Borderlands Box Art

Many sequels get more advertising due to the quality of their predecessor; other games get better advertising due to the renowned developers. Gearbox Software is mostly known for making Brothers in Arms, but that was only for so long, for now it is known for Borderlands their new innovative game, labeled with the Genre of RPS-Role Playing Shooter. Borderlands is not a widely known name, most people asked about the game Borderlands will not even know it was in existence. Borderlands is slowly being put into the awareness of the community, in which it will soon prevail.

Borderlands in 2007 was designed to be a rugged and dirty feeling game much like the other FPS games out today, The developers were fine with this feel, until they started making cover art for Borderlands, the cover art they designed was more bright, cartoony and had a better vibe than the graphics in the real game, the art directors soon showed the president Randy Pitchford their new design ideas which turned around the entire direction of Borderlands.

e direction of game completely changed as shown above, the game went from serious to a comical adventure.

Now to the actuall game

CHARACTERS:

Roland: Soldier, Well rounded. His skill tree consists of Medic(heals other players by shooting them with healing bullets), Support(can give others ammo), Assault(focuses on damage). his special ability is to throw out a shielded turret that shoots by itself to the nearest target

Lilith: Siren, Mage/Rogue type ofcharacter Her skill tree consists of Controller(improves ability to slow type), Elemental(offensive casting abililty) and Assasain(increasing her melee and stealth abilities). her special ability is to be able to enter a phasewalk, in which she turns invisible, and as she exits the phasewalk she lets out an AOE blast.

Mordecai: The Sniper, his skill tree consists of Gunslinger(most likely going to work with pistols), Sniper(Self explanatory) and Rogue(not sure, could increase the skill of his bloodwing). The bloodwing is his special skill, Bloodwing is a hawk/bat that is able to blow people up, cut them in half, or just recieve loot

Brick: The tank: his skill tree consists of Tank(another self explanatory), blaster(most likely going to increase explosive damage) and the last is Brawler(most likely will increase his melee of his special ability). His special ability is a beserk in which he puts his weapon away and takes out his fists, which is his new weapon for the duration of the berserk.

Here is an example of a skill tree

Starting Power ----
Tree 1 - Tree 2 - Tree 3
A - B -- A - B -- A - B
C - D -- C - D -- C - D
E - F -- E - F -- E - F
- G ------ G ------ G -

5 Points in a combination of A/B for each individual tree lets you get to C/D
5 Points in a combination of C/D for each individual tree lets you get to E/F
5 Points in a combination of E/F for each individual tree lets you get to G of that tree
G = Super Power
You can put 5 points in to G
To max out a tree you would have to use 5x7 = 35 with 45 total skills you could completely max out 1 tree and have 10 points. To reach G takes 5x3 / 15. You could take 3 skills or combinations there-of from each tree by the time you're 50 and never once use any of the "Super Powers"

Points start when you hit level 5 (so cap is 50 you get 46 skill points although you HAVE to spend 1 on the starting power so you get 45)

The skill tree consists of passive and active abilities

LOOT:

If you search the game Borderlands, you will almost always hear about all the loot. There are so much guns in this game, that not even Gearbox knows how many, their guess is over 15 million guns. They are rated on a color coding system(like WoW). Example the colors might be white/green/blue/purple. The way you acquire them in the game is picking them off the ground from enemies, the loot system is free for all so to get the gun you want you have to pick it up first. This loot system can be controversial. Advice is to play with friends you trust so you can give the gun to the person who will gain the most benefits. The inventory system to hold all this loot does not measure by weight like Fallout 3, but rather by slots, you can increase the slots in your inventory bag by buying them or completing missions

VEHICLES:

The game also allows vehicular combat with a number of different vehicles. Vehicles are allowed thousands of different customization options. Only 2 can fit in a vehicle, and you can switch seats in the vehicle at any time, even in mid battle.

CO-OP/MULTIPLAYER:

Borderlands is a 4 player Co-op that is drop in drop out, the enemies scale on the number of people in the group, it alsohas 2 player offline splitscreen option. the only type of multiplayer in the game is Dueling and 2v2 Arena matches. To start a duel, two characters must interact by using their melee attack and hit one another, if both characters accept the duel, then a dome falls around the characters and the duel begins. the losing character inthe duel gets reduced to 1 health instead of dieng. the normal result of death while fighting the NPC will send you back to the nearest checkpoint, causing you to walk or drive back to where you originally were. Arenas are located in certain areas, in which you can set up a 2v2 match or a free for all match.

Borderlands is released on October 20th 2009. Gamestop Pre-order gives you extra skins for guns when you start.

Any questions? Ballinup will answer you, just post in the comments section!

N.P: Bought Batman Arkham Asylum… one word à INCREDIBLE! Review will be posted after 2 weeks!!