Just like every other year there are games that come out and grab your attention right away and you think “Man, how did they think of this?” Well I would have to say that after playing Borderlands I got the exact same feeling. I got a feeling that a lot of time and effort went into this game and that, because someone took the time to venture into it, that it will pave the way for other innovative games and games that push the envelope of gaming just a little bit. This game may not be for you, but I urge you to try it just to see if it is what you have been looking for all this time.
I suppose the first think you would like to know is how much this new game is going to cost you? Well as with most games, it will run you on the xbox 360, Playstation 3 around sixty dollars and it will run you around fifty dollars on the PC. The system requirements are not at all that bad, as you can see in the following rundown:
OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: Pentium 4 @ 2.4 Ghz or equivalent
Memory: 1GB (2GB recommended with Vista)
Hard Drive: 8 GB free
Video Memory: 256mb video ram or better (GeForce 9 series or higher/Radeon R8xx series)
Sound Card: Windows compatible sound card
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard and Mouse
DVD Rom Drive
This again shows that the gaming industry is trying to make new games accessible for all users and makes it a really affordable venue, which is very important in today’s economy. The game graphic wise is a little different then what you may be used to. It has a sort of cartoon/CGI feel to it, but it is beautifully done, to the point that you don’t even realize that you’re playing in that type of graphical environment once you get into it. The game itself runs very smooth and even at parts with a lot of action the game continues to run very smooth without little hiccups. This allows the user to have a continued fun experience with little interruption from the game itself.
The single player of the game is not short by any means and its replay ability is amazing. It provides experiences of all kinds and leaves you wondering what with happen next with little clues along the way so that you can try to form your own conclusion before it happens. The game also provides a great cinematic environment and puts you in the driver’s seat and you feel as if you are right there watching it all happen. This is helped by the game being built in the way that it is both first and third person, allowing the individual playing to miss no part of the action. This is especially important, because the environments that were created are both unique and awe inspiring at the same time.
Obviously no review is complete without providing a look into the multiplayer aspect of the game. The main problem with multiplayer on PC that you don’t find on consoles is the incompatibility of routers and having to open ports. Now a lot of people like to think it is a PC side issue, but it is in fact the game developers fault for this issue. The game developers have a duty to open all the ports and make it across the board playable, but instead the game’s designers choose to use a second party system to host known as Gamespy. Gamespy has a history of lacking in the department of preparing games for host ability and opening ports for all their users and they again disappoint the community here by not being prepared at launch for accepting all router types. Game companies have been able to allow no compatibility issues between routers for some time now, but Gamespy insist of being behind the curve every time a game is launched with them as the in-between. I am sure that Gamespy will come out with a patch opening all the ports and fixing router compatibility issues like they always do, but as usually for now it falls on the user to find their router and ports and open them. If this is not working or is to much of a hassle, there are third party programs that provide a virtual lan that people over the internet can use for hosting, eliminating the compatibility issues. After all this I would have to say that Borderlands deserves an eight out of ten, simply because of the short coming on the multiplayer end at the moment. I would have to say that this is one of the greatest games of the year.
