Borderlands

Borderlands is a science fiction first-person shooter game with RPG elements created by Gearbox Software for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. 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 4-player 'drop-in, drop-out' cooperative online play along with single-player and 2-player split screen co-op modes. In addition, players have access to customizable vehicles for vehicular combat. Deceased enemies drop their equipment, which is available for you to pick up.

Like traditional RPGs, much of the player's time will be taken up by quests. There will be 160 quests of varying length and complexity, 30 of these being part of the story and the other 130 as side quests. Many of these quests will not be mutually exclusive, and can be completed together. Gearbox wants to encourage the player to push themselves just a bit further to complete the next quest on their list. Each quest carries its own rewards, such as new weapons, or perhaps revealing a new piece of the story.

Randomization
The game will also have a unique feature similar to Diablo's random level 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 additional damage such as explosion and shock.

"We saw a ridiculous amount of guns, but perhaps the strangest was a revolver that fired shotgun shells. 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."

The features of the maps will also be randomly generated. While towns, and the general paths connecting them will remain the same, Borderlands features a system that randomly instances the surrounding landscape, with randomly placed things such as bunkers, towers, caves, enemies, and exploding cacti. (Lie)

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.

Multiple Playthroughs
After completing the game, the player is free to roam the world and wrap up any side quests 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 the character, however, the player can choose to begin Playthrough 2.

On the second playthrough, the character has all of the gear, skills, levels, and money that he or she ended the game with. All of the enemies scale up, with the bandits at the beginning at level 34, and going up from there. The names of enemies also change.

After beating the game again on Playthrough 2, all of the enemies scale again, ranging from 48-52 and dropping even better loot than before. The player can revisit and battle most of the bosses, since they respawn, and fight for better gear, participate in cooperative play, and fight in the arenas.

Character Classes
Borderlands includes four character classes, each with unique skills, abilities and back stories. As your character levels up, you can increase basic stats such as health totals, ammo capacity and accuracy. Each class also has three unique focus skill trees to develop. There is also an accessory item type specific to each class. The four classes are:


 * Brick (Berserker)
 * Lilith (Siren)
 * Mordecai (Hunter)
 * Roland (Soldier)

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 anyone's 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. Those who have money leave, the remaining population devolves into chaos and lawlessness. 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. All of the creatures are randomly generated as you play the game, so no two playthroughs will ever be the same.

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

 * See Article: Reviews

External link

 * Official Borderlands Website
 * BorderlandsForums.com