Developer Gearbox has delivered on its promises to give both an original first person role-playing shooter and spectacular co-op experience with its latest game, Borderlands.
Told through the eyes of four different playable characters, Borderlands seeks to immerse players in the treasure-hunter lifestyle of the citizens on planet Pandora. Each of the four character's style of combat is extremely diverse.
All four characters play to their own strengths. Mordechai, the hunter class, has a higher skill with various sniper rifles and pistols, proving his character is most effective at long range.
Lilith, the siren, is proficient with an assortment of magical powers, like the ability to turn invisible and sneak up on her foes in an assassin-esque fashion.
Filling the role of the tank is the aptly named Brick. A beast of a man, Brick specializes in explosives and can take a beating like no other.
Finally, there is the generic soldier class, Roland. His abilities lie within the realm of fully automatic weapons. A unique, and ironic, feature of Roland's is that he can heal his fellow teammates by shooting them or blowing them up with grenades.
Each character can follow one of three specialization trees, making about 12 different types of characters. Combine this with a random weapon creation system that boasts over one million different combinations, and every character feels distinctly different from the next.
Avid players of Blizzard's Diablo series will find themselves oddly familiar with all these different character possibilities and skill trees. In many ways, veteran gamers will see a strong correlation between these two titles.
Set on the frontier planet of Pandora, treasure-hunters and bandits compete for the lost treasure hidden on one of the planet's many vaults (perhaps a nod to Bethesda's Fallout 3). The gameplay is fast-paced and, more often than not, ultra-chaotic.
Better still is the fact that this game supports up to four-player online co-op. As players level up or team up, enemies develop very distinct and peculiar weaknesses.
The game's weaknesses, however, are not as peculiar. Because of its free-roaming disposition, characters often find themselves in over their heads, which leads to a lot of carnage.
Borderlands handles death in the game in a creative and cynical way. Bringing a whole new meaning to the term 'life insurance,' a clone of the player's last saved character is created when death grabs hold and is re-spawned at one of the many outposts in the game.
This system works well because it doesn't upset the flow of the game. But it can become incredibly annoying when you see a new clone every three minutes because a character is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A few minor complaints aside, Gearbox's latest game is truly impressive. With millions of guns and tons of ways to play, Borderlands is one game that will certainly give PS3 and 360 owners a great deal of bang for their buck.
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