Sunday, January 17, 2010

Borderlands (Xbox 360)

Borderlands, which was released in 2009, is a first person shooter game. Now I had high hopes for this game ever since Game Informer previewed the game several years ago. This game looked EPIC. Now that it's released though, it isn't quite up to those epic standards I really hoped for. I'm not saying that the game is terrible, or that I didn't enjoy it or anything- I really did, and still do. It's just that it could have been so much better.
Borderlands main selling feature is the thousands and thousands of guns that you can find in the game. Some are simplistic, like the starting weapons, but others are complex pieces of machinery. Some of the more interesting weapons include: rocket launchers that shoot multiple rockets, revolvers that burst enemies into flames, and sub-machine guns that shoot corrosive acid. Along with fire and acid, there are two other special effects that guns can have (shock and explosive), making for some interesting weapons. Having these particular weapon effects makes the game quite fun and interesting, but could have been even more enjoyable with the inclusion of more special gun effects (maybe a freezing effect?).
A second way to make guns more interesting would be to make them customizable. Personally, I never feel overly attached to any of the guns, and by being able to customize them, players would feel more attached to their death-dealing arsenal.
Now onto the actual game. Note: the beginning of the game is really boring due to the lack of interesting weapons and boring enemies. As the game continues, the enemies and locales become greater in interest. Sadly, this leads me into another point: the enemy AI is not very good. For the most part the many raider type enemies that I fought duck behind cover, run around to a different piece of cover, or worse: stand still. The developers really need to fix this problem if they make a sequel (which I very much hope they do).
All in all, if you like shooting interesting weapons and a fun co-op game- check out Borderlands.

P.S.- This game has a very MMO feel to it, with the basic questing and such, so yeah.

Edit: So I finally beat the game after how long....what a terrible ending. Yeesh. I mean, not fulfilling at all. The only reward I got at the end was a bunch of money. Whoop-dee-doo I already had more than I could ever spend. I wanted a cool gun...and I only found 2 alien guns in the whole game...oh well.

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