Borderlands

Borderlands is a science fiction first-person shooter game with RPG elements created by Gearbox Software for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. The game was revealed in the September 2007 issue of Game Informer magazine. Borderlands is the first in a planned franchise and was released on October 20, 2009.

Gameplay
Borderlands features four-player 'drop-in, drop-out' cooperative online play in addition to a single-player mode, and two-player split screen co-op modes for consoles. Much of the gameplay consists of traditional first person shooter elements, combining a selection of weapons to use and a selection of enemies to battle. Players also have access to color customizable vehicles for vehicular combat. Deceased enemies drop random equipment, which is available to pick up.

Missions
Like traditional RPGs, much of the players' time will be taken up by missions. There are 127 missions of varying length and complexity, 47 of these being part of the story and the other 80 as side missions. Many of these missions can be completed together. Gearbox wants to encourage players to push themselves just a bit further to complete the next mission on their list. Each mission carries its own rewards, such as new weapons and items, or perhaps revealing a new piece of the story.

Randomization
The game also has a unique feature similar to Diablo's random item generation system. This new system will generate over 17,000,000 weapons (as of PAX 2009). The system randomized the guns by changing nearly everything about the guns, including barrel length, round type, round size, ironsights/scope, color, building material, and even elemental damage forms added onto the attack.

"We saw a ridiculous amount of guns, but perhaps the strangest was a revolver that fired shotgun shells (similar to .38/.357 shotshells). Gearbox is constantly surprised with what the system comes up with. They've seen rifles shoot everything from homing darts to rockets. 'One of the guns tracks onto something and locks, and after three seconds, [the target] suddenly explodes,' director Matthew Armstrong says." However, such features have not been seen in the game yet.

Player vs. player
At any time, a player can melee another player to issue a challenge. When the melee is returned, a 1 vs. 1 duel starts. Players can also travel to "arenas" located at various locations in the game world. These arenas are specifically made for competitive play, where players can face off in both free-for-all games or team-based games.

(winning duels does not win items but is solely for the purpose of fun)

Multiple Playthroughs
After completing the game, players are free to roam the world and wrap up any side missions left unfinished, drop the Vault key off at Tannis and collect their reward and wander around aimlessly. After returning to the title screen and choosing characters however, players can choose to begin Playthrough 2.

On the second playthrough, characters have all of the gear, skills, levels, and money that they ended the game with. All of the enemies scale up, with bandits beginning at level 34, and ascending from there. The names of enemies also adjust to reflect the difficulty setting, i.e. from psycho-maniac-lunatic, midget-little-stunted and Bruiser-Brute-Bully.

At the end of Playthrough 2, all of the enemies scale again, ranging from 48-52 and dropping even better loot than before. Players can revisit and battle most of the bosses, and fight for better gear, participate in cooperative play, and fight in the arenas. Denoted as Playthrough 2.5, marking the completion of Playthrough 2's storyline missions, all enemies and missions scale to either two levels below or above your own and adapts as you level up (if you intend to play DLCs, do not complete Playthrough 2 unless you are a very capable player and are particularly adept at 'tough' difficulty combat).

Character Classes
Borderlands includes four character classes, each with unique skills, abilities and back stories. As characters level up, they gain increases to basic stats, such as health totals and accuracy. Each class also has three unique focus skill trees to develop. There are also accessory items specific to each class. The four classes are:
 * Brick (Berserker) (Berserk)
 * Lilith (Siren) (Phase walk)
 * Mordecai (Hunter) (Bloodwing)
 * Roland (Soldier) (Scorpio turret)

Story
In the distant future, several colonization ships head to Pandora, a planet on the edge of the galaxy. The colonists are drawn there in search of a better life as well as vast mineral resources said to be on the planet, free for the taking, akin to a futuristic gold rush. Some time after settling, the colonists discover that there is little the planet offers aside from some decrepit alien ruins. When the companies mining the planet leave they let loose the criminals they had employed as forced labor and left any other colonists there. Some of the settlers seek to get rich quick by discovering alien technology. Most others are just trying to survive. After seven earth years, the planet's slow orbit brings a transition from winter to spring, and many horrifying creatures emerge from hibernation.

A beacon of hope for the remaining colonists emerges in the form of a mysterious alien Vault carved in the side of a mountain. This Vault is said to contain vast stores of alien technology and secrets. The only problem is that the people who discovered the Vault were completely wiped out by some sort of protective force. The only evidence of their discovery is a scattered radio transmission, proclaiming the Vault's majesty, but not its location.

Reviews
G4 4/5 2009/10/19 Brian leahy

PC requirements

 * 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 Processor or equivalent
 * AMD K7 processors require a patch available here: gbxforums
 * NVIDIA Geforce 8600 GS/ATI Radeon X850 Series
 * Requires Pixel shader version 3.0 or better (ONLY required to activate certain high-level graphics features)
 * DVD-ROM drive (Not required if game is purchased from an online store.)
 * 8 GB of hard disk space

Trivia

 * The intro song of Borderlands is "Ain't no rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant.
 * The end title song is "No Heaven" by D.J. Champion.
 * The intro shows a skag roaring upward, while this never happens in the game.

External link

 * Official Borderlands Website
 * BorderlandsForums.com
 * GotY Mac @ Feral Interactive

Borderlands