Borderlands Co-Op Review
Review System(s): XBox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Borderlands opens up with a song titled "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant, and to some extent, it's the game's mantra throughout. Borrowing the best from both shooters and RPGs, Borderlands is an epic romp through the world of Pandora as players choose one of four characters to unlock the secrets of the Vault. With claims of millions of guns, hundreds of quests, and four player co-op - Borderlands stands out as a giant amongst the 6 or 8 hour shooters we've grown accustomed to.
The most apparent thing when firing up Borderlands was also the most controversial, the art style. Gearbox decided with less than a year to go in development to completely revamp the game's look, adopting what can only be described as a cross between cell shading and hand drawn. It looks and feels like a beautiful graphic novel, and it works. Gearbox turned a world that would be filled with dull browns and grays into an interactive art experience of rich colors. Each one of the many, many weapons you'll acquire for the most part look unique, and feel different. Just by looking at a gun you'll know if it has a scope, does fire damage, or uses a large clip. It's really something that's strange to see from a first person perspective, and it's a bit jarring at first. Coming from a long history of first person shooters, I know what my guns look like when I bring them up - I KNOW which weapon I'm switching to. In Borderlands, it's a bit different, it's always a surprise - and it always changes throughout the course of the game.
There are four characters to choose from: Brick the Beserker, Lillith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter and Roland the Soldier. Each character has their own skill tree and specialties, but none of the characters are limited in weapon choices. If you want your Beserker to snipe or a hunter to use a machine gun - he can. The special attacks for each class all seem to be geared towards the game's four player co-op mode, with support abilities like health regeneration, revival, and buffs. In my playthrough I used a soldier who's turret attack not only provides extra cover, but can be upgraded to supply health and ammo to teammates when spawned.
The bounty boards are a good place to find new quests.
What sets Borderlands apart from the rest of the shooters out there are the game's RPG elements, it is after all an Role-Playing Shooter according to Gearbox. Players will earn experience for quests and killing enemies, they'll level up their character and choose from 30 different skills with five levels each, all class specific. Even deeper are additional items like class mods which add extra buffs to your character, assigning them a ranking that allows teammates to easily know which kind of player you are. I tended to use mods that classified me as a Support Gunner, providing extra ammo and larger clips to myself and teammates.
Of course the biggest draw among the items are the weapons; if you've ever played games like Too Human, Diablo and Sacred and enjoyed getting that weapon that was just a little better than your previous, you'll be right at home in Borderlands. The weapons range from SMGs, Combat Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Pistols, Grenades and more. As you uncover chests and kill enemies you'll discover rare (blue), rarer (orange), and rarest (yellow) items to help you with your ass kickery. Want a shotgun that shoots 6 rounds in rapid fire, has a scope, and does electrical damage? Done. Need a rocket launcher that shoots 3 rockets at once, has as sniper scope, and has a chance to set your enemies on fire? Done. The best part about the weapons are the names assigned to them with such greats like machine gun called Glorious Massacre and a sub-machine gun called the Pretentious Bitch.
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Reader Comments 
Everything is now all background noise after playing this game. I think I had my anticipation for any game to come just shut completely off since I know it will not compare to this game.
"I honestly see why Orson Welles ate his fat ass to death"- SuperBad
I havent been this addicted to a game since Left 4 Dead.
'Take a Break' is one of the best features ever!
Agreed that is such an awesome feature because you don't feel like you are letting your teammates down by just being idle sitting in a room.
Still Borderlands does alot of stuff right, and will do even better if/when they implement spiltscreen online.
I must not be the only one who liked the opening song. I posted the name and artist of it on Friday because I liked it and looked it up. The opening montage or whatever is synced up with the music really well.
The only things I would change if I could would be the couch online play, and getting the menus to fit better in split screen. Still, its nice to be able to look at your menu without bothering your split screen partner.
I like that song alot more now that they threw it in at the start .
I am looking forward to L4D2,Lost Planets 2, Crackdown 2, and Brink but for now I havent played anything this fun in years. I am at level 32 and have played about 40 hours of game time I believe and I am nowhere near completing the story or most the missions. I just ran into another boss to kill and more new enemies with turrets just popped it.
My experience is rated by playing system link with 4 players, if you're playing splitscreen i cant tell you.
Man, the game feels so empty without 4 players. No more giant battles. . . I think I'm addicted to having a full party. Of course, that's not a bad thing.
we have 2 kids, 2 cars, a house, and only 1 income (wife stays at home with the kids). as you can imagine, there are more important things to be spending money on.
I see something wrong here.
why? i work an hour away most of the time so she needs to take the kids to appointments, payton is in pre-school so she drives her to/from school. plus she runs errands during the day. if i worked closer to home we probably could get away with one car but that's just the nature of my job. plus i have a little fuel efficient car that doesn't fit all the crap we need when we go camping or whatever. i wish we could get away with one car but we can't.
Ah man I know how that is we have one kid but only one car, trying to keep up with bills is very very hard, I plan on investing in another 360 soon but not until I get some other stuff taken care of first.
I'm just joking. Everyone's situation is different.
We have two vehicles, two jobs. The standing rule is that if one of the jobs disappears, so does one of the cars.
I think that's reasonable, considering that what we owe on her schooling (which was established before we met) exceeds what we owe on both vehicles combined.
But, see, we live in a community where the hospital is a mere 5 miles away, and the grocery store and schools are in walking distance.
That's what works for us. I'm just ribbing you. It's not like I'm ready to slap down the cash for another gaming rig, either.
Like I said the only machines I have are 3.2ghz and below with crappy video cards since I shifted focus. My friends however dropped 400 a card on SLI and buy every new processor that comes out on a 1 1/2 year cycle. His motherboard alone costs more than an xbox with 2 copies of crackdown and a copy of borderlands. It's just a shift in perspective for most people but if you dont have the scratch for either I would start saving since it may be some good fun.
I did drop 700 in parts for a HTPC to play BR but it dont cant as a PC to me
Thanks.
It's funny though most people have issues with language and sex more than violence. There was this guy at work that would buy edited versions of movies like Titanic, oh it still had all the deaths and stuff, they just edited the nudity.
I think if there is someone around to teach empathy along with cause and effect you can leave it all unfiltered.
I will let you know how it works in 4 years if my daughter doesnt become a serial killer she's 14 now and ive never heard a cuss word or violent act and I dont filter one thing from her.
There are no language or gore filters. You can turn down the speech and FX volume but they are tied together, so if you mute them, you loose all the sound effects along with the speech.
They do swear. Mostly the people you are shooting but your characters will throw out various swears based on different triggers like finding a gun on the ground. Its not as frequent as I had feared. Army of 2 was much more offensive in this regard in my opinion.
The violence is over the top but its a stylized look thats intended to be funny because its so unrealistic. Even so, its up to you to decide if thats appropriate for a child to see. IMO its not and they should be older to see peoples limbs, bodies, heads, and brains exploding.
Anyway, hope that helps. I was trying to find this information a while ago so I figure I would help you out.
The game is very fun, and even if you dont play it with your kids, playing it with adults is a blast. 12 year olds might be able to handle it, but I think you should rent it to get a feel for it and make a decision that way.
How is unrealistic violence funny? Both Fallout 3 & Borderlands had heads blow up unrealistically when you shoot the head.
But I don't find that funny, it's graphic that's all.
Not to mention, Fallout 3's slow-motion death view was just plain AWLFUL! Who in their right mind could watch slow-motion head explosions and still get a kick out of it after 100+ times?
I fear for what the definition of funny becomes....
True, it can still be quite shocking to see a human explode regardless of if they have a cartoonish appearance or not. Its really up to each person to decide.
One thing is for sure though, it would seem that the average tolerance for things like this seems to be increasing steadily as people grow more and more desensitized. When does it cross the line? How do you know when something has gone too far? It becomes more and more difficult to answer those questions as society becomes more and more accepting of things that were once completely unacceptable.
It can be scary to think about sometimes.
A friend of mine once sent me so clip about some guy getting hit by a car as entertainment, how do you figure anyone would enjoy someone elses folly? To top it he calls me a wuss(other word for it) cause I tell him never to send me that crap cause it ruins my day. So we move on past this, one day I ask him if he would like to see this really good horror movie, he tells me no, he gets scared of stuff like that. Really you're ok with watching hours of someone dying on RealTV or Highway chases yet you cant watch a fake horror movie? Once again we get it backwards, I can make the distinction between reality and make believe. I am perfectly fine with fake, but can't stomach seeing someone real actually hurt, whats wrong with me?
Without the evening news do we just think of new ways to hurt each other like the good old days?
http://www.oddee.com/item_96596.aspx
Bring on Borderlands 2!
You've got the DLC to look forward to yet.
Whens the planned release?
I heard the 24th.
Then those dog things come at you and I end up reverse circle strafing to take them out? What's this thing shooting, marshmallows? I know I am supposed to be looking for weapon upgrades, but this is ridiculous.
After that we were told to go and kill eight humanoid characters that turned out to have numbers for blood which just looks dumb imho. Why can't I turn that off? And why kill eight? I think there was one guy left but we were only getting paid to kill the first eight so we let that last guy off with a warning.
It seems that the split-screen was tacked on at the end because the quite frankly, the menus blow. Trying to scroll side to side and up and down was a pain. Maybe I am just expecting too much since there is not as much real estate on half a screen.
I would probably have enjoyed it more if I had the full screen.
The game is billed as a Role Playing Shooter, but I think its really just an FP-RPG. It sure didn't feel like much of a shooter to me. I'm glad I only rented it.
sounds like you only played the first few missions - the game doesn't really kick off until later. That said, if you didn't enjoy those missions at all - you probably aren't going to like the rest of the game, even if it does get better.
Total Comments: 36
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