So Borderlands came out about a while back and after a bit of hunting I finally found it at a local Wal-Mart (Thank god people hate Walmart so much). Now while this may be irrelevant, but the only reason I picked this game up is because one my friends told me that this game is like Diablo… and who doesn’t love Diablo.
This game is like Diablo, except it has guns… and is a first person shooter… and is set on a different planet. But that is where all the dissimilarities end. Basic premise of the game is to run around kill monsters and gain levels and collect loot so you can be high enough level to kill the baddie at the end of the game (call it an educated guess).
There is a neat little Character introduction process, with which you get four characters to choose from:
Mordecai as the Hunter (Rogue), Roland as the Soldier (Warrior), Brick as the… Brick (Barbarian), and Lilith as the Siren (Sorcerer). I picked the Siren.
The game starts you off in the regular run-of-the-mill scenario of getting used to combat as you follow a robot around to the town of Fyrestone (Tristram) from where you shall be questing. I nearly died in this part due to the lack of shields (that are given to you after this area, but mostly because I am not very good at the FPSs). There is an “aim assist” feature that helps a little but you still have to get your aim on the enemy. After you done with the introductory part you meet Dr. Zed (Deckard Cain) who will give you a bunch of quests to go do stuff or meet new people, who will in turn give you quests to go do stuff or meet new people and so and so forth… but you will be coming back to Dr. Zed (Deckard Cain) a lot. The quests themselves are simplistic and anybody who has played any RPG or MMO will be familiar with the format.
For each monster you kill, as well as each quest you do, you get experience and once you reach level 5 you have access to skill points. The first one is used to unlock your character’s special ability (Phasewalk in my case since I am playing through as Lilith) and the rest are spent on a skill tree like chart (reminiscent of Diablo). Money was a little hard to come by when I started the game but after about 4 levels (Which went by quick enough) I had suddenly had about 20K and nothing to do with it. Buying weapons seems pointless because the game was throwing weapons at me from monster kills and most of them were better than the ones in the shop (once it opens). Shields on the other hand are a little harder to come by but you won’t be changing them too often either.
The first boss battle comes at you suddenly that I was a little underleveled for it… (it seems). I died quite a few times. But this is where the game shines. Instead of having to go through the “load game, restart mission” screen you get cloned and put back at last checkpoint type area. So you can just run back into battle with the boss or whatever you were fighting at the time and continue from where you left off. But if you are one those cool people who can shoot where they aim, you have chance to get a “Second Wind”… when your HP falls to zero, you get a short amount of time to kill the nearest (or farthest) enemy to stand back up with a few HP. I was unable to get this to work though.
The last boss of the game was a bit of a pain; but once I figured out the trick to it…surprisingly easy, which was somewhat disappointing, as I was expecting more of a challenge. But after the first playthrough, the game can be loaded up again for a second playthrough in which the enemies are stronger, hit a lot harder, but this all doesn’t really seem to matter until the very near end of the game where this actually becomes a bit of an issue… there is literally a brick wall of difficulty in the last level of the game.
There have been two DLCs since the game has come out:
Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, which is like an invasion style game, where up to 4 people can team up to take on waves upon waves of enemies. I have only had a chance to try it single player and while the waves are easy enough for one person, the boss waves are like hitting a reinforced concrete wall at high speeds in car without the seat belt on. The first boss that I fought was Baron Flynt… and I was dead before I even realized it.
I am sure this is much easier, if not less harder, with more people.
The other one is The Island of Dr. Ned, a good ol’ Halloween styled adventure. Set in Jakob’s cove, this module boasts an eerie setting with zombies, werewolves, and other spooky things of that caliber. As you find out that there was a problem which Dr. Ned (not Zed) tried to fix and ended up creating more problems. Same as always you get quests from the bounty board which has its own claptrap to keep you company with snappy comebacks and funny dialogue. The one gripe that I have with this module… When zombies are killed with a head shot they drop a quest item “Brains” which are needed for a quest later on but the game gives you no indication of this and to top it all, any “brains” picked up before the quest begins don’t count towards it.
But that is a really minor thing. Over all this is a really fun single player module and I am sure is even more fun with multiple players.
Both the DLCs well worth the 800 MS points.
Now I did try playing the game through as one of the other 3 characters (Since I finished the game as Siren), but none of them seemed to be worth it as it seems that Siren seems to be a bit on more overpowered side of a class. Reminds me of the Amazon from Diablo II, until Blizzard nerfed them…
Yeah, I am not bitter about that (The Amazon bit, not the siren bit).
No comments:
Post a Comment