Borderlands excels at giving you a lot of things to shoot at and a lot of different ways to shoot at them.
That's not to say Borderlands is a game that plays it safe; quite the opposite actually. It's a game that promote co-op play more than any game in recent memory. So much in fact, that the game is rather dull when played alone. Basic gameplay goes like this: grab every quest you can, run out to where your waypoint says to go, shoot everything that moves, grab all the loot you can carry and go turn the quest in. Not exactly the most original concept but it works and works well because the game is primarily about the action. There is a story here, one involving a Cortana like mystery woman appearing before you every once in a while and blabbing about how she's going to lead you the mysterious vault, supposedly filled with wealth and power, but it's hard to care about that when it's fleshed out so little and there are so many things to shoot at.
Shooting feels fantastic and the weapons are hugely varied. There are four classes to pick, each with three talent trees to put points you gain as you level up into, and while the game suggests that certain weapons are better for certain classes, every class can use every type of weapon as long as they are a high enough level. The weapon category themselves don't sound too shocking on the surface. You have repeater pistols, magnums, SMGs, combat rifles, shotguns and snipers. Where the game shines is the baffling number of variants you can have within each of those categories. One repeater pistol may have a magazine size of 12, have a scope and shoot at a slow rate of fire, and another may have a magazine size of 56 with no scope and blow through it's bullets twice as fast. Some shotguns function the way you would expect as close range death dealers, but some shoot rockets and others bouncing rounds for killing enemies around corners. Add to this the four elemental effects that can appear on weapons (fire, shock, corrosive, explosion) and four levels of effect for those, and the possibilities for weapons types are quite literally endless. The game still surprises me on a regular basis with a weapon variant I've not seen before, and I've logged a huge chunk of time playing. The loot is easily amongst the most compelling stuff in an RPG for quite some time, and even after you've found your 1000th weapon chest, you'll still feel a rush as the lid opens and finally see that quick firing 2.5x zoom sniper rifle with x4 shock damage you've been waiting for.
As mentioned already there are four classes, and every class gets a unique power. The powers of the siren, hunter and the soldier are pretty evenly balanced, and start weak but can feature primarily in your strategy if you spec to improve them. The beserker's power feels a bit over powered from the start, as it launches him into a lengthy rampage where he gains vastly improved melee cababilities and his health regens constantly. It's also probably the least compelling of the four powers, at least to me, as it's the only power that serves as a primary source of damage where you can't use a weapon. You can't shoot while using the siren's phasewalking ability either, but you're not dealing constant damage. It's possible to spec the beserker where you barely have need for guns, relying solely on your fists, and really in a game with so many fun toys to shoot things with, who wants to be so melee oriented?
The enemies are varied enough but you'll shoot hundreds of identical looking bandits, skags (dog like creatures), spider ants (uhhh spider ant like creatures), and other things over the course of the game. There are plenty of variants to each category though, including "badass" versions of a lot of them, which dramatically increases that enemies health. That helps bring up the game's unique tone, which is hilarious and bizarre mixed with a brutal dark side. There's a lot of top notch writing and voice acting to be heard, but not nearly enough to span over the entire adventure. The best character is definitely Scooter, who will, amongst other things, tell you about how his mother's girl parts were ruined by an old buddy. There's a lot of zaney enemies as well, like the bandit midgets who are constantly running underfoot and squealing. Under the humor and cartoony-cel shaded visuals runs a darker vibe that you might not even notice, but if you look carefully you'll see a lot of pretty brutal stuff. Corpses strung up or disemboweled, blood stains that contrasts with the amusing spurts from enemies, and skeletons of long dead horrific animals. The dark and the light sides of the game blend together and help give it a unique feel.
The aforementioned jets of blood that spew forth from every breathing thing in the game can occasionally be problematic. While the game is hands down better when played with a friend or two or three, more people equals more havoc and more stress put on the graphics which often can't keep up. The slowdown can get especially bad once everyone is decked out with elemental guns that create all kinds of particles and effects as they dissolve, electrocute and disintegrate enemies. Throw in smoke clouds and multiple enemies on screen at once and sometimes the action slows down quite a bit. It never approaches the unplayable mark, but it's safely in the realm of annoying.
Is Borderlands repetitive? Yes. But it's a game that knows what it's about, and it makes its core action so fun and compelling all its shortcoming won't bother you at all. More boss fights would have been nice as they are easily some of the more memorable moments, and with dozens of stats on every weapon, an item creation system could have provided hours of amusement as you tweak different aspects and come up with unique combinations. If you're into RPGs, shooters, or co-op games, you can't go wrong with Borderlands. Every fight feels fresh, and it's hard to get bored in a game with so many different ways to unleash death.