Borderlands: First Impressions

Borderlands: 2 thumbs up!

I know I’m a little late to the game on this one.  A lot of people have been talking about Borderlands on the web, with mostly positive reviews.  I’ve just acquired a copy. which turned out to be harder than I expected.

I went to the local Best Buy and they were sold out of all versions (360, PS3, PC).  I stopped by another Best Buy that was next door to the pet store where I was picking up some pet food, and found that the version I wanted, for the 360, was gone.  I went to see if they had it for the PS3, and I saw there was a copy on the shelf, in front of the shelf sign.  Behind the shelf sign was what looked to be another copy.  Having worked retail in the past, I thought I’d straighten that up for them (OK I can’t help myself) and lo and behold, the one behind the PS3 sign was actually a 360 version.  Shopping in the store after that, I was treated to much Geek Envy as everyone wanted to know where I found that elusive copy.  But I digress…

Loaded the game up and played in split-screen with Tarkheena.  We each rolled a character.  She chose Lilith and I chose Mordecai.  And we were off.  The game eases you into the action from the start with some great music and character.  I love the art style although I’ll acknowledge it probably isn’t for everyone.  Very cool in my estimation.

We only had a chance to play for a few hours, but gameplay was smooth and even though you are obviously on rails you can wander around.  I loved the sniper rifle.  It’s very satisfying to headshot an enemy from a distance while Tarkheena was picking them off with her handguns.

This is definitely a first impression due to the limited playtime we have into it, but we both really liked the game.  I did encounter a bug in single player mode that forced me to restart the game with a level-2 character.  That wasn’t too bad but would have been a game killer had he been level 25 or something.  At the outset the little robot guy is a little annoying, as it was pretty obvious where he was.  Still he felt the need to announce it every 10 seconds.  Also, the UI didn’t scale well in splitscreen, which made using menus a little wonky.  Obviously an afterthought.

The gameplay, attitude, and art style were all to my tastes though.  Tark took the role of the gatherer and found all the hidden money and ammo, and I definitely took the role of the hunter and looked for things to asplode with my sniper rifle.  You get your signature powers at level 5, and with all of our exploration we didn’t get there.  I expect we will tonight.

We’ll be playing this a lot more, and I’ll give you more in a second impression once I get the chance to play online with some of my friends in co-op mode.

First impression:  2 thumbs up!

- Genda