A vigorous land packed full of guns, explosions, more guns, enemies (to slaughter with guns), vehicles (with guns), and vending machines that contain guns for purchase. Oh, and did I mention guns? This is Borderlands, a unique experience to be witnessed with friends or solely by you.

Developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games, Borderlands is a stylish and fulfilling SCI-FI FPS with an adequate mixture of RPG elements. Its power is driven by none other than the Unreal Engine 3 and is utilised in an interesting way.

Two-Dimensional Story:
As the words above suggest, the story is essentially two-dimensional; it has a brief outline, but no depth. It’s basically taking a bite out of an utterly and ridiculously tasty baguette and swallowing it without chewing … where’s the flavour in that? The entire story you’re going to get is compacted into the opening moments of the game. In a nutshell, it goes like this: within the planet of Pandora, four ‘vault hunters’ – Brick, Lilith, Mordecai and Roland – arrive via bus to a town known as Fyrestone. From there, the objective is explained by Marcus, the driver … find the ‘vault’, since it contains what any other vault is designed to contain; valuables (meaning, alien technology). Oh right, and you’ll be accompanied by an omniscient observer that somehow projects her scan-lined face onto your screen out of nowhere. She’ll also be happy to state the absolute obvious now and then, which is absolutely necessary and isn’t annoying or anything. Character wise, the most you’re going to know about them is their name and profession, that’s it. A lot of the NPCs you encounter within the game are about as tasteless as a cardboard box, so getting attached to them will prove difficult. My only main quarrel upon this shallow story is the anti-climactic twist towards the end of the main quest; which is best to be experienced with your eyes closed.

The crew.

Three-Dimensional Visuals:
As well as the game being stylish as a whole, it is also spontaneously artistically stylish. Allow me to clarify: the game’s textures are entirely, if not, mainly hand-drawn and then cel-shaded in-game. This predominantly distinguishes the game’s visuals from any other and provides the game with a cartoony, comedic and fresh persona. At times, some of the scenery you’ll encounter will deserve maybe ten to twenty seconds of acknowledgement, then it’s back to ass-kicking and item fetching. Obviously, the game is based around a Mad-Max-esque wasteland environment, so that’s pretty much exactly what you’re going to see. Nearing the last moments of the game though, it becomes apparent that the theme drastically veers from rural environments to urban, then suddenly to fantasy environments (in a good way though). Attention to detail is consistent throughout the entire game, but eventually it becomes overlooked due to the blandness of a lot of the environments. Although stylish, the texture resolutions can’t help but undermine the overall quality of the graphics. Lastly, if you rather enjoy making a red, meaty pancake out of your foes, the classical gore chunks and blood splatters do not fail to impress.

Ah, a canyon.

Now we're in some magical mountains.

Explosive Gameplay:
Guns, explosions, bullets and mayhem … what’s not to love? If Borderlands was to be called anything else, “Gunland” would be a perfect candidate. The pure satisfaction of Borderlands lies within the moment you equip your new, shiny weapon and then use it to rain down hell on all that oppose you. You already probably realise that guns are a big factor, but I’m going to assume you don’t and continue ranting on about them. Borderlands contains a level-based randomisation system that, well, randomises all the loot you come across. Whether it’s from killing your enemies, digging up graves (with no bodies, just guns) or opening loot chests, you’re going to get something different every time. This also applies to all guns/items you encounter; it may be worse or it may be better, that’s the satisfaction of it (It’s like gambling, minus the going bankrupt and drinking your sorrows away). What’s also unique about this system is that the colour scheme for each gun/item you find will be different. Surprisingly, it works very well and doesn’t exactly get too repetitive, since it’s like finding a collection of t-shirts but with individual printings on them. Lastly, regarding guns, you’ll encounter elemental attributes (fire, chemical etc.) and unique guns. They’ll have special appearances and traits, for instance, your bullets deal electrical damage or fly in a wave-like form etc.

"Give Sick."

Within the game, you’ll have the choice of selecting your character and customising their basic appearance (colour scheme). Brick – a fitting name – is the berserker. Essentially, his role is to soak up the damage and deliver heavy hitting punches with his rage ability, simple enough. Lilith – the only female – is the Siren, who has the ability to utilise superhuman powers. Her role is to basically deal as much damage utilising her ‘phasewalk’ ability as possible and then retreat to recover. Mordecai, the hunter, deals as much damage as possible from a distance and throws his bird at people (really, a useless creature). Lastly, Roland is the soldier. His role is simply to support the team whilst dishing out plausible damage with his turret.

The RPG element that is tied within Borderlands is the leveling system. Like any other system, you gain experience by killing stuff, completing quests etc. and then eventually gain a level. Upon each level reached, one point is allocated to spend on the skill tree. Each class contains its own unique skill tree. It branches into three groups of rowed perks, which can be progressively unlocked as you maximise an individual perk within a group. What do these perks contain you ask? Simple; an upgrade to your health, reload time, bullet count and whatnot, you get the idea.

Bulk mass gain.

The enemy system is compliant to your level. If you decide to take on something about five levels below you, you’re going to have a good time. On the other hand, if you decide to take on something five levels above you, you’re going to have a great time (if you enjoy being transformed into a meat bag and Rocky Balboa’d all day and night). What lacks in the enemies though is … the lack of enemies. Not the quantity of them, there’s plenty to go around, but the diversity of them.

Get sick!

Borderlands gives you the ability to take control of a vehicle (or two, if you’re playing with friends) with either a machine-gun or rocket launcher. Although there’s only one type of vehicle, it can be coloured from a select palette. The only two things vehicles are good for are: getting around quickly, and ramming into your friends off of cliffs and uncontrollably laughing at their respawned face. Could just be me though.

A fair race.

What deserves real acknowledgement is the game’s sense of humour and light heartedness; the game’s designed to be fun. From the dialogue to the description of the boss you are fighting, Borderlands manages to sneak a cheeky chuckle into your experience. On a much darker side, the game does have an extreme dosage of repetition. I swear if you manage to play the game on a second run-through, you’d die of repetition overdose. Allow me to elaborate … literally every mission you take on has to do with either of the following: kill some stuff, talk to this guy, fetch this item and press this button. That’s the dynamics of the missions in a nutshell, exciting stuff eh?

Thrice the testosterone.

Borderline Sound:
To be honest, I’m going to wrap the sound up like this: absolutely seal yourself into a soundproof room along with a radio. Any size will do. Now, stop breathing completely and tune the radio to a classical ambient station on low volume. That’s the dynamics and immersion of sound in Borderlands right there. In all seriousness, the atmospheric sounds within Borderlands are at a minimum. The soundtrack gets painfully repetitive and lacks in variety, which peeves me to an extent. Although, I must say, the calm and desolate soundtrack really emphasises the sense of isolation and aftermath. Back to the topic of guns, they do sound rather delightful and satisfying to shoot, especially the boom of elemental side effect. Voice acting is plausible and fitting, aside from it feeling like you’re communicating with a wall. I almost feel as if all of the villagers have balaclavas on so you don’t see their inanimate lips (or they might just have a balaclava fetish).

This balaclava is very pungent to the nostrils...

In conclusion, Borderlands is a gun great experience, although I do recommend sharing it with buddies (it makes it a better game). The lighthearted finesse and stylish visuals provide the player with unforgettable memories. The gameplay is immense and probably the strongest factor to the entire game. If you’re still passing up on this game, you’re borderline crazy. Currently, it’s $29.99 on Steam. Cash in!