Borderlands takes FPS and RPG elements and combine them. While it may sound like a bad idea, it works nicely.
Borderlands is a good-looking game. The art style is unique and brings an artistic vibe to the game, similar how Brink did. However, this game accomplishes to impress you with the visuals. There can be some texture glitches and weird graphical pop-ins, although, GearBox makes you feel like you are really in the world with this choice of graphics.
Borderlands is set on a planet called Pandora. The Dahl corporation has brought ships and is here to settle and look for materials. Dahl has been searching for a vault; thinking there would be treasure inside. This corporation has abandoned everyone and has released bandits everywhere to defend them and keep the vault to themselves; if they find it. The "vault hunters" are here to stop them and find the vault. The introduction of the game starts you off on a bus. This already brings a unique feel to the game and makes you interested at the beginning. There, you are introduced to Marcus, a former Dahl/Atlas weapons dealer who sold guns, until the "vault hunters" came. The cutscene is like something you would see in a movie, with captions like "Mordecai, starring as The Hunter!". I thought this was a cool gesture. There, you pick one of the four characters. All of these characters have their weapons that they are better with than other classes, a special skill and all of them have skill trees to upgrade their stats and such. The first was Roland (The Soldier), who specializes in Assault Rifles and Shotguns. His special ability was to place a turret to destroy his opponents. Sadly, I hardly played as Roland; as he seemed really lame to me. Coming from many games that use sentry guns, I found it boring to pick him. The other three characters are much more interesting. The first character I chose was Brick (The Berzerker) Brick was excellent with explosives and you could say he was the tank of the group based on his appearence. His skill was he would turn into Bezerk Mode and punch his enemies to death. This skill is deadly if used correctly, if you upgrade it to it's full potential, I would say it's pretty overpowered. Lilith (The Siren) was the next character I became. Lilith was used for upgraded elemental damage and SMG's. Her action skill was Phasewalk. This made her invisible to her opponents, and gave her an upgraded melee attack. While this doesn't sound very useful, it can be quite handy if you are getting destroyed in a cluster of enemies and need to escape the fray. Lastly, Mordecai is the Hunter as I said before. Mordecai is the sniper and uses a bird called "Bloodwing" to attack his foes. Modecai turned out to be my favorite choice. Once I upgraded Bloodwing, I was doing massive damage. While the sniper skills can be very effective, I found myself doing more damage with BW and I didn't think the sniper needed to be enhanced. Obviously, these skills have cooldown times to keep the balance there. All classes can use all weapon types as well. I haven't mention how many guns are in this game yet. There are alot. Not 30, or 50, or 100. I've tried to research how many there actually are. Some say 13 million others say only 1 million. The final number I found that was said by an actual employee was about 7 million guns. That is mind-blowing. I cannot wait to see how many guns will be in B2. The only problem I have with the guns in Borderlands is that alot of them look the same. They don't feel different enough. Saying that however, all the guns have different perks to them. Some have scopes, some shoot more than one bullet, others have elemental damage. Besides the look, you always get a new gun on one playthrough. While it is possible to get the same gun on another playthrough, I rarely found the same gun. The coolest gun I found was a rocket launcher that shot 6 rockets at once and exploded into a pool of acid. There are also many grenades and class modifications that boost the skills on your skill tree and add a small bonus. One thing I would have like to seen more of is customization. The only real customization other than the guns is changing the color of your clothes. GearBox could have done some awesome things, for example; change your outfit and hairstyle, add accessories, modify a gun's color, or even skin color. It could have been so much cooler to have these options to make the character feel like your own. However, Co-op makes up for these errors.
You can explore the world of Pandora with up to 3 friends, and it makes the game much more enjoyable. Doing missions in this game are fun alone, but it makes the game more exciting. Everything is better co-op, right? Anyways, you are able to do story missions with your friends; meaning you can either play the whole campaign alone, or if you have the time; with 3 friends. The downside to this is that if you play this game with friends and they suddenly want to stop playing, you'll be playing it alone. This may not sound bad, but Pandora feels empty. It needs that extra something to make the game more enjoyable by yourself, after you've played it with friends.
If there is anything that hooks someone into a game, it's the story. There have been some amazing plots over the past years. Fallout was one game that kept me playing for hours on end just because of the excellent dialogue. Unfortunately, Borderlands story is quite dull. While vault hunting may sound exciting, some of the characters are bland. Without spoiling anything, the Hologram Woman at the beginning of the game was just so damn annoying to listen to. However, most of the characters are humorous and have tons of personality to stop you from thinking about the poor story.
One thing to point out in Borderlands is the insane amount of enemies. There are many creatures in Borderlands, some are spider-like things while others are like mad dogs. Also, "midgets" (Evil Bandits) are in this game! It's very satisfying to shoot a midget-shotgunner in the head and watch the gore fly everywhere.
The controls are quite responsive for a mouse and keyboard, however, I like to use my PS3 controller on the PC for Borderlands because it's what I'm used to for Borderlands.
To make the game feel like you are in the wasteland, the music is country-western. Well, at least some of it is. It may not suit your style, but it really accomplishes the feeling of the desert. The gun sounds are realistic and the creatures sound awesome.
Have I mention the awesome boss fights? There are a fair amount of them, some creatures are insanely large. They drop some pretty good loot as well. The amount of content in this game is generous. For $40, you get a lengthy campaign that you can playthrough twice. The single-player is fun, but the action really starts when you are with friends.
THE GOOD:
+Unique Graphics set this game apart from the others
+Creatures look and sound awesome
+So Much Loot!
+Extremely good Co-Op
+40+ Hours/playthrough
+Epic Boss Fights
+Controls are great with mouse/keyboard
THE BAD:
-Lackluster Story
-Needs more customization options
-Noticeable graphical glitches
-Some guns look the same
-Feels Empty if Alone
THE VERDICT:
Borderlands is a great game. One thing that is extremely difficult to do is combine two genres, and make them into one and execute the game well at the same time. Even though Borderlands has some minor flaws, it's still a blast to play, escpecially if you are playing with other people. Get some friends and hop on to Borderlands!