[E3 2009] Borderlands Eyes-On
Gearbox's post-apocalyptic FPS RPG looks AOK to us. Impressions of the new look and more inside.
Published: June 4, 2009
Gearbox has been hard at work on Borderlands for a few years now, but a few months ago, the biggest update to the game was finally revealed, and it was a biggun: the game now has a far more cartoony look to it thanks to a line drawn set of black borders around the characters. According to Gearbox head cheese Randy Pitchford, the move was actually done without his knowledge -- at first. Eventually the experiment in completely swapping out the art style became big enough that he heard about it, but rather than shutting the effort down, he gave the art team a few weeks to assemble the look and feel of things and then present it, fully expecting to shut everything down.
And then he actually saw it.
The exaggerated look of the characters was actually right in line with the original concept art, he explained, and as a result, everything just sort of clicked. The game suddenly had a more novel visual quality and yet another post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style outing became far more of a stand-out affair. The result is what Borderlands has become, which isn't fundamentally different from what it was before; the game still randomizes nearly everything between towns and roads, including well over a half million different kinds of weapons that the game simply mixes and matches from enemy drops.
Yes, we said drops. This is a game about loot, and lots of it. That loot, from weapons to armor to customizable parts for both and plenty more, is all determined by random rolls that the game does. In fact, the enemies that hold that loot are becoming randomized too, and when you factor in the on-the-fly cobbling together of locales and exploration elements, it's not hard to see why the RPG elements could make this one of the most varied and re-playable games on the market.
It's helped along by the fact that there are a few basic classes in the form of characters that Gearbox whipped up; Mordecai is a sniper, Brick is a tank, Roland is a support soldier and Lilith is the group's "magic" user of sorts. Though each of the characters have their base stats, personality and back story, they also have three different skill trees that they can build on top of, offering a ton of flexibility in how they approach fights and the game's simple drop-in, drop-out online co-op.
See, Borderlands is all about scale. Hop online with a few friends (or let the AI fill in for you if you're the anti-social type) and the game will throw more, tougher enemies your way. All the experience, upgrades and level advancement you gain online or off is shared across that same character, so the line between playing socially or just going it alone is blurred almost to the point where it doesn't matter. If you want to spend 10 hours grinding random instanced encounters with other random people or friends, you can, and the game will happily drop you right back into your storyline bits with everything preserved and the enemies and rewards ratcheted up or down to scale. It's a bit like an on-demand MMO; you're welcome to play offline if you want and progress solo, but the second you want to explore the countryside with others, the game will happily partner you up.
Regardless of how you choose to progress through the game, the interface will be the same. This is a first-person shooter with heavy RPG elements, which means life bars, experience, hit and mana points, spells, buffs, perks, skills and class advancement. The level of detail in everything is, frankly, staggering, and far more than we could ever hope to glean from a short little 20 minute E3 demonstration. "Boss" monsters drop rare loot for trading, each of the different classes have specific roles yet the freedom to mix and match play styles and it's all pulled off without ever needed to look at a load screen. Excited yet? Yeah, so are we.
One of the biggest reasons for that excitement is the story and setting. See, the planet of Pandora where the four main characters call home seemed to be a barren, resource-rich little ball hurtling slowly through space. Due to its slow rotation, seasons last years, not months, so what was previously a wintery slab of rock slowly began to thaw. And that's when the monsters started to appear. Scared off, most fled, leaving the wastes lawless, but there's hope. The Vault, a mysterious enclosed area hinted at by audio recordings, has everything a bandit trying to eke out a living might need: technology, supplies, and what amounts to treasure the likes of which no one on Pandora has ever seen. The only problem? The recordings only speak of this trove of goodies, they don't actually say where it is. Which is where you come in.
Borderlands was easily among our top showings at E3 this year. The staggering amount of possibilities for discovery and what looked like rock-solid gameplay mean we're going to have a very, very hard time waiting for it to hit consoles and PCs in October.
And then he actually saw it.
The exaggerated look of the characters was actually right in line with the original concept art, he explained, and as a result, everything just sort of clicked. The game suddenly had a more novel visual quality and yet another post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style outing became far more of a stand-out affair. The result is what Borderlands has become, which isn't fundamentally different from what it was before; the game still randomizes nearly everything between towns and roads, including well over a half million different kinds of weapons that the game simply mixes and matches from enemy drops.
Yes, we said drops. This is a game about loot, and lots of it. That loot, from weapons to armor to customizable parts for both and plenty more, is all determined by random rolls that the game does. In fact, the enemies that hold that loot are becoming randomized too, and when you factor in the on-the-fly cobbling together of locales and exploration elements, it's not hard to see why the RPG elements could make this one of the most varied and re-playable games on the market.
It's helped along by the fact that there are a few basic classes in the form of characters that Gearbox whipped up; Mordecai is a sniper, Brick is a tank, Roland is a support soldier and Lilith is the group's "magic" user of sorts. Though each of the characters have their base stats, personality and back story, they also have three different skill trees that they can build on top of, offering a ton of flexibility in how they approach fights and the game's simple drop-in, drop-out online co-op.
See, Borderlands is all about scale. Hop online with a few friends (or let the AI fill in for you if you're the anti-social type) and the game will throw more, tougher enemies your way. All the experience, upgrades and level advancement you gain online or off is shared across that same character, so the line between playing socially or just going it alone is blurred almost to the point where it doesn't matter. If you want to spend 10 hours grinding random instanced encounters with other random people or friends, you can, and the game will happily drop you right back into your storyline bits with everything preserved and the enemies and rewards ratcheted up or down to scale. It's a bit like an on-demand MMO; you're welcome to play offline if you want and progress solo, but the second you want to explore the countryside with others, the game will happily partner you up.
Regardless of how you choose to progress through the game, the interface will be the same. This is a first-person shooter with heavy RPG elements, which means life bars, experience, hit and mana points, spells, buffs, perks, skills and class advancement. The level of detail in everything is, frankly, staggering, and far more than we could ever hope to glean from a short little 20 minute E3 demonstration. "Boss" monsters drop rare loot for trading, each of the different classes have specific roles yet the freedom to mix and match play styles and it's all pulled off without ever needed to look at a load screen. Excited yet? Yeah, so are we.
One of the biggest reasons for that excitement is the story and setting. See, the planet of Pandora where the four main characters call home seemed to be a barren, resource-rich little ball hurtling slowly through space. Due to its slow rotation, seasons last years, not months, so what was previously a wintery slab of rock slowly began to thaw. And that's when the monsters started to appear. Scared off, most fled, leaving the wastes lawless, but there's hope. The Vault, a mysterious enclosed area hinted at by audio recordings, has everything a bandit trying to eke out a living might need: technology, supplies, and what amounts to treasure the likes of which no one on Pandora has ever seen. The only problem? The recordings only speak of this trove of goodies, they don't actually say where it is. Which is where you come in.
Borderlands was easily among our top showings at E3 this year. The staggering amount of possibilities for discovery and what looked like rock-solid gameplay mean we're going to have a very, very hard time waiting for it to hit consoles and PCs in October.
