flavour out of the game.

Actually, the patch that was released alongside the General Knoxx download content eliminates most, if not all, modded weapons.

Anyone who used a modded weapon in a game as easy as Borderlands is a pussy anyway.

 

[WitherVoice]

Game was entirely decent. Endboss was among the worst endbosses ever put in any game. Play with friends, be amused; if you want single-player you can do better.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

Gah! Great...wall...of...text...it's times like these I wish I bought that climbing gear from that shady Chinese gentleman who hangs around outside my domicile...

Anyway, I tried getting through it, but the shininess of the pictures distracted me from parts of your review. As such, any criticisms I offer may be spotty, and--ooh, shiny! *stares at "Do not hotlink" images*

...Aannyway, your review is decent from what I read, but it could stand some polish. Please take what you need from the canister.

Spoiler: Canister o' Polish

[ul][li]Use the

[i][/i]

tags to format the names of any video games you mention. The addition will make your reviews seem more professional.[/li]
[li]Break up your paragraphs, and leave spaces in-between them. This'll help break it up into more manageable parts for the easily distracted or for those who don't want to read a solid brick of text (I do that enough when taking notes in my art history class...)[/li]
[li]Saying statements such as "in my opinion" aren't necessary in a review; in addition, you might want to rephrase sentences like "This is a major disappointment to RPG fans..." to something that sounds less factual and more plausible.[/li]
[li]Summaries of the paragraph at the end of the paragraph aren't necessary, either. Work those into your diction in the actual paragraph, somehow.[/li]
[li]In addition, transitions are your friends. I'd also suggest to remove the headings, as they can limit your train of thought; let it wander freely and naturally, not on rails. However, try your best to steer clear of "in conclusion" and its variants.[/li]
[li]Proofreading for repetition and mechanical errors is your friend, as proofreading eliminates mechanical errors and repetitive repetition. For instance, read your first "Story" paragraph again; notice anything about it? It states several ideas multiple times, and some of those can be trimmed out to make the review shorter. You also have a sentence in there that changes the main idea not five words in.[/li]
[li]There are also a few areas where short, simple sentences break up the flow in your paragraphs. I'm not saying simple sentences are bad, as there should be sentence variety, but changing topics would be a good time to start a new paragraph, and then merge, edit, and delete as needed.[/li][/ul]

 

[Cinnonym]

Huh... Well, it certainly answered my questions.

 

[Denamic]

I went into Borderlands expecting Sacred 2 Fallen angel only in a post apocalyptic world and with guns.

What apocalypse are we talking about here?
It's just a backwater planet that was mostly abandoned and left to rot.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Actually, yes. Since it raises the level cap and therefore the level of loot, there's a real sense of loot progression, which Ned and Moxxi's didn't have. Also, there's a fairly good chance of getting actually good loot now. Rather than the Destroyer who drops piss all, the new endgame bosses have a good hoard. There's the actual armoury itself, which sadly suffers from the design decision to limit your time inside it, and then there's Crawmerax, who is guaranteed to drop at least 50 items or so and will usually drop at least 3 oranges, 20 odd purples, and can drop the new "Pearlescent" weapons (the ones that used to be called that are now correctly dark orange, the new ones are cyan).

Plus General Knoxx himself is an excellent character.