Borderlands Review for Xbox 360, PS3

    First off, I'd like to state that this review will be referring to the Xbox360 version. With that said, I was actually pretty lucky to be able to play this game. My friend loved it so much that she bought it for me so we could both share in the Borderlands love. And boy, is there a lot of love to give.
     Borderlands is essentially this: A first-person shooter set up with MMORPG-like elements. Every gun you pick up will have it's own unique stats referring to areas such as power, rate of fire, accuracy, bullets fired per shot, scope zoom, etc. In MMO's, there's always a certain hierachy within certain groups of creatures like mushrooms, black mushrooms, rogue mushrooms, king mushroom and so on and so forth. Borderlands does this with it's creatures as well but also diversifies them in more ways that actually matter instead of just changing the name and color of any given creature. For example, you first run into Pup Skags. They die pretty easily and even more-so with a critical hit chance if you happen to hit them in the mouth when it's open. Then you eventually get to Spitter Skags that spit acid at you that drains a good chunk of your shields. And then from there, you'll run into skags with much more armor around their front which makes criticals a must and skags that are powered up with elemental damage. Eventually, as you level up, the classes of your enemies become very diverse and they, ultimately, never end up being boring.
     The guns are vast and plenty. When you first get into the game, some of the stats may make your head spin. Because the game randomly generates these guns, you might wonder to yourself, "Well if this gun is like that, then is it better than the gun I have now?" Honestly, you probably won't understand why they gave you a super powerful shotgun with 0 accuracy and why it should matter to you when your shotgun has 80% accuracy or why the rocket launcher with 1000 attack power does less damage than your sniper rifle with 300 attack power. But the more you play the game, the more guns you use, you start to get a very good sense of what a gun can do and how it differs from others. Eventually, the prospect of finding new guns is enough to make you drool and when you do find them, you'll automatically find yourself attached to them. It's akin to the way swords are set-up in Muramasa for the Wii.
     You can choose from four different classes to play through the game. I didn't really feel that they differed from each other much aside from their skills though. For instance, the game let's you know that the hunter prefers magnums and sniper rifles. From what I've experienced, that doesn't necessarily mean he'll use those weapons better than others or that he can only use those weapons. I see it as more of a recommendation of what to use based on his skill set and how he levels up. It's the skill set that seems to dictate more of what you should use. Because the hunter doesn't gain many skills to up his defense or health, you'll find some trouble in dashing into a firefight.You'll need to use snipers to get critical hits from afar and magnums for their high damage output and accuracy in case you get caught in a close quarters scuff and you need to make a quick exit. Otherwise, it all comes down to each class' distinct abilities and skills that differentiate them and their play styles from each other.
      Another aspect of the available classes is that they all seem to have at least two different paths to go down, even though there are three specific sub-classes to level up for each class. For example, a berserker can level up his brawler, tank, or blaster sub-classes. Since the level cap is set to level fifty, you'll only have enough points to complete two of those sub-classes. Tank, will give you a bunch of health and defense. Brawler, will upgrade your berserk ability which is based around melee attacks and it'll upgrade your normal melee attacks. Blaster, will help you become an absolute star with rockets. Now, I can pretty much choose one that's really important to me and then one to support that choice. I could be a guy who outlasts everyone else and goes to save people in the firefight which would make my berserk and melee skills important. Or you could be good with rockets, then the other sub-class would be your preference. In my opinion, I kinda wish there were more skills to choose from and more ways to play the classes but what they have is still very good and very well thought out.
     The game is set at a good pace and length. You'll always have many quests to do at once and you'll always be given cool rewards for what you complete. Borderlands also doesn't have any difficulties to choose from per se, but the enemies level up with you so that the game is never too easy or too hard. It still has hard and easy areas but you'll never find yourself having to grind to get something done. If you do play single-player, it can be a very rewarding experience. However, the game also lends itself to it's cooperative play. When you have a lot of the classes working together, it feels really good. I don't think I could say that it's on the same level of coordination as Left 4 Dead, but there are strategies to apply to combating certain enemies that really adds to the game as a whole. Overall, I'd say the game took me a day and a half to two days to complete on single player and I pretty much took my time the whole way through. Borderlands does have a mode called "playthrough 2" to get through which gives you some VERY cool guns with MUCH TOUGHER enemies. And if you manage to beat playthrough 2 and try it again, the enemies will be even stronger still. If there weren't so many good games to play right now, you could easily stick with this game for quite some time.
     There are some negatives to mention. The invisible walls in this game were not so greatly designed in this game. They tend to limit your exploration of the world and sometimes even lock you into it. There were one too many times where I accidentally fell into an "invisible-wall hole" and I couldn't get out unless I restarted the game or got my party to go to another area. The game runs well in single-player but there can be some EXTREME slowdown in co-op. The driving in the game is also pretty bad. It's not like Grand Theft Auto 4 where everyone was complaining that it sucked because it had a learning curve, it's just straight up bad. There are delayed responses to turns, the collisions with other cars, the environment, and other objects can cause your car to roll over easily or go somewhere completely arbitrary to where you should be heading and the cars also have a nasty habit of getting stuck on EVERYTHING. The effects you can add to your attacks, like electricity, corrosion, fire, most of them didn't feel like they were doing too much for me. Most of the time, they didn't feel like they worked the way that they should. Corrosive weapons are recommended for shielded enemies but I never felt it gave me any more of an advantage than I already had. I also had some audio problems with some of the dialogue in the game. Some of it would be out of sync, it would randomly restart, overlap other audio tracks, sometimes it would just straight-up cut out. Most of these things can be overlooked but they really should have put more work into the driving and the physics of the car. Hopefully it can be worked on in the sequel.
     Borderlands is a very charming game with a unique look and interesting characters. I don't think you'll ever find yourself as deep into the game as Fallout 3, which is a game that it's compared to very often, but, rather, I think you'll enjoy what comes off as a love letter to Fallout and other first-person shooting franchises.

Is It Fun?

     It's fun. You could spend a lot of hours finding guns, shootin' skags, trading equipment online, working with a team, starting a new character, there's lots to do to keep you occupied. Borderlands has some very rich characters as well, especially the quirky little claptraps. The only thing that ever got me mad was the driving but that was easy to overlook with such a great game in front of me.

Do I Get My Money's Worth?

You bet you do! This game really is worth the $60 especially with some DLC coming it's way. This game has plenty of re-playability and I don't think you'll question if you made a good choice to invest in this game. Go out there and get it.