I normally wait a day or say before writing these reviews after finishing a game, just so that I can let the whole experience lie and sink in. In Borderlands case, I just want to get it over and done with. Borderlands sells itself as a RPS, which is a Role-Playing-Shooter apparently, and while they have the shooter part down, the role playing part leaves alot to be desired. There are alot of guns. Believe me, there are more than enough guns for every person in the UK to meet up and have a firefight. So it is a shooter. The roleplaying is just whittled down however to training the gun type that you want by using one of the different types of guns, and choosing what gun and shield you want equipped. Thats it.
My problem with this is that it is selling itself too well as a role-playing game, and it really isn't. You cannot change what your person looks like, there is little to no control over your character's athestics whatsoever. This is not role-playing. It is a glorified open-world shooter. Another point is the massive glitches this game has. I am unsure whether it is just the PS3 version that gets this, but on more than one occassion towards the end I got massive lag and loot weapons started floating all over the place.
Borderlands is set on the planet Pandora and you play one of four mercenaries who have come to roam the wasteland and find a vault. I first thought when I heard of this concept that it was the polar opposite to Fallout 3, where you are in the vault and get out onto the wasteland. There are a few variations on the missions, but the point stays the same. Go into a new part of wasteland and shoot monsters and bandits. Thats the majority of the missons, apart from a couple that I won't mention for spoiler reasons.
There is a large supply of main characters, but I won't talk about them because there are too many to count on both hands. Instead I will use this section to talk about game in general. Borderlands is one of the most disappointing games I have ever played. Little to no story apart from "The Vault has much treasure! You want it!", it really did not live up to my expectations of an alien world with wonderous creatures to kill. Maybe I just went into it with the wrong mindset, but when I saw just regular humans who were apparently prisoners I gave a huge sigh. The gameplay is at the complete opposite though and carried me through most of this game. Like I said in my vanquish review, the gameplay makes up for the story, but why should it have to?
Right. Now to talk about the ending. Just a warning *MASSIVE SPOILERS THAT DON@T REALLY FIT IN WITH THE GAME*. A person opens the vault and a huge Cthulu-esque creature comes out. You then have to kill it as this is the final boss of the Vault storyline. This was fine example of bad game design choice. I stood just out of its reach and shot it for about 3 minutes. It went down, and although it was able to push me off the edge of a cliff, I returned with full health and shield. The end boss however did not get back any of its health. This was the most boring and generic end boss I have ever fought.
Overall, Borderlands is not the best experience I have ever had, and maybe the downloadable content does bring it back. But i'm not wasting any more time on this game than I have to.
Borderlands. 6/10. That is all.
This is Tyramatt, going back to solve puzzles in Saw: The Videogame.
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