Review: Borderlands

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So, I have been playing Borderlands for the past three weeks, and my feelings are mixed.  On the one hand, you have this great looking game with an interesting premise:  find the Vault, a repository of alien weapons and secrets, on a barren planet.  You also have something like a million weapons and a huge area to explore on foot and by vehicle.  There are plenty of things that want to kill you, from mutated dogs and birds to gun toting barbarians.  But on the other hand, you have the game play which has become rather boring very quickly.

Borderlands has one major negative, so far:  I am about 20 levels in to a current max of 50, and everything, from the aforementioned animals to the raiders have begun to look the same.  Even the few hundred weapons I have run into thus far have little to distinguish themselves from other weapons.  Even the missions feel like deja-vu:  1. Get an assignment from a crusty looking character. 2. Go to area, shooting everything that attacks you on the way.  3. Kill all inhabitants of area.  4. Secure product needed from area.  5. Go back to crusty character shooting everything again.  6. Get new assignment.  Because everything respawns once you leave an area, you have to fight the same battles over and over again.   Also, most of the weapons I have so far (even the rarer ones) are strangely ineffective.  You shoot and shoot and shoot and nothing really happens.  For example, I have found that while driving, it’s best to just run over whatever is attacking me rather than use the missiles and gun.  Plus, the weapons really aren’t all that upgradeable.  All I can do so far is add greater capacity for my clips.

Although I really shouldn’t, I have begun to compare other games to Fallout 3.  I know, this is madness… but in many ways, Borderlands is quite similar: you have a character that roams though a barren wasteland accomplishing missions while trying to find something.  However with Fallout 3 there were plenty of varied missions and you had to make moral decisions.  You met and interacted with characters and became interested in their outcomes.  I can’t say that with Borderlands, at least so far.  I am barely interested in the main quest, much less any of the side quests.

So, ultimately, I can only give it this Rating: .

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