Borderlands Review: Should you run for the border?

I've been playing some Borderlands the past two nights with my bro. The gaming is growing on me. So copying from Kotaku's review format here are some things I didn't like and things I'm liking

The annoying things

Off to a slow start: The game starts off slow. There is very little differentiation between the four classes as you don't receive your special ability until level 5 or your first skill point until level 6. So aside from your starting weapon, everybody is basically the same for the first hour or so you play. Also, you won't find many different guns.

MMO woes: It borrows the boring parts of World of Warcraft. OK, you may say that everything about World of Warcraft is boring, and you may be right, but Borderlands borrows an MMO structure of get quests go Kill X or go Collect Y and return and turn in quests. So that leads to lots of boring running around just like in an MMO.

The other part that Borderlands feels like an MMO are the maps. The maps don't feel like an FPS map at all. You're basic FPS map is a square or rectangle populated with buildings and cover and people run all over shooting each other. Borderland's is all (so far anyway) twisting canyon paths that funnel you to more open areas populated with enemies. I'm not sure I'm describing it well enough, but if you've run a dungeon in WoW and looked at the map in Borderlands you'll catch my drift.

Another MMO-like problem is the game isn't very fun to play by yourself. As you add more players more enemies appear, the enemies get tougher and they drop better loot. By yourself the game just seems deserted.

Dumb AI: The enemy AI hasn't been all that great. They don't really do anything besides stand there and shoot at you or charge you. There's no flanking or trying to flush you out of any sort. That being said, we still had some pretty hectic battles last night.

The fun stuff

It takes two baby: Where Borderlands begins to shine is in the multiplayer. I haven't played with 3 or 4 players yet, but playing with just one other person is exponentially better than flying solo. Like I said above, with more players more enemies appear, they get tougher and they drop better stuff. The other bonus is if you have the same quests you can complete them together, so it may be more beneficial to play with people close to your level. It's also pretty easy to jump in and out of other people's games. I have yet to play with strangers though.

Tons of guns: Borderlands has like 6 or 7 gun types and then some types have subtypes. There are pistols, revolvers (can't remember if that is its own type or not), SMGs, shotguns, combat rifles, sniper rifles, launchers and alien technology. Then when you break it down there are machine pistols and heavy machine guns which are part of the combat rifle class. We just came across our first revolvers and heavy machine guns last night. I still haven't seen launchers or alien weapons or if there are any more subtypes.

Drop that loot: Borderlands features a loot system like Diablo or WoW. There are rarity levels that go white, green, blue, purple, to reds and oranges I think. I've only seen one purple weapon so far which was a SMG I let my bro pick up. To make further distinctions in the game practically every gun you pick up will be different from it's scope zoom, to magazine size, to how much damage it deals and if it has any elemental effects. Yeah, some guns have elemental effects like setting enemies on fire or shocking them. That's all I've seen though.

Ding! Billed as an RPS (Role Playing Shooter) Borderlands features experience points and leveling up. When you level up you fully heal and you get a skill point to spend. Each player only gets one special ability: Soldier drops a turret, Sniper sends out this bird thing to kill stuff, Siren has this phasewalk ability where she goes invisible and stuns people, and Berserk goes, well, berserk. He goes into melee mode where he can only punch but all the damage he does also heals him. Each class has three skill trees to drop points into, again like Diablo or World of Warcraft. Right now I've been dropping points into my Soldier's Soldier tree to make him more soldiery. But I'm thinking maybe I should have focused on the medic tree to heal myself and my party or the support tree so we get more ammo when we're in the thick of things. The good news is, I've eventually there is a place where you can pay to redo your skill trees, so I'm not worried if I grow unhappy with how my character has developed.

The thing to know best is where the gun is kept: There's even a leveling system for weapon type. The more you use each kind of gun, the more you'll level up with it. I'm not really sure what benefits it adds, but it's there.

Get around, get around I get around: I complained about having to run around but eventually you can start to check out cars to zip around the environment which sports a rocket launching turret and you can run enemies over in it, too. The maps so far don't allow for fun off-roading, but its better than hoofing it.

Mad Max Beyond Firefly: The setting for Borderlands is like Mad Max meets Firefly. You're on a fringe planet that is a population mainly consisting of goalie-masked/gas-masked hooligans and your job is to shoot them up while looking for a Vault (yeah, now it sounds like Fallout huh?). While not the most original setting, its one we don't see often enough.

Visual flair: Borderlands has a really cool gritty cel-shaded look that makes the game pop like a graphic novel. It doesn't look as good as a game like Modern Warfare 2, but it's got style.

Conclusion

I still have a lot to explore in Borderlands, so I'm far from giving my final conclusion to the game. But after the past two nights I'm really starting to dig it. The loot system is getting really compelling and it's great to experiment with new weapons and trying to find a gun that matches your preferred playing style. Like I said, Borderlands says it is a Role Playing Shooter, but to me there is a big distinction between an RPG and an MMO, and Borderlands with its loot system, quest structure and map layout it feels more like an MMO (but without the "Massive" as you can only play with 3 other players tops) than an RPG.

Impressed after more impressions

I've been continuing my journey into Borderlands this week and last night we were playing with 3 players for about 3 hours and made some serious progress. My brother and I are about the same level but our body was a good 8 levels above us. He joined us on our questing and we were able to burn through a lot of quests.

Borderlands just keeps growing on me. In the progress we made last night really cleared up a lot of the annoying issues I mentioned in my first round of impressions.

I said earlier how it really takes a while before you can start customizing your character, which is still true. But now I have a lot more options open. In addition to skill trees you can find (at least the soldier class) artifacts I can equip to my special ability. In my case I can give my turret different elemental effects like fire damage, shock damage, corrosive acid or explosive rounds. Then we discovered class mods. Class mods are equipment that give you additional bonuses to skill points or allow for team enhancing effects. Some of the examples are mods that give the entire team bonus experience points or regenerate health or resupply ammo.

The inclusion of these class mods really has me questioning my character build. Until now I had been focusing only on pumping up the Soldier skill tree to make my character a better fighter, which is fine for solo but doesn't really do much for the team when playing with a Beserker with an acid exploding rocket launcher that melts the enemies' faces in an instant. All morning today I've been reading up on different character builds and playing with the skill trees on the game's website, but I still haven't made up my mind.

Remember how I said the maps were boring? Well we busted out of the first area of the game into the second area and even managed to wrap that one up, too. The second area is all about cars - Mad Max Mel style. A lot of the missions involved driving around blowing up cars full of bandit raiders in a more open map. The third area we reached looks more like an urban environment, and the map looks more like a traditional current gen shooter with tight alleys, rooftops, etc.