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- Borderlands supports 2-4 players via PlayStation Network.
- Borderlands is built from the ground up to be an intuitive co-operative experience for up to four players that rewards players who work together and invest in co-op skills. Split screen is also supported.
- In this rpg shooter, choose one of four distinct characters, each with their own individual skill sets. As your character grows throughout this fast-paced FPS, you choose and customize your abilities to suit your style of play.
- Jump behind the wheel and engage in high-speed vehicle-to-vehicle combat, complete with spectacular explosions and road-killed enemies.
- Choose from literally hundreds of thousands of weapons, each with their own manufacturers, specifications, and advantages via a revolutionary content generation system.
Product Description
Gearbox Software has developed revolutionary new technology to create Borderlands’ incredible layers of gameplay depth. Borderlands features a groundbreaking content generation system allowing for near-endless variety in missions, environments, enemies, weapons, item drops and character customization.
In a distant future, the planets at the outer edges of the galaxy have become a beacon to fortune seekers and those yearning for a better life off world. But there are no guarantees in deep space. Pandora, one of these distant planets,.. More >>
12/17/2009 at 9:51 am
[...] View strange here: Borderlands | XBox 360 & PS 3 Video Game Reviews [...]
12/17/2009 at 10:12 am
I first saw this game mentioned on a web site about 6 months ago. I watched some videos and thought this would be great if they can pull it off.
Well, they did.
If you like first person shooters and RPG games, get this game!
As some have stated it does start off a bit slow, but it kinda has to, to get you up to speed with how things work. but once you get over that learning curve, it’s btw from then on. The art style is great, the cell shaded look is very cool and a nice departure from the ultra-realistic games that are out now.
Co-op is really where this game shines. Go online, get some buddies and go out and wreak havoc on everything on Pandora! The game will adjust the number of enemies and strengths accordingly.
There was an issue with friends lists on the launch day but Gearbox got that sorted out within 24hrs. Kudos to them for the fast response.
Also, there are new add-on packs/expansions coming that will extend the game beyond it’s primary programming!
bottom line – this is a great game!!
Rating: 4 / 5
12/17/2009 at 11:12 am
Before you attack my review, which someone will surely do since I’m the first to give it less than a 5 star rating, please keep in mind that I don’t hate it. I had a pretty good time playing it other than the few problems that I encountered, which is why in my opinion, it isn’t 5-star worthy.
Overall, the game is mildly enjoyable. It reminded me quite a bit of Fallout, which I did enjoy but found some aspects overwhelming. The controls are fine, the cell-shaded graphics look great, and everything sounds up to par.
What I didn’t care for is the back-tracking, the constant respawning enemies, and the multitude of mutant dogs (or variations of) that I encountered in the first 4 hours of the game. There are millions of these stupid mutts, and all of the back-tracking to and from mission start points force you to either navigate around or kill them. If you do shoot one, typically three more come flying out of their den to attack you. They’re not difficult to kill, but not fun either. They’re irritating and they’re everywhere. The mission objectives are fine. But so far, all of the missions either involve killing mutant dogs or making it to some object which is on the other side of 30 dog dens. The only variety comes in the form of hordes of large flying creatures, who just like the dogs, attack in packs.
The online multiplayer seems alright, although every match I joined, the host was way ahead of the rest of the party, leaving us to kill mutant dogs while he/she completed the objective. Its my bet that this is the more enjoyable way to play if you all stay in the same vicinity. The single-player mode got just too repetitive.
I don’t regret buying this game and will continue to play it, but most likely only in the online mode.
Rating: 4 / 5
12/17/2009 at 11:56 am
PS3 owners should be aware of the current limitations of the PS3 version of Borderlands. I own a PS3, so pre-ordered this for PS3. It was my initial understanding that this game would support co-op split screen play, which it does. However, the only problem with this is that the ps3 version of Borderlands will not allow two PSN accounts to log-in simultaneously. This means that you will have to log-in to one account every time you want to play with a friend. This is not true for the XBOX360 version. The XBOX360 version is much more along the lines of free-play whereby you can jump in and play with friends with little or no hassle, everyone’s level and experience progress is saved and you can play under your own individual accounts. Not so in the PS3 version. In the PS3 version you are essentially a “guest” to the PSN account currently logged in. Gearbox states that this is a limitation of the PlayStation 3 and not Gearbox’s fault. This answer is not convincing though, especially when games such as Resistance 2 and Little Big Planet support co-op with individual PSN log-ins simultaneously. As far as the gameplay is concerned…it’s fantastic but PS3 owners need to be aware that co-op in the ps3 version is not as enjoyable as the XBOX360 version. I’m very unhappy to say the least.
Rating: 4 / 5
12/17/2009 at 1:40 pm
Borderlands has so far proved to be an immensely enjoyable game delivering in many ways where Gearbox promised. I feel it will be equally appealing to fans of shooters and dungeon crawlers alike.
You start the game going through a little story intro and a bit of a bus ride. Shortly after a bit of introduction you’ll be asked to select one of the characters and exit the bus to start your adventures. The game doesn’t come right out and tell you these are your “classes” but for the interests of the RPG elements of the game that’s what they are. Your choices are basically between stealth/special weapons, sniper, support/healing, and tank/melee. There unfortunately isn’t a vast amount of customization in their looks available but you can alter a 3 color scheme for their outfit and customize your name almost immediately after stepping off the bus.
From here you do a short and sweet tutorial which throws you right in to the action relatively quickly. The controls are tight and will be very familiar to fans of popular FPS games such as Halo, Resistance, Gears, Unreal, and many others. You have the ability to jump, duck, melee, shoot, toss grenades, and eventually use a class specific special ability such as placing turrets. Aside from the general control of your character menus are easy to navigate for all of your weapons, the map is easy to read, and the HUD is simple and informative.
Following the tutorial you progress the game from doing various quests. These quests can be found on mission boards, from NPCs, and occasionally from random stuff lying around. The quests themselves so far haven’t been anything particularly noteworthy in the grand scheme of RPGs. It’s still a lot of “kill XYZ” “collect a fistful of whozawhatits” or “go talk to random NPC” but they have streamlined them enough to where the don’t feel forced but rather serve as more of a beacon of where you should realistically be taking your character and scoring some nice exp and loot while you’re at it. Quest objectives can also be tracked and objectives are clearly marked on your compass.
Outside of questing there are a decent number of monsters to kill. I still don’t really have much of an idea as to what dictates when an enemy will respawn but it seems if you wander around enough you will likely run in to something to kill. It’s typically not a mindless slaughter either, I would highly recommend trying fighting tactically much like you would in a shooter. Until you out-gear or out-level your opponent you will find that the game can actually be quite challenging at times and reward clever use of your equipment and abilities. The game did a great job of encouraging this too by making your enemies respond to grenades logically, implementing cover well, and of course rewarding you with devastating critical with our beloved’ HEAD SHOT!
Sizable amounts of experience can also be earned through completing various challenges which are like in game achievements, some of which are actually tied to achievements/trophies. It’s mostly killing various things with various weapons but early on it’s a great source of experience and you can track your progress on them.
Starting at level 5 you will start to acquire skill points every level. These are used to boost various abilities of your character via a talent/skill tree. There aren’t a lot of choices and you can get quite a few of them with the number of points you wind up with but most of them are fundamentally decent options allowing for some individual diversity in how you build your character without having to over-think it. Aside from that each level your character will get a generic health, defense, and attack boost.
The weapons are pretty cool but I will state that some of the “87 Gazillion” claims were perhaps a bit exaggerated. While it is true that many of the weapons can do quite a bit of unique things, the vast majority of the weapons and gear you will find are going to be slight variations of each other much like any other similar dungeon crawler such as Sacred, Titan Quest, or Diablo. Perhaps later in the game the unique generation of weapons becomes more apparent but I could so far fairly compare this to the way the weapons were in Hellgate: London. As for the size of the actual database and possible combination of weapons, I’m sure their claims are accurate but I can only comment from a practical standpoint of what I’ve seen. In addition to weapons you also get shields which can do various things such as regen health or do elemental bursts when depleted and grenade modifications which allow your grenades to do all kinds of things such as teleport, stick to things, and bounce.
Looting is probably one of my few mild gripes with this game. You can’t simply auto-loot everything in your proximity. What the game has you doing is finding in item, hitting the loot button, and then holding it to pick up other relatively close items. It’s not game breaking annoying but the range on it isn’t very great and holding the loot button to pick up a weapon will auto-equip it which is something that can be frustrating at times.
The graphics will most likely be a love/hate thing for most players as they are highly stylized. I personally love them and think they’re quite well done but there are certainly realism junkies out there that won’t care for the cartoon approach at all. I will say that only decent videos of this game should be used to judge the graphics, still screenshots don’t do this game any justice at all. Graphics aside the environments are very interesting, the characters are well done albeit a bit generic, enemies are pretty decent (Tremors anybody?), and the animations are high quality.
Multiplayer can be done with 2 player split screen couch co-op and online with up to four players I believe. I haven’t gone online yet but the split screen was easy enough. Rather than scaling all of the menus down in split screen they opted to leave them full size and movable so that text wouldn’t get smushed together which I thought was a pretty clever move. What this means is both players don’t have to squint to read everything thing, simply centralize it in their field of view. Also as you do quests objectives/turn-ins will be shared meaning you don’t spend your time waiting for everyone to catch up all the time. In multiplayer you can also duel each other which I haven’t tried yet.
Vehicles haven’t really been much more than a way to get around for me yet. They can be customized in color and weapon outfit but my brother and I both agreed that they weren’t a very good way of killing anything aside from running them over which seemed to always been an automatic kill. For a giant vehicle mounted weapon they seem completely inferior to even the worst weapon you could collect at that relative level. The controls are very similar (identical?) to that of a Warthog in Halo. They’ll probably take some getting used to for new players but they’re relatively easy once you’ve figured them out. I personally find them to be a bit floaty and awkward but at the moment I don’t see myself needing clutch control out of the vehicles for combat so they are passable.
The story regards something involving finding a long lost vault of alien technology. While I’m sure it’s interesting I honestly haven’t paid much attention to it aside from parts of the story which I couldn’t avoid. This sort of game doesn’t really bank on the story for me.
That’s basically it. Quest, kill, loot, level, and become the destructive juggernaut that Pandora always needed while searching for the vault.
Pros:
Great implementation of shooter mechanics
Lots of fun loot
Good multiplayer
Straight forward and simple RPG elements
Graphics
Cons:
Graphics
Wonky loot controls
Maybe a little cliché at times
I love this game and would highly recommend it.
Rating: 4 / 5
12/17/2009 at 3:56 pm
If you could only describe a game in one word, that word would be “insane.” I’ve just stayed up till 7:30am and it was all worth it. It’s like Killzone2 frantic and the RPG elements of the first Baulder’s Gate on PS2. I’m a level 28 soldier. Now the weapons are insane, I’ve had a shotgun that shot rockets, an SMG with explosive rounds, an SMG with a four spread shot so each round is four projectiles, a heavy machine gun with fire rounds, and a revolver with 303 damage and zoom scope (meaning it’s my sniper rifle for medium range, HAND CANNON!). The only thing that sucks is if you have a rocket launcher it has no hit detection (if you think your going to hit a target aim at the ground at its feet, its the only way to cause damage, GEARBOX please send us all a patch!).
Other than that, see you on the Pandora on PS3.
Rating: 5 / 5
12/26/2009 at 7:52 pm
Does anyone know who did the graphics for the game borderlands?