Borderland's art style is something that captures your attention from the outset. It has a painterly quality to it, like every texture was actually painted on canvas. The colour palette lends itself to this, with extremely bright and vibrant colours. Never before has a barren landscape looked so vividly striking. The characters are filled with an equal level of personality, with an underlying level of humour attached to the game, mostly delivered by the exuberant "Claptrap" robots. This visual impact certainly stays with you as you play, and considering that the game had to be almost recreated to include it instead of a more realistic aesthetic, it was definitely worth the effort.
The first-person shooter gameplay lends itself well to the game. Repetition is not something you'll experience too often in Borderlands, as the inclusion of its RPG features gives the game a sense of progression that all other plain shooters lack. You'll feel excitement every time you level up, and your eyes will often trail to the progress bar placed prominently on the bottom of the screen to check when it'll happen again. Each new level is another victory, every more useful weapon found is a perk, and even as enemies level up with you, you begin to feel stronger – until you try to face the next boss anyway. The difficulty in Borderlands curves often. You may face enemies that take two or three bullets to take down, before running into one that'll exhaust your ammo supplies. If you happen to wander into an area where you shouldn't be, expect to be knocked down hard and fast.
When this does happen, death isn't instantaneous. You'll go into a Downed state, where you'll be unable to move and your vision starts to darken. If you happen to kill an enemy in this time, you'll get a Second Wind. This restores a fraction of your health and shields and returns you to your feet, capable of finding cover to regain your strength. When playing co-operatively, an ally can also come over and revive you by holding down a button for a set period of time. Not that death will call too often when playing co-operatively – despite the enemies' level increasing to match the number of players in a game, this isn't really balanced in favour of your foes. The game, and particularly the bosses, are much easier when tackling them with a friend or three, especially when you are of similar levels.
You are able to commandeer a vehicle called a Runner during your travels also. These, just like most things in Borderlands, are customisable, with a selection of colours and weapons to choose from. Controls for it are awkward however, with acceleration and reverse mapped to upward and downward movements on the left analog stick and the camera, turning, and weapon placed on movements of the right stick. Despite the armaments on board, the Runner's most powerful weapon is itself, capable of crushing some of the most powerful creatures of the wasteland by running over them. It's prone to getting stuck on the environment however, and you'll either have to walk back to the nearest Car Depot to respawn one or melee the vehicle. When you do this, the effect is somewhat exaggerated, with the Runner able to cartwheel through the sky, even over walls where it's not meant to enter. When facing other Runners, you must use your mounted weapons, and this raises a problem. Aiming at these moving targets is an experience of torture, as they move erratically and fire rockets at you with talented marksmanship, covering your viewing angle with the detonation. This isn't necessarily a problem with one enemy, but when multiple ones are weaving around you, you can usually only last for a matter of seconds. No amount of Second Winds can help you either, as you'll be blown back down by rocket fire almost as soon as you break free of Death's clutch.
It doesn't help that the game is extremely buggy as well. Most bosses can be beaten by exploiting the game in some way, and there are noticeable frame rate dips on the console versions, particularly when large enemies are nearby or if there are explosions in the vicinity. There have been many errors in co-operative play from launch, with friends lists not showing correctly and voice communications being choppy. These have been fixed however, and with a recent patch, it seems that Gearbox is willing to support some of the problems the game has into the future.
All of this sounds particularly negative, but while some bugs and design choices hamper gameplay, it is still extremely enjoyable and addictive when things are going well. The ability to play through the game with friends really brings extra value into the title, and the assistance of someone you can depend on in a difficult game such as this is welcome. There is a sense of wasted potential in many areas, but many will have little issue in overlooking many of these problems in the thrill of the moment. A bit more time spent trying to quash some of these issues would have been a wise move, but nonetheless, there is much to be enjoyed in Borderlands for anyone who enjoys shooters and RPGs, as well as those who want to tickle their sense of adventure and exploration.
