Borderlands Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by Gearbox Software
Released 20th October 2009
Played Co-op
In 2007, the first-person shooter genre welcomed a new subgenre that consisted of a Diablo-style RPG loot system with the traditional shooter mechanics that people were thriving in at the time. That game was called Hellgate: London and it did pretty badly on launch, with outlets citing bugs, repetition and a very demanding price tag as a disease that unfortunately plagued an otherwise interesting concept. The game's downfall, however, led to another's immense rise as just 2 years later, a title that would revolutionise the gaming scene began development. Early on, Randy Pitchford of Gearbox recognised that the core gameplay loops for both RPGs and shooters function off of different time scales, the former being longer in terms of levelling up characters, while the latter was designed to be shorter by moving and shooting to clear out a new area. However, Pitchford believed that these two loops weren't mutually exclusive and that some type of fusion was possible. This internal pitch to the development team of "Halo meets Diablo" progressed into forming the basis of Borderlands, the "rebirth" of looter-shooters.
As the game and its initial concepts continued to expand and develop, its art style was initially more realistic and caused a year-long delay, past its inceptive release date. While the inspirations from Gears of War and Mass Effect seemed harmless, the internal teams assembled to give Gearbox's projects a critical review and started cautioning the group that at this stage, that they felt Borderlands was beginning to look much closer to the then-recent Fallout 3 or Rage games and that if they didn't change the look, it would fail to stand out and sell copies. According to chief creative officer Brian Martel, they opted to try to find their "purple cow", some visual element that would make the game stand out and gain sales. Martel and a small team spent some time in secret to create a prototype of the game using an art style similar to cel-shading, fearing that if they had said anything to the other team members, there may have been discontentment among the staff. After creating a fantastic comic-book effect, nearly everyone was pleased with it. However, the game's original art director was so disappointed with having her work discarded that she left the company and the video game industry altogether. Despite this, the artstyle ended up complementing the crazy action on-screen and the game went on to sell 2 million copies by December 2009 (less than 2 months post-launch), was named 35th on IGN's Top 100 Modern Video Games list and earned 8's and 9's all around.
Story
The story of Borderlands is dug quite deep beneath the surface, however, the premises that the game is based on are very cool and unique. The narrative focuses on these Vault Hunters (the players) who are in search of the fabled Vault that is foretold to contain immeasurable treasures. The story never expands beyond this and feels fairly limited in its presentation with how easily it gets lost in the co-op enjoyment. That and the fact that the narrative doesn't throw any evocative punches to give the 15-hour experience a greater impact, it mostly falls to be forgettable. However, the comic-book-esque aesthetic, mixed with this Mad Max wasteland and wild style, works wonders with this title.
A deserted husk of a planet that is brimming with alien species, psychopaths that define insanity and extraordinary magical properties, all work together in coalescence to produce this magnificent feel that makes the NPCs, the bonus pieces of lore, the atmosphere, story and gameplay feel quite lively despite being so abnormal. If the scenario calls for it, the game can be quite mature and badass to watch or play, all while being fluid enough to be tweaked to nail any comedic effects it tries to pull off. The iconic, funny but grotesque personality that Borderlands is somewhat infamous for isn't quite prevalent with the debut, however, it's apparent to see how it advances with its sequels.
Gameplay
The gameplay reaches a shaky balance between an incredibly fun looter-shooter gameplay loop and an irritating amount of artificial difficulty that gets repeated for fetch quests. With Borderlands almost acting as the progenitor of the looter-shooter genre, it obviously won't have all of its components and gameplay elements sorted, however, for what it delivers it's enjoyable. The basics are that you can wield up to 4 weapons from your quick select, an ability that is tied to your starting character class (for example, Roland the Soldier has a Scorpio Turret that targets enemies in front of it and provides cover), vehicular combat like using a turret on a car, and a levelling up system that is very akin to other RPGs (the Role Playing genre, not the explosive weapon).
The overall feel and experience that I had were that the gunplay is very solid and that it would've benefitted if the player had more defensive manoeuvres than just using the environment as protection; considering how easy it is to get gunned down due to the fact that you're not built to withstand such damage, but rather, dish it out. This is more apparent with a severe level difference between yourself and the enemies. You could spend an entire magazine of ammo on an enemy that is one level higher than you, and still expect them to survive, while they easily two-shot you to your death. However, if you're the same or at a higher level than your foes, you won't even need to dispense half of your ammunition clip to kill them. This artificial difficulty is more emphasised when playing with friends as the inhabitants of Pandora grow in strength for every player that joins your efforts. Because of this, the level difference feels less like a worthy challenge, and rather a punishment for not indulging in 'optional' content.
The weaponry that you do come across is quite impressive though, especially for how easily a shooter game can be basic and boring, blending into the oversaturated genre. The game features a gun generator similar to Diablo's random item generation system. According to the developers, this generation system can produce over 17,000,000 different weapons. Nearly everything can be randomized with each weapon - including barrel length, projectile type and size, firing pattern, iron sights/scope, colour and material, and even the possibility of various elemental damage types.
"'We saw a ridiculous amount of guns, but perhaps the strangest was a revolver that fired shotgun shells (similar to .38/.357 shotshells). Gearbox is constantly surprised by what the system comes up with. They've seen rifles shoot everything from homing darts to rockets. 'One of the guns tracks onto something and locks, and after three seconds, [the target] suddenly explodes,' director Matthew Armstrong says.
Funnily enough, during my entire playthrough, I didn't encounter that level of a spectacle in my arsenal. That could be blamed on poor RNG (Random Number Generation) for me, it could be blamed on my expectations being slightly high due to the chaos I've seen from its sequels, or it could just be that the game's random gun generation is fairly limited in how eccentric the weapons become. Seeing a brand new weapon pop up in your hands that functions, looks and plays differently is amazing, but from my experience, I can only commend it on the various design features that the guns inherit. Despite this, the weapons still felt dynamic and not once did I feel like I was in a monotonous loop of shooting enemies.
In addition to your armaments, you get to use a character-specific ability. Depending on what your starting character was, you could shoot out a homing pet bird to attack enemies or enter a dimensional rift that accelerates your speed and makes you invulnerable. It was great fun using my ability and fusing it with elemental power-ups, like fire or poison, however, it would've been better if these abilities could be upgraded further for uses in differing circumstances rather than some simple statistical improvements. In fact, the whole skill tree was quite flat, featuring plain stat boosts rather than bonus effects - something that would've benefitted the game and its possible 30-hour playtime.
Lastly, the only thing I have left to complain about is the mission structure: it was too repetitive for my liking. From main missions to side quests, this flaw applies to nearly all missions; you are required to go to a specific area to fetch an item while fighting off a stationary horde of enemies, only to repeat it for the next quest. Fortunately, the gameplay loop is good enough to partially overlook this problem, but as the game went on, it stuck out to me more and the apparent detriment made it harder to enjoy the 15 hours I spent on the game.
Bossfights
The bossfights of Borderlands were surprisingly flavourless. For a series that is known to be so charming and captivating in its unique gameplay and setting, it surprised me more than it disappointed me that the bosses were so forgettable. I cannot tell you for the life of me what any of the humanoid bosses were, even after looking at the Borderlands fan Wiki. The only bosses I do remember are the Raak Hive and The Destroyer as they were the only non-humanoid fights. That being said, these high-vitality foes do complement the gameplay loop, but only to a certain extent as they do exemplify the definition of bullet-sponge.
Characters
The characters were phenomenal. No, they aren't treasure troves of emotion or perfect catalysts for the story, but my god are they incredible. Nearly every NPC was genuinely funny, charismatic and quite memorable. The cast greatly accompanies the themes and overall consistency of the game and its world; Claptrap, Marcus, Patricia, Crazy Earl, I love them all. The only genuine problem I had with these personas is that their introductions and overall presence could easily be overlooked and even forgotten if you have a half-assed interest in the setting of the world.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere was quite contradicting to experience. What I mean by this is that the elements in which it excelled, also had a heavy flaw that dragged the overall quality down. For example, on the visual side, the graphic novel style that the game was presenting was so engaging and bold, making each part of the world stand out to me as distinct, however, the colour palette that was injected into Pandora is, to say the least, incredibly drab. The lack of colour feels detrimental to the aura of the world, especially knowing how vibrant it could be after looking at its sequels. It's dull, brown, grey and undermining. On the audible side, the soundtrack's greater focus on ambience was a great choice initially for how well it blends your character into the environment, yet, the soundtrack is not only underwhelming but also easily forgettable as it sounds like it closely followed the formula that other wasteland, apocalyptic games followed like Fallout or Rage. For the technical aspects, the game is splendidly stable, having no issues with bugs, performance or networking.
Story - 7.5/10
Gameplay - 7/10
Bossfights - 5/10
Characters - 8.5/10
Atmosphere - 6.5/10
Mediocre
Borderlands is a very good game that I enjoyed heavily in co-op, yet its flawed components like being sapped of colour, a poor roster of bosses and a dysfunctional level balancing greatly contribute to preventing it from reaching great heights. If you do play it, either play it in co-op or for the world that it's set in rather than the narrative or the gameplay, as those are the highlights of the experience.
