Actually, this week’s game of the week is not as “indy-ish” as the games before and one could say that this is mainstream. Well, it may be mainstream and it was very succesful in 2009 and 2010, but I still know a lot of people saying, “Yes, I heard of this game before, is it truely that good?” and I can answer “Yes it is, try it, you’ll love it”. I’m talking about “Borderlands” by Gearbox Software that delivered a great piece of software and a brilliant mixture of first-person shooter, RPG and brawler. The story of the game is simple too, but nevertheless really entertaining. You play one out of four characters that land on the planet Pandora to unveil the secret of the “Vault” that grants wealth, fame and honour to its owner. These four character have different abilities and skills, like “sniper”, “rogue”, “soldier” and melee fighter, so you can play this basicly in a FPS style that suits you the most. I personally decided to play the hunter which is the previously mentioned “sniper”, he can also control a pet that can attack enemies. The pet control is pretty basic and only available for the hunter, all three other classes have different special skills like a phase walk, gaining more bullets for you and your team, just to mention a few.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwxiAGWJa-o[/youtube]
Team? Yes, and here’s the thing, you can play “Borderlands” completely in a single player mode, but you can also switch to cooperative online play at any time. The coop is a lot of fun, even though it lacks a few features like an interface for simply sharing loot or a roll mask to decide who’s going to get the loot. When it comes to booties of the prey, “Borderlands” has got a lot to. The developers can’t to mention it as often as they can, that they have included a “bazillion” of guns and tons of other goodies, like shields, grenade kits, class mods, to improve your character. This is also a positive catch of the game, you can’t stop playing, because you always want to get new guns and new guns and new guns and new guns. And of course new guns. Urm, and you also want to reach the next level to spend a skill point in your skill tree.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86WpLFOIYjw[/youtube]
The AI in “Borderlands” is not the smartest one, but does its job and that is what counts, I mean, this is not a high intelligent tactical shooter, this is a fun shooter with a couple of RPG elements and a nice taste of humour. The characters in the game are developed very well and the bosses you meet in your encounters are challenging and not this standard meal you have to choke on in every other game. It’s also not a game with lots of moments of frustration, when you die in the game you can revive by simply killing an enemy in your phase of dying, which is about 15 seconds, and if you die anyway, you revive at a spawn point next to the fight not too far away. I enjoy “Borderlands” for more than a year now, I also bought the GOTY edition of the game, that includes all four DLCs. The DLCs are worth every penny, except “Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot”, which feels a little like a hoax compared to the rest of the game. So if you like FPS, a little of amount of RPG and have some friends to join you in coop, then “Borderlands” is the game of your choice and why it’s my “Game of the week”.
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