Borderlands

With Demon's Souls, Dragon Age and Borderlands in one quarter RPG gamers have alot to dig in and Borderlands is certainly one they should consider!

The good:

Funny enemies which will make you and your friends laugh! LOTS of different weapons. A decent lenght when finishing the game twice. 2 player offline co-op 4 players online co-op.

The bad:

underdeveloped NPC', none existent story, anti climatic ending, unbalanced weapons, boring music, too easy.

The game is about finding a treasure (The Vault) on a desert planet called Pandora. The planets has no big cities and the population acts rather psychotic.

The game starts out letting you pick one of four characters: a hunter, a melee fighter, a solder and lastly the Sirene who can make herself invisble.

After choosing your character you have to follow this strange and yet really annoying robot to the first quest town Fyrestone. After a couple of quest's and being introduced to a few of the NPC characters you're off into the quest finding The Vault.

The game features, as mentioned, an unlimited amount of weapons - you most likely wont see the same weapon twice, although you probably will be seeing similar weapons. Some might complain about the weapons not being different enough, however I didn't feel that. My main grip about the weapons is they're highly unbalanced, you might get a really good weapon at level 35 and keep it all way to level 50. There weapons are colored white, green, blue, purple, orange and dark orang and while you''ll most like alot of blue and purple guns the orange guns hardly ever shows up and when they finally do show up you'll be getting a ridiculous weapons and it's not on the positiv side! Getting an orange gun which is not only suiteable for your level it's also worse then ordinary guns is just absurd. While I've reached level 50 and almost finished the game twice I've only seen orange weapons to or three times. So while there's alot of weapons the engine producing these weapons needs more tweeking.

And while talking about the weapons it brings me to my next problem with the game. The game is simply too easy. The reason? While you play the main quest you'll most likely be doing sidequest's simultaneously and by doing so you'll become higher level than appropriate. When combined with a weapon which basically is too good for you're current level you'll be running through the game in a pace that'll feel unsatisfying. It's really a shame since it butchers the game and I really wonder why Gearbox havent done something about this.

The graphics in the game is alright. It's nothing special just neat, the chellshaded graphics isn't too "distracting" - I've never liked chellshaded games but it does contribute well into making a good mood and atmosphere. Some of the dark humor is also possible and more acceptable in a game with this sort of graphic. For example: I couldn't imagine meating Nine Toes with three balls and steel niples, Midgets Psychoes or Burning Psychoes with a realistic graphic engine, so yeah - while the graphics aint groundbreaking they are certainly nice and compliments the game rather well.

The sound on the other hand is nothing special. While the game does feature a decent surround you'll just be hearing regular gunshots and barrel blast. The music of the game is boring and is rather trivial - it's the same the whole game throughout although it does differ when you're in combat.

When playing through Borderlands I really wish there was more story to it. The main story is mildly retarded: Go defeat a boss and get a piece of the Vault Key put them all together and go fight an even more retarded end boss. I really wish they had developed it more I mean the atmosphere is there so why are we left with and underdeveloped story that'll end with nothings short of an anti climatic plot reveal. The NPC characters you'll meet throughout the game are all cool but they, just like the story, aren't developed either! They could've made some of the best NPC' this gen and yet they left them undone. It really baffles me why Gearbox has left the story and character development out but I'm guessing they focused in one area - the weapons.

So with all these complaints you might wonder why I've bothered playing all the way to level 50 and give the game an 8? Well to be honest the game in it's own right is good. The humor in the game is as mentioned dark which really adds up, the enemies are great and the sheer amount of weapons can be satisfying. It's one of the few games I've bothered playing through twice or atleast almost twice and when playing co-op it only gets better. This game however, appeals to people like me who likes to loot and gain levels and try out different setups with the skill three, the skill tree is similar to that in World of Warcraft - you have 3 different trees with 10 x 5 upgradable boxes in each (each box can be upgraded 5 times) which is almost enough for this game. I wish they would've added more to make each "subclasses" more diverse, however they are great as they are. As a hunter you can choose being a sniper, hunter or gunslinger but all three trees can compliment each other and you doesn't necessarily and to follow a specifi tree, it's perfectly fine mixing each tree as it fits you and the fact it's rather cheap resetting your skills makes it all the better since you can make it any way you want.

In conclussion I'd say it's a good game, not great just good. There's tons of things that could've been better and hopefully we'll be seeing a Borderlands 2 with a fixed story and weapon engine. The game has a decent lenght if you wish to get to level 50 and do the sidequest's and with the upcoming Zombie DLC pack and another most likely soon too we're in for more weapons and more sick and humorous enemies! If you're interested in this game you probably should be checking Ebay or similar sites to get it used or atleast find it cheap. If you can't decide whether is should be this or Dragon Age I'm almost confident Dragon Age has more values, although I haven't tried it yet but I will soon.

Story - 6/10 - almost none existent

Graphics - 8.5/10 - good but not groundbreaking

Sound - 7/10 - nothing special but it's there

Replay - 8.5 - when playing through the game second time you'll be able to get to level 50 and the monsters have changed.. or atleast gotten different names + you can alway play with friend offline co-op.

Fun - 8.5/10 - it's a fun ride with the humour and atmosphere all mixed well.

Overall - 7.7(8)/10 - a nice additionl to this falls RPG games but really could've been more so easy. Here's hoping for a better sequal!

 

Men da vi alle har forskellige meninger kan det jo være i synes noget helt andet;)