OMG!! 87 BAZILLION GUNS...???? IS IT REALLY TRUE?? FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.
Presentation
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| Stunning Visuals |
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| Eye catching |
On the hostile, bandit-ridden planet of Pandora, there is one thing that draws off-world attention: The Vault. This mysterious alien structure is rumoured to hold treasures of fantastic power and wealth, and so it attracts fortune-seeking corporations and individuals alike. In Borderlands, you are one such individual, but the satisfaction of unlocking the Vault's secrets pales in comparison to the rollicking good time you'll have on your way there. Borderlands is all about the journey, not the destination, and like most trips, this one is much better when you have some friends along for the ride.
You'll start out with rusty weapons that look as though they've spent a better part of their existence at the bottom of a bog and it won't be long until you find new weapons that not only look better but have improved functionality. As you progress through the game you'll find shotguns, sniper rifles, submachine guns, handguns, and rocket launchers that glow with elemental effects like fire and lightning and can eat enemies alive with corrosive effects or hit with such an impact that it pulps a target into a gruesome mess. There are even more bizarre and powerful alien weapons towards the later stages. Moreover, as you use a weapon, you'll become more proficient with it, further enhancing the sense that your character is gradually but inevitably becoming a ferocious fighter who can shoot, shatter, and burn all obstacles in the way.
Well what is borderlands? Its RPG combined with FPS. Ha ha isn't it fun? In Borderlands players take on the role of one of four characters who, like many others, have come to Pandora searching for, among other things, the riches rumoured to be in the Vault. Before trying to attempt this however, they'll first need to pick up some weapons, equipment, and most importantly experience. Labelled by developer Gearbox Software and a Role Playing Shooter, Borderlands contains all the hallmarks of a first person shooter with in-depth role playing elements. This includes experience, levelling, skills, and abilities that enables the player to customise the characters to their liking. The gamble to add this much RPG elements to a FPS pays off and works excellent without sacrificing the action packed nature of a FPS.
Cast of characters
There are four different characters to choose from in Borderlands, each with their own set of skill and abilities that can be mixed and matched to provide a level of character customisation seen mostly in computer RPGs. (hence the labelling of the game as a Role Playing Shooter). Each of the four characters also has their own unique back story and three skill trees to choose from. Borderlands even allows you to reallocate your skill points if you're character isn't turning out how you envisioned.The four characters include Lilith "The Siren", Mordecai "The Hunter", Brick, and Roland "The Soldier". Each character has their unique strengths and weaknesses but for the most part the skills and abilities surround one basic premise. To cause damage.
What about the enemies in borderlands?
Having some friends on your side makes things a lot more pleasant, given that about 99 percent of life on Pandora is your enemy. Human enemies range from bandits that are smart enough to wear shields and take cover to psychos that light themselves on fire and sprint toward you, screaming about rending your flesh from your bones(ha ha). The local wildlife is universally hostile and includes skags (toothy dog-beasts), spiderants (armoured insect monsters), rakks (raggedy death bats), and scythids (wriggling prehistoric grubs). Like guns like enemies.in borderlands you come across varying type of enemies.each time you return back to the same place you encounter a different type of enemy( i mean you face a more skilled enemy) Every type of enemy appears in various incarnations, ranging from young and weak to badass and on fire. These variations are generated anew during each encounter, so even when you kill a clutch of enemies in that same gully for the fourth time, it will be a different bad-guy load out.
You'll fight hundreds of each enemy type throughout the game, and the fact that groups are varied goes a long way toward staving off repetition. The two-seater vehicles also offer some locomotive variety, and many of the areas are much more fun to traverse on four wheels than on two legs. You can conjure the lone vehicle type from the many Catch-a-Ride stations. The touchy handling takes some getting used to, and you can run into some exaggerated physics problems when crashing into rocks. However, there's nothing quite like vehicular homicide to stave off bandit-killing fatigue. In or out of a vehicle, the simple act of killing enemies is pretty fun, and since you're constantly reaping loot and experience rewards, even repeated encounters have some incentive attached to them.
I felt the presentation of bosses really different and funny ha ha.
There’s a core campaign which is playable in single player and in co-op. It's fully open to exploration and bespeaks a design that fluctuates between preferring the single player and multiplayer approach. Huge portions of the game are as straight and narrow as a state border, allowing very little variation in a co-op approach, while some battles are difficult enough to almost require a second, third or fourth player.Character abilities
The most important difference between characters is the action skill, which is a special ability that can give you an edge in combat. The Hunter can release a vicious bird of prey, the Soldier can throw down an automatic turret flanked by shields, the Siren can turn invisible and speedy, damaging all enemies in the vicinity, and the Berserker flies into a damage-resistant rage and delivers brutal punches to his enemies. You unlock these abilities after playing for a short while, and not only are they all fun to use, but each one can be customised in a couple of strategically distinct ways. You can tweak and upgrade your ability by investing skill points in appropriate skills. So, for example, upgrading the Hunter's bird of prey not only can increase the amount of damage it does, but can make it attack multiple targets, steal health from them, slow them down for easy sniping, and cause them to drop more loot. Expanding your action skill makes you more deadly in combat, and it's one of the most rewarding parts of leveling up. Killing enemies, finishing quests, and completing in-game bonus challenges earn you experience points, which in turn earn you a new level. Leveling up boosts your overall fortitude and grants you a precious skill point to use however you see fit.You can also spend your skill points on other improvements, and each character has three different skill trees that highlight different tactics and abilities. So the Soldier can essentially become the team medic by developing the skills that allow him to shoot teammates to regenerate their health and that make his turret create a healing radius. Or he could choose to become more deadly, increasing his turret damage and combat rifle performance. Though your weapon proficiency improves based on how much you use a given weapon type, different characters have skills that favour different types of guns, so it's to your advantage to play to your character's strengths. The Berserker can certainly become proficient with the sniper rifle, but his melee-focused action skill and preference for rocket launchers make him a better choice for wading into the fray. Though the branching skill trees offer intriguing ways to specialise, your initial character choice has the biggest impact on how you'll go through the game. Fortunately, each character is fun and deadly in his own way, so you can't choose poorly, and you'll probably want to experience what each one has to offer. Playing cooperatively allows you to enjoy and benefit from the other characters' abilities, something you don't get to appreciate when playing solo, unless you start a new game.
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| Boss Fight |
A real danger for this type of game is having all these items, all these methods of customisation, and all this content, and then giving you nothing interesting to shoot at. That's not the case with Borderlands. Amongst your enemies, you'll start off against basic bandits who shuffle between cover spots and fire back at you. Some larger bruisers are more aggressive and carry bigger weapons, and others charge directly at you, sometimes while on fire, to hit you with sharp, rusty weapons. Smaller bandits carry shotguns and get thrown onto their backs whenever they fire, some snipe from a distance, some have shields and others don't, and the way they all move around as fights progress keeps the action fluid, frantic and exciting. Occasionally you'll wind up in absurd situations where you're unloading a string of head shots while standing toe-to-toe with foes and still not bringing them down, but such is the nature of games that favour health bars over realism.
Missions & Quests
The missions and side quests can be quite rewarding in Borderlands and allows characters to score all sorts of loot and weapons to help them accomplish the game's main objective. I was a little sceptical when reading the pre-release press about Borderlands and the "bazillion guns" available but after playing the game my scepticism was proved wrong as there's a virtual limitless supply of guns. Guns of all different shapes and sizes; scores of different pistols, machine guns, rifles, shotguns, bazookas that vary based on rate of fire, accuracy, damage and more.
While the missions and quests are fun to play through for the loot and experience that's earned, they do become somewhat repetitive. There's not a lot of variety and the technique of taking down certain enemies becomes second nature to the point where you feel like you're going through the motions just to get to the loot. With that said, Borderlands does a nice job of keeping the missions challenging enough by leveling up the creatures and encounters as your character increases in level and ability. The final mission and boss fight are a little disappointing and fairly easy to beat, but that should not leave you with a deflated feeling as the rest of the game is simply too much fun to think otherwise.There's this something called fast travel. Using this you can travel from one part of the map to the other part of the map. Though this is quite useful and time saving,i couldn't help but notice there aren't many of these devices in the map. Man that can quite frustrating at times as you have to travel a lot in foot.
At times i found that in some places the vehicle station( where you can get vehicle from this location) are also quite scarce. Well if you like exploring and killing enemies to gain xp you might find it better to travel than go for ride.
Borderlands Co-op!
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| Multiplayer-Really an adventure.... |
In the multiplayer co-op mode up to four players can choose any one of the characters and play through the same single player campaign. Where you are in the story is driven by the person hosting the game, but experience, leveling, weapons and more transfer and are persistent back to the single player mode and other multiplayer co-op sessions. You don't have to worry about earning all these rewards in an online game only to have to re-earn them in another online session or single player. Bottom line. To cause damage.
Borderlands has so much to offer in terms of game play, rewarding missions, loot, and fun multiplayer that once you start playing you won't want to stop. The game's minor drawbacks of an underwhelming finish and the repetitive nature of some quests are only a minor bump in the road for a game that is going to rank up there with the year's best.
Why the anticipation and success?
It’s a co-op centric game. It has “87 bazillion guns”. Despite the comparisons to a Halo and Diablo, it's these statements which have really bought Borderlands oodles of anticipation. The game also provides other type of fun by having you to compete with your friend online or LAN gaming in places called arenas. It this where you can see who's best.
Final comments
Gearbox's Borderlands is without a doubt a slick, satisfying hybrid title for those who know what to expect. If you're a shooter fan curious what the world of Pandora is all about, then you should know that this is a product built on a foundation of statistical progression, character customisation, and one that holds item acquisition high above interesting quest structure and narrative. At the same time, it plays like a shooter, requiring twitch skills to dominate the droves of enemies that stand in between you and your search for a mysterious vault. With the opportunity for up to four to join together for co-operative play, four character classes, a dizzying array of firearms, around 20 or so hours of content for a single play through and the option to restart with stronger enemies and loot, there's plenty of content here.The game is very big in terms of map area and it can frustrating at times to travel to get to the destination. Though there is isn't much of a story you need to stitch the tid-bits of missions to understand what you are doing. Also i dint actually like the climax part( involves killing "The Destroyer"). If i may suggest some points to improve i really would like to have some story and also include many vehicle and weapons stations :P (i am just jokin). i would like to suggest more better and varied character skills as in here skills do match somewhat. Well one thing is for sure though this game has suffered some minor bugs or glitches in story/character development etc etc i found it exciting to play. It's a thoroughly enjoyable journey that offers a steady stream of rewards that remains convenient and accessible. It's something action role-playing game fans looking for an experience more up-close and brutal than genre entries of the third-person variety should have a blast with, and one of the more memorable products of 2009. Well what are you waiting for? Grab those tons of weapons and start shooting.....
My rating would be 9.0
