Borderlands

PC review by Matt Wadleigh on 23rd March 2010

Borderlands is a game trapped between two worlds. On the one hand, it’s a cooperative first-person shooter. On the other, it’s an online role-playing game. While it would seem like elements from both genres could easily meld to make one cohesive game, Borderlands is not that game that does it. Though Borderlands certainly looks and sounds great, it delivers neither a compelling first-person shooting experience nor an interesting or unique role-playing experience. Borderlands thus serves one purpose: giving fans a taste of something that they crave (a compelling online first-person shooter with strong role-playing elements) as they wait for another company to come along and do it better (or at least a refined sequel).

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Borderlands casts you as one of four misfits who’ve traveled to the planet Pandora in search of a treasure – The Vault. This galaxy-famous treasure that has put Pandora on the map and after colonists realized there wasn’t much more to the planet beyond the treasure and killer skags, the only people left after a while were frustrated treasure hunters and those earning/stealing a profit off/from them. You have come to the dusty rock and a strange voice in your head instantly throws you into the treasure hunt. As soon as you take control, you’re attacked by the first of many enemies that you’ll feel absolutely no connection as your violent relationship is never explained.

You’ll end up defending a lifeless village you won’t feel an attachment to despite the fact that it serves as your home base for a bulk of the game. Here you’ll buy your weapons, receive missions and fight with the awkward inventory system that drastically detracts from the experience. You’ll find that doing simple things like comparing two weapons to find out which one is best or dropping several items at once are things you cannot do with the limited inventory system. Add this to the fact that you’re given an incredibly limited space for loot versus how much you’ll acquire and the slow pace at which your inventory expands and you’ll find you’re quickly frustrated. First-person shooter fans will be frustrated by how difficult it is to know which weapon is best out of the available inventory and loot-loving role-playing fans will be frustrated with how few items they can carry versus other games.

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The game very quickly breaks down into a seemingly endless series of fetch quests, each sending you deeper into Pandora but not really offering any diversity beyond a farther walk (eventually drive) to the quest and back again. A vast majority of the quests in the game involve going to a location, shooting a group of enemies, coming across a boss, collecting something from the dispatched boss and then returning to collect the quest reward. Even quest givers that don’t require you present anything tangible to them still require you come and tell them you completed it in order to get the experience. This adds a lot of time wasted to the game and slows down the action tremendously without improving the story-telling at all.

If the environments were more interesting, the free time that you’re given to explore the game world might be better spent, but the vast majority of Pandora is lifeless, dull and monochromatic. You’ll be incredibly happy when you’re given access to vehicles a few hours in, just to spare yourself the drudgery of trudging across the desolate landscape and shooting at annoying, respawning enemies that you’ll quickly overpower. In a bizarre decision that makes no sense in terms of the limited in-game economy, you’re thankfully able to spawn an infinite number of vehicles strapped with weaponry. This seems silly when you go to the game’s weapons store and are forced to pay high prices for something much less significant like a pistol, but implementation does speed the game up (thankfully).

Killing makes up a bulk of the game, with each character representing a different class that you’ve seen everywhere else (soldiers, snipers, etc.). The characters themselves are mostly lifeless and not much more can be said about the actual fighting. Borderlands combines the stat-based elements of RPG combat with the instant action of first-person shooters. Like most RPGs, you’ll explore large zones littered with bands of enemies. As you move deeper and deeper into Pandora enemies gradually increase in strength, but since you have to backtrack so often, you’ll still be slaughtering low-level enemies well into higher levels. It doesn’t help matters that the AI isn’t very bright, often standing out of cover without concern. Part of the game’s hype surrounded the thousands and thousands of weapons in the game and while there are a lot of them, the quantity doesn’t really add a whole lot as the variations between guns aren’t very drastic.

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Borderlands is marginally better with companions, though it can be played exclusively single player if you’re not online. To the credit of the designers, I thought it was very cool that that game allows you to move one character through single and multiplayer. Even with friends though, the multiplayer component has faults. For one, there isn’t a very clear chat area on the screen, making it easy to miss messages typed to other players. You also can’t easily review things people have said. To make matters worse, there’s no native microphone support, which speaks (or doesn’t, in this case) for itself.

The game certainly isn’t bad to look at, though there are some bugs. Much was made about the move to the cel-shaded art style seen XIII a few years ago and the move was for the best. The game is boring enough as it is; I can’t imagine how terrible it might be if it were strapped with a more traditional graphics engine. Though the engine is certainly an improvement and occasionally delightful to look at, there are some issues, particularly with keeping a steady framerate. While these issues aren’t too severe, they nevertheless detract from the experience. I also experienced significant issues with shadows, even after patching. I finally had to turn dynamic shadows off entirely, even on a very capable machine.

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Borderlands has a lot of growing to do. The concept is strong, but in execution, it just doesn’t work very well. Borderlands is too often boring and shallow, with cumbersome menus, a useless weapons gimmick and limited in-game communication. The game gets neither the first-person shooter aspects nor the multiplayer mechanics right. This leaves fans of either frustrated as they search for what are basic features in other products and feelings of frustration aren’t conducive to the long playtime needed to see the game to the end. Borderlands definitely has potential, but the developers need to significantly refine and streamline any sequel to get me back on board.

Five out of ten

Pros

Art style is great (when the engine works)
Great sound effects on weapons
Lots of content (if you prefer quantity over quality)

Cons

Limited communication options between players
Lifeless game world
Too many weapons
Boring characters
Not very compelling
Inventory is a pain to manage

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About the author

Matt Wadleigh is an Associate Editor at Thunderbolt, having joined in February 2003. He’s a resident of Portland, OR. and you can follow him on Twitter @asherdeus.

Comments

Wasp
23rd March 2010

No.
nathan
24th March 2010

I really enjoyed the 360 version. It felt like a mmo without the annoyances of a mmo. Also to many weapons? Really? Maybe this is just not your type of game.
I can see the pc version getting a lower score due to it being a console port and suffering from what most console ports do. But otherwise this seems a bit ridonk.
Matt Wadleigh
24th March 2010

Explain to me what is gained by having so many weapons over having a few.
Nathan
24th March 2010

Addictive behavior. People like collecting stuff and finding that next big upgrade. They want variety and that one epic item that is better then their friends/other players.

What would games like Diablo and World of Warcraft be like if there was a limited amount of gear/weapons? They wouldn’t anywhere as acclaimed as they are. You can clearly tell the creators love those types of games and wanted to try it in a fps.
Matt Wadleigh
25th March 2010

That’s a fine answer, but the difference between those games and this is that you can carry a lot more loot in World of Warcraft than you can in Borderlands. If you want to give me lots of loot, that’s fine, but I need to be able to carry it and there should be a point to most of it. While I appreciate that you can collect so many weapons, most of them are pretty much the same attribute-wise, except for different names. I just don’t see the point of it. If I don’t have room to pick up a lot of weapons I encounter, if the inventory management is so poor that comparing weapons requires that I write down on a paper which ones do which so I can actually see the differences (most of the time to find that they’re not different at all), why bother? You’re just slowing me down. I still don’t see how it improves the gameplay in anyway, and as someone who got on board with MMOs since the early days of Ultima, Asheron’s Call and the first EverQuest and has played Diablo and World of Warcraft, I thought that while the approach was reminiscent of those games, it wasn’t executed very well here.
McBen
31st March 2010

Too many weapons? What? Just no.
McBen
31st March 2010

Whoops… forgot to write the rest of my post.

I loved Borderlands. Once you get out of the “Fallout 3″ mindset and start thinking more along the lines of “World of Warcraft” you begin to enjoy the game substantially more. The only things I didn’t like were the floaty vehicle controls, the fact that you get a lot of lower level quests stored up without being able to delete them, text for quests instead of actual dialogue and pretty much non-existant atmosphere due to lack of any feeling of civilisation or decent characters that you can have a conversation with (gather the backstory, details, personal quests for example). As such, it felt lifeless bar the creatures.

That is another thing - I feel that the game would’ve been much better if there were no humans, as the bandits/raiders just feel pretty bland to shoot at compared to the large variety of aliens.

As far as weapons are concerned - I really enjoyed discovering different types of weapons. It felt exciting to randomly pick up a rare, scoped revolver with acid bullets. The art style was unique and pretty delicious looking, too.
Fackeln
1st April 2010

Boring and lifeless is right. Borderlands is the most overrated game of 2009.
n00ne
2nd April 2010

This game has so many things that you have obviously overlooked. Most likely only played it through once really quickly. Backpack space increases if you play more and is no longer a problem.

Weapons are really many and indeed the most common ones don’t differ that much from eachother. But there are thousands of rare weapons that I doubt you’ll find duplicates of.

About the environment , yes it might be a bit lifeless , but that is the whole idea of pandora.

You’re judging this game all wrong. The way I play it , my goal is to level up to the maximum level. Find rare weapons and gear , show them off to my friends. And go kill some more with my new rare weapons. And I’m having tons of fine doing it.

It’s the simplicity of this game that’s so attractive.

P.S. You CAN compare weapons to see which is better , this just shows that you’ve already made a statement about this game before even giving it a chance.
Sean
2nd April 2010

As much as I personally enjoyed Borderlands - I gave it an 8 on this very site - I tend to agree with Matt about the lifelessness of Pandora. This isn’t only a function of the wasteland nature of the game, but also the sterile graphics and the bland selection of NPCs. It also feels a bit lifeless since players cannot really customize their characters in an aesthetic sense, other than the superfluous palette swaps for each class.
Moozo
9th April 2010

Ouch, that’s a pretty average score.

What I will say is that, despite what most think, I don’t actually think the art style did the game any favours. Praise was lauded on Borderlands for trying something different. That I appreciate. I’m all for new stuff. Problem was, it wasn’t actually very nice.

It was ugly to look at, dull, and lifeless.
This game could have had a lot more character with a palette a little more… dare I say it… normal. Browns and greys get tiring after a while, and the only flashes of colour were usually diluted by a dark, bland colour elsewhere.

I think Prince of Persia 2008 pulled off the art style perfectly. That really was a damn pretty game. It’s not the style that limited Borderlands’ appearance, just the ambition.
Deizle
22nd October 2010

While I can respect the fact that the writer of this review is entitle to his own opinion, I happen to have an opinion of my own.

I work for an engineering company. Things have not been going so well since we began outsourcing a lot of our production/design. Stress. Lots of it. I find this game as simple as it may be the perfect relief. I don’t care that I can only hold 4.. 5 guns in my inventory. I really only need 4 for my weapon slots anyway. I don’t care that I have to backtrack constantly. Sometimes satisfying to drop 500 points of damage into that skag whelp.

If you expect to be able to carry around 2 tons of loot and blow through the game in 15 minutes than perhaps you’re playing the wrong genre?

I think borderlands is a great game, even if it is a bit clunky. It’s a blast when you have 3 of your friends online with you.
Catra
5th November 2010

This game is awesome This critic is just not correct. I never play games on my computer. However after this game I converted because it is just that much fun. You always are accomplishing things and getting ahead. I love that they give such great items and you have to hunt to find the gems in skag throw up haha ! All around this game is awesome and I think you should give it a shot.
Matt Wadleigh
5th November 2010

Hey - to each their own. I’m aware that my opinion is contrary to the norm on this game. I just didn’t like it too much. But I’ll admit that I lot of people do. My only goal was to justify why I didn’t like it and I hope I did that.
thisismyname
29th November 2010

You should not have listed “too many weapons” under cons if you have gripes with the limited inventory space.
Matt Wadleigh
29th November 2010

My issue with the amount of weapons wasn’t that there wasn’t enough space to carry them all, it was that there wasn’t enough to differentiate the bulk of them from each other.
Murut87
14th April 2011

I think you should play a little longer before you could say that.

Most of ppl play just an hour of it,and then they review it sucks.

Maybe thats your opinion,i think this game is pretty great.I just played it about 4 Hours and i still play this game without stop,even my brother are attracted to this game to.
The lifeless graphics are just a concept of pandora so there`s no reason why we don`t need a great Graphics with Highest-budget game.Only Simplistic is needed.

I`m sorry man but i think your review are not good enough to explain all of them.
Psy-koe
25th April 2011

I’m pretty sure that after reading this review you have quite the bias outlook on this game. for example how 2/3 of your pros have cons. oh well i guess we cant all get a game like this, anyway to get into the game i found the storyline quite charming. it was a little bit standard run of the line treasure hunter at first but after after meeting a cast of funny characters (scoot, dr zed, dr. ned(who is totally not zed from the first storyline)) things started getting better. also i really liked a lot of the bosses on there from the flaming skag to nine toes and many others. the guns in the game are also a great feature, i find it really cool when i hit the jackpot with a new sniper rifle and/or pistol, yes i used mordecai. speaking of the characters they were pretty badass to start with. they have quite a unique backstory too if you read the wiki. also you could compare weapons in the game, and even without using their compare feature you could just look at them, unless you have short term memory, which you might have and sorry if you do have it i did not mean to bash you for it. this was all of course without talking about the DLC’s which are pretty cool. anyway this was a great game all in all and definitly awesomly wrapped up by cage the elephants song “aint no rest”

hope you get back man cuz i would love to read your response man
Dave
25th May 2011

I have to say that I agree with this author 100%! I started out loving this game in the first few hours but it soon became tedious and just too much with the hundreds upon hundreds of truly useless weapons/shields/grenades. And comparing them is such a chore. Most of the game became a chore since it’s mainly fetch quests. And I REALLY did give this one an honest community college try. My hunter is level 25 and I came back to the game a few times in the last year but it really is not a fun experience for the most part.

I hope Rage satisfies that something that I thought I was going to get from Borderlands.
Keanu
27th June 2011

It was really interesting to read this review. For one thing, it gives Borderlands the lowest score I’ve seen anywhere. I do think Matt brings up a lot of good points, though. Pandora certainly is a drab and lifeless place. Then again, I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be that way. I remember Diablo being exactly the same way. Personally, I’ve always found the lonely atmosphere perfectly in keeping with what seems to be the feeling shared by Pandora’s inhabitants — that Pandora sucks.

Graphically, I definitely love the art style. It may not compare to some of the more technically impressive games like GoW, Bulletstorm, etc., but Borderlands does its own thang and does it well, I think. Again, the environments are pretty bland. But, barring real-life locations like the Grand Canyon, how often is desert really exciting to look at? As for the enemies, I agree that the humans aren’t particularly interesting. The vast majority all look the same, and there are relatively few voice samples, resulting in the same sort of character repetition on Borderlands’ aural front.

Where the game really shines for me is in its gameplay. We’re talking about a veeeery simple premise, being that it’s little more than:
1. Kill enemy
2. Take enemy’s stuff
3. Keep what you like, sell the rest
4. Rinse, repeat
I think that with games of this sort, there’s only so much to be done about repetition. It comes with the territory. Plot definitely isn’t the focus here, so what matters most is that the game controls well and is genuine fun to play. I agree with previous comments about the “floaty” feeling of driving. It feels and looks like the car is barely touching the ground — it just doesn’t have any weight to it. The car combat leaves something to be desired as well. It would be silly to expect Twisted Metal standards from an action RPG, but I do think that the vehicular aspect of the game could do with some tweaking just to improve the overall driving experience in-game.

But now that I’ve gotten my gameplay gripes out of the way, let’s look at what I did enjoy. First person shooters by their nature require tight and responsive controls. I have Borderlands on PC, so I can’t comment on the quality of control on the 360/PS3. What I can tell you is that, on the PC, the game controls as tightly as you could want. Be it firing a weapon, running around in circles, or doing both, Borderlands simply aces it. There are some parts of the game where you’ll encounter some platformer-type jumps which can be irritating, but when has jumping in an FPS ever been fun? I would say that in its best moments, Borderlands’ controls are fast and responsive (on foot and with firearms), and at its worst, functional (vehicles).

The highlight of the game for me was definitely the loot. Of course it’s great to have a decent-looking game that controls well, but if the loot sucks, then the whole game is pretty pointless. Borderlands definitely nails the loot, though. The random nature of weapon generation means that while there will naturally be a lot of more or less useless stuff, but there will also be some truly spectacular guns that you’ll come across. Case in point, in my first game (as the Hunter) I found a shotgun with a 7*121 damage multiplier. I love that gun. But I digress. The thing to bear in mind when playing ANY game of this type is that not every weapon is going to make you want to give up your most prized gear. But Diablo was the same way, wasn’t it? As for the inventory system, I’ve never felt like it was bad at all. Then again, I play with a mouse, so it takes all of about 3 seconds to choose a gun and equip it. I can see how the inventory screen would be much more cumbersome on a console.

All in all, I think that Borderlands is a fantastic game. Though not as polished as it could be, it nails a lot of the things that typically make or break a game of this type. The controls are tight, the graphics are fairly unique, and the sheer joy of picking up a stupidly powerful gun and blowing baddies to bits with it is addicting as hell. I haven’t said much about the perks system, but I’ve enjoyed that too.

Borderlands is by no means a game for those who require a deep plot and original story, as it has neither. But its addicting gameplay and somewhat uniqueness of concept — Diablo with guns, basically — make it about as fresh a take on the classic Diablo formula as you’re likely to find anywhere.

I liked Matt’s review. He and I may have differing opinions on the game, but, as I said before, he does bring up very good points about Borderlands’ weaknesses. It’s important to point out a game’s flaws so that developers know what to keep and what to improve on. So Matt, kudos for harping on Borderlands. Maybe Gearbox will give us a super awesome sequel in the future, eh?