Review: Borderlands

 Goutham Jayaraman

Ravencrow Game Review #13

 

Borderlands

https://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/Borderlands_Game_of_the_Year/

Genre	First Person Shooter
Platform	PC
Developer	Gearbox Software
Publisher	2K
Playtime	37 hours
Date Completed	6/4/2021
Date Reviewed	21/5/2021
Overall Grade	A

 

I was first introduced to the Borderlands franchise after playing the Telltale adaptation of the game, which treated me to an exemplary experience in addition to a well-written and humorous story taking place in a barren wasteland.

That brings us to this Borderlands, which is a post-apocalyptic FPS game that features a vast world separated into well over a dozen zones, each with their own unique feel. (And I was naively expecting it to be the same as the Telltale game)

The main plot of Borderlands revolves around you looking for a mythical entity known as “The Vault” and claiming the unimaginable treasure that lies within.  You’ll complete over a hundred quests with a good amount of them being optional side quests offering additional rewards and plot. You’ll interact with a good number of NPCs, though character development in this game is fairly weak. As a vault hunter, you also get access to an endless myriad of weapons, each one bearing some amount of personal identity from the next, thanks to how the game randomizes its weapons. Enemies also exist in great variety, though many you’ll find are just reskins of the same base monster. Nevertheless, Borderlands has an epic quantity of content - both singleplayer and multiplayer - that you can enjoy for countless hours

What I liked

-          The core gameplay loop, which is certainly fun

-          The fact that I could easily leave the game untouched for long periods of time without having to worry too much about losing touch

-          The vastness of the worlds and exploring them

-          The Borderlands theme being well-portrayed in this game

-          Seeing what new weapons I would find next

-          Freedom in doing whatever I wanted to do

What I disliked                                                                   

-          The story not being as engaging as I would have wanted it to be.

-          The game sometimes feeling like a chore

-          Certain boss battles being very taxing to clear

Gameplay 16/20	+ The different mechanics of the game shooting, moving, tactical positioning, weapon usage, skill usage and item usage all come together to create solid core gameplay. + Beating enemies and leveling up give a powerful feeling, as does activating the special skill. + Satisfying to clear out an entire area + Decently fun to explore the world and take in its sights + Weapons are somewhat fun to hunt for and collect + Driving a car equipped with a rocket launcher - You can only really play as one class despite there being multiple available due to the length of the game - Does feel repetitive - Only having one skill to use definitely limits gameplay - Many moments where I needed to walk all the way back to the warp point. Some tedium involved in that sense.
Game Design 13/20	+ Overall, the zones are designed well with appropriately positioned cars, fast travel outposts, and shops. + Weapon randomization makes it so that no 2 weapons end up being alike. + Having four weapon slots and elemental interactions allows for some strategy + Enemy design is sufficiently varied, with many having specific weak spots to find and exploit + Iconic boss fights = Character skill trees appear well designed but could have allowed more active skills to use - There could be some frustration and grinding involved in trying to get good enough weapons - Ammo pickups can be annoying because sometimes the ammo which you have full capacity overrides the ones you actually need. Would have been nice to just cluster all ammo drops in an area together and pick up them all up at once - Some boss battles take far too long to clear. You often won’t even have enough ammo - Some weapon types just seem inferior to others (rocket launcher seemed the least useful despite what common sense would suggest) - Unclear weapon comparison
Graphics 21/20	+ Well, I won’t say the world is beautiful because it’s a barren wasteland, but it is certainly well-designed and features many prominent locations and landmarks. The world is actually memorable and you will like journeying through it. You also get a solid variety of zones that each have a distinct appearance. + Enemy, character and item models are diverse and look good + Graphics options allow the game to either look amazing or run smoothly on weaker PCs + Special effects are a nice added touch
Audio 15/20	= Mostly quiet music that tenses up only during combat + Guns make different sounds according to their types and attributes. + Enemies also have their own taunts and cries = Plenty of voice acting, though fails to be engaging
Story 13/20	+ There is clearly a story there which involves seeking out the vault. The opening cutscene sets you up well enough. + Plenty of text to read with each mission to get some context + Many voiced sequences - Unfortunately though, due to a lack of cutscenes, distracting side quests and a bulk of the text being unvoiced, the story overall fails to make a mark. = You will need a good attention span and patience to actually grasp and enjoy the story - In other words, story is too fragmented and the game doesn’t focus on it. Voiced sequences are also delivered while you are playing, and so cannot take up your full attention. - Not really possible to review past events even though completed missions are logged.
Lore 12/20	+ Good number of NPCs who you will get to interact with + Plenty of little voice recordings hidden around the world to find. These can be reviewed at any time - But again, tends to be very fragmented - No real character development or backstories - Doesn’t seem to have a bestiary or flavor text for each zone
Value 18/20	+ Lengthy campaign mode + Plenty of side quests to attempt + Some replay value with 4 characters to use + Multiplayer - Gameplay experience is a bit bland. = Fairly high price, though it matches the playtime for a single run
Overall Grade 15/20	A
Score	77

 

So I’d say, while the Borderlands does have fun gameplay, it will get repetitive and the story the game provides will require a fair amount of effort on your part to actually enjoy.

With how many missions it has and areas to explore, and with the inclusion of multiplayer features, you will certainly get the bang for your buck when buying this game, but there are better FPS games with more engaging stories out there. This game can be stupid fun at times though.

[Notes]

+ Fun addictive gameplay

+ Large expanses and a good variety of areas to explore

+ Huge supply of missions to finish

+ Diverse enemy variety

= Story is sort of present, but not really making any sort of impact on the game at all. I would have liked to see more involvement of the story.

= Too much manual transportation from one place to another. There was a fast travel service provided but just wasn’t as readily available in locations as it needed to be.

+= No linearity at all, which is good because it gives the player freedom to do as he/she pleases, but bad because sometimes you just have no idea what to do next or which quests are actually story quests.

+= Random weapons. This is good because you have a boundless number of weapons you can find and use. However it is also bad because it is hard to actually find weapons that are better than the ones you have. You would think clearing a tough mission is going to give you an improved weapon to use. You’d be wrong. You would have to get lucky to ever end up upgrading your arsenal.

= With the large number of weapons that are about as good as each other, it is also difficult to even decide which ones to use. Weapon comparison is all over the place too and not as intuitive as you would like it to be. For one thing, it is only shown as you are picking up a gun, but it harder to access once its in your inventory. My suggestion would be to only allow equipping one gun of each type and then when you hover over a gun whose type is currently equipped, green and red arrows can be clearly shown to compare the two guns of the same type. Using vague images to represent the gun types in the inventory was probably not the most helpful thing to do either. (AKA Bad inventory management usability)

= Why does the main character get only one ability to use???

= Character improvement is slow going, and given you don’t have abilities to unlock, there is hardly much motivation either

+= Difficulty when fighting bosses is skewed. They do always however have a weakness you can try to figure out and exploit. With the knowledge of their weakness, killing them becomes much more manageable.

+ What this game excels at is just letting you have insane fun completing quests and shooting things. Nobody can deny that the gameplay is fun, but the enjoyment is somewhat hindered by the many flaws present in this game. Overall it comes off as nothing special.

It is best to give a wide time gap between play sessions. The game is fun and addictive but playing too much can easily make that turn into boredom. Try to focus heavily on the best possible strategy to kill the bosses because otherwise you could get frustrated easily dying repeatedly trying to kill the bosses.