I’d like to start off by saying that my original expectations for Borderlands weren’t all that high. The “Role-Playing Shooter” idea, and wasteland setting made me originally think that the game was nothing more than a cheap Fallout 3 imitation, and the hand-drawn art style were a bit off-putting. But after a bit of consideration, and hearing quite a few friends talk about how fun it was, I decided to give it a go, as I’d already just bought two RPGs (Dragon Age: Origins and Chrono Trigger DS) and decided I needed a shooter to go with them.

So, booting up the game, I decided to save my nitpicking for later, and my first playthrough would be purely for fun. And that’s just what it was. Fun. And the Fallout influence, though maybe not non-existent, wasn’t nearly as big as I’d originally expected. If anything, the game is mostly influenced by the Jak and Daxter series. Mostly Jak II and 3. The wasteland and different types of creatures remind me of those in Jak 3. The vehicles look a bit alike, some of the humor is similar, and the architecture in cities of Fyrestone and New Haven in Borderlands is reminiscent of that of Spargus City in Jak 3. And some of the names and even parts of the storyline in Borderlands are actually very influenced by Jak II. Whether it be the largest city in the game, New Haven (Haven City in Jak II) or the red-armored bad guys, the Crimson Lance (Jak II had the Krimson Guard, who were dressed in similar red armor), the Jak influence is there, no denying it.

As for the storyline, I’ll be frank. It was a tad disappointing. Your character (and the others, if you choose to play in co-op mode) is looking to uncover a myth known only as “The Vault”, a large hidden cache of riches beyond your wildest dreams, rumored to be on the planet of Pandora. The game starts off with all four of the main characters on a bus being driven by a man named Marcus Kincaid, an opportunistic scoundrel whom you can choose to do jobs for later on in the game. Marcus drops you (whoever of the four characters you pick) off in a town called Fyrestone where, after taking care of their bandit problem, you meet the local inhabitants and start your journey for the vault, all while being guided by a strange entity known as “The Guardian Angel” that speaks to you telepathically.

You can play the game as one of four main characters; Brick the Berserker, who excels with explosive weapons and hand-to-hand combat, Lilith the Siren, who has a special “Phasewalk” ability and excels with Corrosive weapons, Roland the Soldier, who works well with automatic weapons and has a special turret he can deploy when taking heavy fire, and Mordecai the Hunter, who uses long-range weapons and has a pet bird named Bloodwing he can command to attack enemies for him. The four different characters all have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Mordecai generally has lower health than the other characters, and Roland can eventually level up and get the ability of healing bullets, in which when he shoots an ally, his bullets heal them for a fraction of the amount of damage they would normally do.

The gameplay is fun, but rather tedious at times. A lot of the quests and jobs people will ask you to do for them will have you back-tracking and after killing the same type of enemy over and over again, things start to get a bit bland. However, later on in the game, vehicle combat freshens things up a bit, and the introduction of new types of enemies in different areas makes you change your strategies up a bit as you go on. For example, the Skag enemy’s weak spot is the mouth it opens when it growls at you, while Spiderants are weak in the abdomen, and must be shot from behind to do serious damage and when fighting a human, headshots are the most devastating. And when Gearbox said “Over a Bazillion Guns”, they really weren’t lying. The different types of guns and different damage they do, rates they fire at, and accuracy you have when using them, are all varied by sometimes unnoticeable or very outrageous amounts. The co-op portion of the game is the same as the single-player, but with multiple people running around killing things. When another player joins the game, all of the creatures in the game get stronger, but the loot gets better as well. Having a microphone on when playing online co-op can be very helpful as well. So you can plan a strategy before running into a room not knowing what you’re doing. My main problem with the online though, is not that the gameplay is glitchy, but rather my complaint with most online games. And that is that people can be real jackasses sometimes. Occasionally you’ll get someone who joins the game and just stands there getting experience from all the enemies you’re killing, and then runs in and takes all the loot once you beat a dungeon. It can be really frustrating when you’re fighting enemies that are tougher than they should normally be with no backup.

Ultimately, Borderlands is a great game that, while it falls short in some categories, remains great overall. As for the buy or rent factor, I recommend you at least rent it to see what all the fuss is about. If you’re a fan of Gearbox, or enjoyed Jak II and 3 and like shooters, I say you buy it. It’s a good game, and the co-op is really fun when you have a buddy running around with you killing stuff. And from what I hear, the two downloadable add-ons are really fun.