Atomic Buster!

Much like the way peanut butter and chocolate are two great tastes that taste great together, I love genre mash-ups. Adding addictive RPG elements to other styles of game is commonplace now, but Borderlands really runs with it. It goes so far as to show damage numbers popping out of your foes as you ventilate them with your SMG, and that’s a trolley I want to ride.

You do the aforementioned ventilating in a post-apocalyptic future on distant planet Pandora, where the untamed frontier of the American Wild West meets science fiction lasers and hostile alien species. The light cel-shading effect gives everything an over the top cartoon aesthetic. Your foes’ black outlines are striking against the comic-styled red mountainous landscape which casts dynamic shadows during the real-time day / night cycle. The sensation of exploring a real alien world is enhanced by the fact that there are treasure chests and miscellaneous loot piles absolutely everywhere. In nearly every nook and cranny, on difficult-to-reach rooftops, and behind hidden doors, you find trash and treasure.

CL4P-TP

Though, that’s not to imply that the world of Pandora is one that lives and breaths. Plot is certainly light in this one, and NPCs don’t so much speak with you as talk at you. There are occasional radio transmissions and quest reports, but few characters receive any development. Perhaps the most charming – and probably by design – is the Claptrap robot. There are a number of models, all cyclopic unicycles which spout nonsensical dialog while dancing enthusiastically.

With the lack of plot or dialog, the game leans heavily on its action. In my experience, combining RPG-like progression systems with action games is an unmitigated improvement, but this implementation demands some caveats. For most of the game, a difference of as little as two levels can make some enemies impossible to defeat by conventional means. Not only do they have more health, but they take reduced damage, deal further damage and are more resistant to the few status effects you can inflict. More than two levels above them, and your enemies fall effortlessly. I started enjoying the game much more once I learned to adventure within this narrow band of feasibility. Though I would warn potential buyers that the third act is the worst in this regard. The last fight is a Final Fantasy 9 class out-of-nowhere WTF boss amidst a steady decline of side quests.

The must-be-this-tall-to-have-fun level restriction is compounded by the necessity of having a level-appropriate weapon. The loot system in Borderlands is a beautiful and cruel; for many levels my soldier went without a decent combat rifle. This is more than made up for by the thrill of finding unique boss weapons or rare, potent firearms randomly generated by fallen bandits. When it works, it recreates the fun of rogue-likes and Diablo clones. The goal is very much to earn loot to kill bigger baddies to earn loot, etc.

The single player portion may seem dire from the description thus far, but nit-picking that misses the point. From the team boosting class mod devices to the Hunter’s “you expect me to share?” dialog, this game assumes you are playing with friends. Indeed, many of its flaws are easily glossed over when you have a team of four players synergizing their passive abilities and co-ordinating their attacks.

Tags: gaming