A Quick Review of Borderlands for PC

I bought Borderlands on Steam; played as a soldier; spent ~30-40 hours on it; and finished at level 36. My favorite weapon was the Desert Stomper combat rifle.

Here are my quick thoughts on the game…

Pros…

The artwork – The watercolor look of the game is unique and a really nice break from the usual textures. It was always interesting but never distracting.

The loot – Ridiculous amounts of it really. It didn’t take long to rack tons of cash, weapons, shields, and grenades.

The weapons – The shear number and types of weapons turned into a sort of mini game for me. I found myself constantly swapping them looking for the best load out.

The save system – It’s a checkpoint system, but there are plenty of them; also, the game saves automatically when you exit. It was nice not having to manage the saves

Cons…

The map system – Essentially useless. There is no overall world map to show which part of Pandora your quest is located or how the various areas connect to one another. This makes using game’s teleportation system a lot like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The vehicle weapons – You get a rocket launcher and a machine gun. Unfortunately, both are seriously nerfed. Luckily the best weapon on the vehicle is the vehicle itself – just running over baddies gets the job done.

The bad guys – In a word… repetitive. You can only fight so many bandits, burning psychos, and skags before you want to throw down your guns and head back to Fyrestone to have a beer with Dr. Zed.

The ending – No spoilers, but let’s just say that it left me wondering if maybe the fire alarm went off and Gearbox developers decided to finished the game quickly and run out of their building.

Tips…

Aim for the head – good advice in any game, but headshots are especially effective in this one.

Armor and health – With the plethora of weapon make and models it would be easy to focus on your offensive firepower. Spend time initially though building up your HP and getting the best shield you can.

Avoid weapons with ridiculously high damage – rocket launchers, some shotguns and sniper rifles in this game feature damage that seems too good to be true. “Damage 850!? Woo hoo!!” Turns out that most are significantly nerfed. Focus on having a balanced weapon. Accuracy and recoil reduction are important stats.