Borderlands 1

One of my favourite video games of all time has got to be Borderlands. It was introduced to me by a good friend of mine about 6 years ago, and I've been hooked on the series ever since.

Borderlands is a fairly unique game, in that it combines the action of a shooter with the level and equipment scaling of an rpg. A selling point of the game was that it had "millions of guns". And it did. Each weapon that drops is randomly created from a table of available parts, making for more combinations of stats than you'd think of. Adding in the bonus factor of rare equipment, which often has a special ability or bonus, and you end up constantly upgrading your gear and looking for more powerful items.

You play through the game as one of four distinct classes:

-Soldier: a tough assault rifle specialist who can drop a turret with a variety of effects

-Berserker: a massively tanky man who loves explosives, rockets, and punching people to bits

-Hunter: an agile fighter, flexible with both long range sniper rifles and close range pistols, he can send his pet bird to harass enemies

-Siren: a magical being, with a focus on SMGs and elemental damage, she can temporarily hop into a different dimension to escape or close gaps. 

Each class has three skill trees you can spec into as you gain levels. These progression paths allows you to become specialized in a play style you prefer. For example, the Soldier can progress through a tree focused on weapon damage, one based on your turret, or one that allows you to heal yourself and allies.

The game has a fairly solid, though sparse, storyline. There are many aspects of the world that aren't really explained, but nothing glaring enough to take away from the gameplay. The characters you interact with are iconic, hilarious, and honestly heartwarming. You grow very attached to NPCs throughout the game, both good or evil.

Combat is hugely important in both RPGs and shooters, and the combat in Borderlands is always entertaining. Humanoid enemies shout great one liners at you, fight fairly intelligently based on their weapon type, and will actively try to flank you. Animal enemies follow their specific attack and defense patterns, and pose just as much threat with their claws, teeth, and fluids as other enemies pose with guns.

I will always remember playing through Borderlands for the first time and finding my first shotgun. It was the strongest weapon I had at the time. A skag (basically a dog) jumped at me, and not only did the shotgun slow its momentum, it stopped the skag mid-jump and sent it flying in the opposite direction, very very dead. 

Another great selling point of the game is how easy it is to play either solo or with others. Borderlands has amazing couch play for your real life friends, well done online gameplay, or simply a single player campaign. The other bonus of this game is that you can drop in and out of modes whenever you like. If your friend is online, you can play with them. If they log off and come over, you can till play your character with them, and then continue on with the same character alone when they leave.

Borderlands was recently rereleased as part of The Handsome Collection, a game bundle that includes all three Borderlands games and all the DLC for them. I'll be reviewing the other games and their DLC at a later date. I definitely recommend you pick up the entire collection, they were all good games in their own ways.

Toodles!