by Emily Hunter

Created on: September 07, 2010

Borderlands is a first person shooter which takes gamers for a twisted mutant ridden adventure through the wild west atmosphere of Pandora.   It can turn even the most anti-shooter type into a screaming, rakk obliterating bandit blasting mercenary.  Take time out to trash the bad guys and find the Vault with this fun-loving title from 2K.

Games are about fun and Borderlands delivers it.  Your goal is to find the Vault, an ancient trope of all knowing, all seeing power.  Rumors say that there is great treasure hidden within. Some say that there is power with new weapons.  Whatever is in it, it's definitely an entertaining romp to get there.

You have the choice of four classes: Berzerker, Siren, Soldier and Hunter.  Each of those classes offers a Diablo styled tech tree where skill points can be allocated for certain trait advantages.  If you want to be a sharpshooter, invest in your sniper rifle skill.  If you want to heal quickly, there is a skill for that.  These skills are fairly standard in the RPG arena.

The graphics are illustrated and cartoonish.  The creators at 2K weren't intent on getting all of the textures right.  They didn't devote that much attention to object-collision rules or other polished features.  They did, however, pay a lot of attention to making people's heads explode and sending the bad guys to oblivion.

The ambient music doesn't reach out and grab you.  It stays suitably in the background, warning people of danger when necessary.  The opening credits come right out of the box with its theme by Cage the Elephant.  Parts of the incidental music seemed to be taken directly from the fourth act of Diablo II.

Fortunately, the game itself is incredibly easy to learn and use.  There are no serious tweaks about the controls that force a learning curve in the player.  There was a little bit of learning involved with vehicle system, but it was not as steep as, say, Driver's.

Where this game excels is in its weapons.  There are normal weapons.  There are also weapons which deal fire, shock, explosive and acid damage.  There are modifiers to each of the different types of weapons, making a real decision between shooters.  Do you take the one which fires the fastest, or the one which does the most damage?  This aspect makes the game a blast, rather than a slog.

Borderlands takes first person shooters and removes the drudgery from them.  You are not shooting for quests, you are shooting for the sheer joy of shooting, of making that rakk fall out of the air, of making the midget shotgunner explode into a million pieces.  This is where the sheer entertainment value rests.

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