I’ve got to stop playing Borderlands. This isn’t because it’s a bad game, or it’s destroying my marriage, or convincing me to go out and shoot things with flaming bullets (although that is kinda tempting), or anything of the sort. It’s simply because I’ve already finished it three times through in its XBox 360 incarnation, and I’m well on my way to doing the same with Feral Interactive’s excellent Mac OS port of this violent and darkly amusing first person shooter. It’s a game that speaks directly to the obsessive compulsive sides of my psyche, tempting me to play though just one more mission, collect just one more randomly generated gun upgrade and get just one more special ability. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Borderlands: Game Of The Year Edition is set on a largely dusty and Mad-Max-styled Sci-fi planet called Pandora. So the legend goes, there’s a mythical alien vault that only opens once every thousand years, spewing forth treasure at levels that would make Scrooge McDuck blush. You play as a bounty hunter — one of many on Pandora — seeking out the keys to open this vault, if it exists at all. There’s a choice of four character classes to choose from. Roland the Soldier excels with assault rifles and can (once properly levelled up) launch a turret mounted gun that independently picks off foes). Lilith the Siren can make herself intangible and explode the world around her as she does. Mordecai the Hunter works best with sniper rifles and has a pet bird of prey called Bloodwing that can attack foes. Brick the Berserker, takes the simple approach of wading into gunfights with his fists. Astonishingly, once properly levelled up, he usually wins.
Borderlands is violent. Very violent. The trailer will give you something of an idea of how violent. While you start the game with very average weapons, you quickly buy, find, or more frequently kill folks with better examples, all of which are randomly generated. Special effects apply to some weapons, so it’s feasible to end up with rocket launchers with flaming projectiles, sniper rifles that shoot electricity or shotguns that release a blast of acid along with pellets. The quest to find weapons that are slightly (or in some cases massively) better forms part of Borderlands’ addictive strategy, as well as providing variety in how you visually take down foes. Needless to say, the visual effect of shooting somebody in the face with an acid shotgun isn’t all that pretty, nor one that’s suitable for younger players. The tone of Borderlands isn’t needlessly macho per se, however, as most things are played for dark humour laughs, if that’s your thing.
The main campaign is quite lengthy, but as the “Game Of The Year Edition”, it also features four add-on packs — The Zombie Island Of Dr Ned, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, The Secret Armoury Of General Knoxx and Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution. They’re intended for players who’ve finished the main storyline and have characters in the level 30-40 range, which is to say they’re quite tough, although not as long as the main storyline. If you wanted even more, the main quest wraps around itself, levelling up all the enemies the second time around, and dropping even more devastating guns as it goes. There’s a lot of game to play here. Multiplayer support is through Game Ranger, and it’s the one bit of Borderlands I’ve not tested as yet. Certainly from my XBox 360 experiences it’s great fun, and the game adjusts the strength of enemies and the quality of the loot they drop accordingly.
There’s plenty of first person shooters on the market, even for the Mac, and Borderlands's particular pitch is that it’s got role playing elements in it. That’s not so much in how you approach missions, as you don’t have dialogue trees or anything of the sort to deal with, but more to do with levelling your character up and choosing special abilities particular to their class as you go. If you’re of an OCD nature, this is pure digital crack. Or to put it another way, I do have some OCD tendencies when it comes to gaming, and Borderlands hits them square in the face, pausing only to unload an acid shotgun blast on the way.
There are some poor aspects to Borderlands, and even as a Borderlands junkie it would be remiss of me not to mention them. Some missions involve finding hidden parts, and they’re often hidden up high, which involves jumping. Borderlands jumping abilities are floaty and imprecise, which can often lead to missing the same jump multiple times, or hitting an invisible crag and falling to the ground multiple times. Early missions are highly repetitive (you’re mostly just killing Skags for the first couple of hours), and some of the promised rewards for the weapon specific missions don’t deliver great rewards.
Still, if you like first person shooters, and you’ve not already played the XBox/PS3/PC versions yet, then buy Borderlands. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just want to go and see if I can get a slightly better shotgun. The one I’ve got only shoots rockets at the moment.
