As for the story, it goes like this. You are a bounty hunter in the distant future where several people journey too a planet called Pandora on the edge of the galaxy. People are drawn to this planet for the vault, which is said to contain vast stores of alien technology and secrets. However, the alien race that created the vault sacrificed their existence to seal the vault and its secrets... the only person who knows anything about the truth of the vault in the game is a character named Tannis, Who leaves evidence of the discovery scattered through out radio transmission proclaiming the vault's majesty. There are several moments throughout the game where you pick up clues as to the vault's whereabouts and what it may contain. Essentially, your goal as for the story is to find the vault.





Excellent draw distance and attention to detail, I've seen no evidence of partial loss of background or things appearing out of no where anywhere. Even in the heat of the most crowded battles this game runs at a solid frame rate which is high thanks to cell shading, it has wonderful ear pleasing sounds. Nearly every gun has a different sound than others, and the landscape just suits the game wonderfully. The characters in the game are done beautifully, good voice acting too. I really have no complaint about any aspect of the graphics, this is one of those few games in which producers preferred game play over graphics, and honestly this is a biiiiig plus.



This is like the best thing about this game, most game are exclusively beautiful graphic wise and others have the most fascinating stories, but borderlands... its like if all of that stuff had a baby. The game play in the game is amazing, its based on FPS/RPG elements like stated above, using leveling up by experience and skill point elements, the game allows you to customize your character in any way you please. From level 6 on, leveling up rewards players with points that they can use to acquire additional skills, boost existing skills, or further enhance their stats. Each character class has 3 unique skill lines they can advance in are further advanced and customized through loot. Players gain new items from slain opponents and chests. Loot ranges from guns, grenades, and ammo, to shields. Players can also find items which modify their character stats, and rare artifacts which modify their skills, or give powerful effects.
The world in which this game takes place, and the fact that it's huge makes everything about the game play mechanics both challenging and intuitive. Throughout the world, players will find vending machines to buy and sell their loot, and other terminals to access their storage, upgrade their skill load outs, and generate vehicles. Another great addition is when you move the cursor over a weapon on the ground, the HUD automatically compares it to the weapon you currently have equipped and shows you how much it is worth. Right then and there, before you even pick it up you know whether you can use it, or if it's worth selling.

While there are RPG elements, Borderlands is deeply rooted in a first-person shooter experience. There are plenty of weapons to pick up, and a ton of enemies to take out. Firearms break down into a handful of groups, including small machine guns, combat rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, launchers, revolvers and pistols (or repeaters). The game's artificial intelligence randomly generates guns using parts from all these weapon types. Adding to the variety are elemental powers such as fire, electricity and corrosion that pack an extra punch. A few of the guns found include shotguns with scope and electric ammo, an incendiary sniper rifle and a small machine gun unleashing acidic bullets.

The game also automatically adapts the difficulty if you're playing multiplayer, the enemies are appropriately challenging in single player. However if you play with a friend split screen, or a few friends online, the game automatically makes it still be challenging. Also if you are in a multiplayer game, there is a higher chance you will stumble across rare items. In my opinion, i believe that Borderlands is the only game that actually rewards for playing with your friends.

Characters

There are four playable characters in Borderlands. Each has a unique story and special abilities. A player can improve his character qualities like max health, ammo capacity, and accuracy as he/she progresses through the game. Here is a bit of info about each.

Mordercai (AKA-The Hunter)

Mordecai came to Pandora in search of a man from his past named Demosthenes. Upon learning that Demosthenes has died, Mordecai sets off to learn how he died and what he was carrying. Mordecai is most proficient with pistols and sniper rifles. His class specific skill is the ability to release a deadly pet Bloodwing which can be trained to kill multiple people at one time. Mordecai's Gunslinger skills benefit his proficiency with pistols (specifically, revolvers). His Sniper tree adds damage bonuses to sniper rifle and makes him a more proficient sniper, and his Rogue tree serves to improve his pet Bloodwing.

Preferred weapons: Sniper Rifles and Revolvers
Action Skill: Bloodwing

Roland (AKA-The Soldier)

Roland is a former Engineer of the Crimson Lance, a sort of highly trained private military that disregards law and order. A decade-old vendetta is rekindled when Roland learns that the leader of the Brigadiers has a suspiciously similar name to a man he has sworn to kill. Roland's class specific skill is a turret. It can be specialized to deal damage, heal teammates, or spawn ammo. His other skills involve increasing the damage he can inflict and making his bullets heal teammates. His skill trees are: Medical which specializes him in healing himself and teammates, Support which improves the effectiveness of his turret, and Infantry which improves his damage with weapons. Roland can specialize in weapons to increase the damage they deal by up to 15%.

Preferred weapons: Combat Rifles and Shotguns
Action Skill: Scorpio Turret

Lilith (AKA-The Siren)

Once a human, Lilith at one point was turned into a siren. One of only six Sirens, they are a group of people with unbelievable powers, but no way to control them. She comes to Pandora in search of another Siren, in an effort to find out more about herself. Lilith's most iconic ability is called "Phase Walk", where she will teleport herself into another dimension where Lilith becomes invisible and can sneak around enemies with massively increased speed. Upon revealing herself, she detonates a shock-wave that can do area effect damage to all enemies. Her skill trees are Controller, which makes Lilith's Phasewalk usable more often, regenerates health/shields, and applies dazing effects to her attacks; Elemental, which makes her more powerful with guns by making the elemental effects of weapons have a higher chance of happening, and granting her passive elemental damage effects; and The Assassin tree makes her critical damage higher, and increases her Phasewalk melee attack damage.

Preferred weapons: Incendiary, Shock, and Corrosive guns
Action Skill: Phasewalk

Brick (AKA-The Berserker)

A massive specimen of a man who likes to use his fists to smash the enemy above all else. He wears a necklace adorned with the paw of his beloved deceased dog, and comes to Pandora looking for his sister. He fills in the tank niche and can take quite a beating. His class specific skill is being able to go into a state called "berserk" which greatly reduces the damage he takes for a short period and makes his melee attacks extremely potent. His Brawler tree increases the power and duration time of Berserk, and also adds damage to his melee attacks. His Blaster tree increases his proficiency with weapons, mainly explosives. The Tank tree increases his maximum health and affects how fast his shield will recharge, and how much damage it can take.

Preferred weapons: Explosive weapons and his fists
Action Skill: Berserk

The Cons and Pros about Borderlands

There are very few cons for a game like this but there are some, like for those gamers that like extreme interactions with your environment like running from cover to cover and dodging enemies intensely like your going to be killed with 5 bullets or leaping obstacles all with a single tap of the button wont get that much of entertainment, Borderlands doesn't have that. That's not to say that cover doesn't exist, nor that it's useless. In your first levels of play you'll have to take cover & leap your fair share of hurdles just to stay alive. But the "cover reigns king" that Gears of War and CoDs have taught us isn't there.

The Pros

Borderland is an awesome game, period. This game has a lot of replay ability. Aside from the 16 million+ guns you could be hunting for, there are tons of side quests to keep you interested. The online co-op also helps make this game one of the most repayable games ever. With the level cap at 50 though things take a pretty big slow-down. Luckily all 4 of the character classes play differently enough to just start a new game with a new class to give a new experience to the game.

My final score for this game:


One of the best games of this year in my opinion. Even Ice-T thinks so =D

This is my first review ever lol, so critics and comments are gladly welcomed.
Ley

cool review...i never even heard of borderlands b4 this and now I want it o_0

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I have to say, this is a very detailed Review. But perhaps a little bit more detail concerning Gameplay/Graphics/Sounds? Like, perhaps, a Youtube video embedded with some of the music and graphics of the game inserted into it? That's the primary thing that bothers me, but maybe that's just because pictures make the world go round

Nicely done (Y)

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BUMP IT.
Put some videos up
=]

Probably last bit of advice I'll give ya. A teensy bit too many videos. I know I said add some more to broaden the experience, but that's overdoing it a bit o_o

Also, as for images[because now PB isn't blocked on my home comp], I see you've got quite a bundle of large pics. Maybe try sizing the larger ones(Like the MOMMY, DADDY, and SON pictures?) down a bit. Balanced image sizes make for awesomely organized-looking reviews

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I know i have to resize the images, ill get to that later.
I want to know from Adam if it needs something else too.

Thanks for the advice Rosaru.

One thing that I think adds to the cons is that there's really no personal stories (that I saw) for each of the characters as you're playing the game. I was hoping for a little bit a leeway with character specific quests and missions. This would also help a little bit with character development.

Also, one of the things you could add was the range of landscapes that are depicted in the game. From the caves, to Krom's Valley to the Salt Flats. Imagery goes a long way in reviews.

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Representing the computer gamers!

The only character specifics at all are in the bloody manual lol.

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"There's a level of realism you can only achieve through the imaginary."