Game rating: Borderlands

[JRD]

Game title
Borderlands

Category            Rating            Comments Story line 8 The main plot: "you are a mercenary in a strange planet looking for a treasure" is old but it works for its purpose - to get you there and shoot some people! During the game you meet lots of characters and some of them stick to you to the whole journey, but the way the pieces get together are a bit weak. If it wasn't for the great wiki created by the community I would've never gotten into the story! Graphics 8 The cartoonish style fits the game, any other style would've been just cheesy. Textures are not that great and usually takes a while to load, so you often start a level with crappy textures that gets better after a few seconds. Most of the world is static - no destructible environments or physics in objects (you can blow up an armoured enemy with one shot but can't break a bottle). Animations a nice and even though the scenario remains the same planet, you get lots of places to go, from flat deserts to snowy mountains, indoors and outdoors! Sound 10 I love the soundtrack! It puts me into the game really well. Not only the intro song but the ingame music as well. I tried to play without music but it was just boring. Guns sound really cool and enemies are frightening - specially some skags and guardians. Voice acting is very good too and full of humour - great laughs during gameplay! Game play 10 Excellent balance between FPS and RPG, you always want some more. Very addictive gameplay and loot/monetary system. Random generation of guns make up for outstanding singular experience. Everything works really well and you can tell it is a game made by expert gamers for sleepless gamers! Bosses are usually very challenging but it follows a same recipe - the more into the game you are, the bigger are the bosses (and the bigger they are, the easier it gets to finish them off ;-). The game can be played in so many different ways depending on player style that the overall experience is never the same. Replay value 10 As you finish your first playthrough you can start over with all your inventory, money and stats - enemies also get harder second time around to keep the challenge factor. If you are up for it, you can start again with another character, which will completely change how you play the game since all four characters have different skills. Regardless of how you are going to play it second time, you'll be doing basically the same thing against tougher foes though, which is not a problem!!! I finished my first playthrough at level 35 and I can get up to 69 with the latest patch, so there are LOTS of things left to do in Pandora! >;D PLUS - you have nothing less than 4 (yes, four) DLC available with tons of missions, levels and characters. Final thoughts I never thought I'd like Borderlands so much. It seemed just a multiplayer run and gun game with no story whatsoever. SP campaign is really good, story is very nice and I only didn't try playing it co-op (yet), which must be the best experience as the game practically begs for a coop play. Devs hit the nail in the head with a well balanced game for RPG and FPS lovers. Hell, I'm glad I got this game at a STEAM firesale!! Woooohoooooooo

[Art Blade]

Nice review, JRD  :) :-X

[JRD]

Thanks, Art!  :-X

I started another playthrough with Lilith to see how it feels and it is really a different feeling... tougher enemies in the same missions since the beginning... it must be very crazy towards the end of the game this time around. Although I think I'll delete that second playthrough and keep playing the DLC on my first playthrough. This way I can start over again even more powerfull (evil laugh - mmmuahuahuahuahuahua  >:D )

I will also continue one first playthrough with either Mordecai or Brick as both have interesting skills that differ a lot from Lilith - Modecai is a range warrior... he can send a bloodwing to attack enemies while hes far and Brick can just go berserk and puch enemies in pieces, so he is a close combat character.

Anyway, I'm not leaving Pandora so soon, so when you finally get into the game you'll have company!  ;)

[Art Blade]

Excellent  ;D :-X

[PZ]

Great review, JRD!  :-X

[fragger]

Nice one JRD, terrific review :-X :-X :-X

[mmosu]

nice review JRD, completely agree on all accounts  :-X

[Binnatics]

Very nice to read your review JRD! It's been a while but now that I'm experiencing the same as you guys did earlier I still think it's a super-duper game. And BL2 is about to come out, woooohoooo!!! ^-^