So I rented Borderlands for the Xbox 360 a while back, I just never got around to writing about it until now. I’m a busy guy. Whaddaya want from me?

Anyway, Borderlands. It’s a team-based first-person shooter RPG. That is quite the jumble of genres! I decided to give it a rent after listening to Major Nelson, e, Stepto and lollip0p talk about it at PAX East. They praised the gameplay and leveling system, so I decided that sticking stats in a shooter is a pretty good way to get me interested.

The graphics and voice acting are amazing. The game has a beautiful cel-shaded art style that lends itself surprisingly well to a game of this type. The environments are very lush and detailed, and the whole thing kinda gave me a “Fallout with more colors” vibe.

The game employs a mission system very similar to World of Warcraft (which I’m sure didn’t invent that particular type of questing system, but I figure everyone will know what I’m talking about. Shut up) where you meet a guy, he’ll tell you to kill x amount of whatever creatures are in the area, you do it, you go back to him and get rewarded. I thought it was a really cool way to add a new layer of incentive to keep playing a first-person shooter.

There’s four characters you can choose from: Brick, a Berserker, who is great at taking damage and using melee attacks, Lilith, a Siren, who uses magic in addition to guns, Mordecai, a Hunter, who uses sniper rifles for long-range damage, and Roland, the typical Soldier class. Each provides a very different style of play, so teaming up with other players is to your benefit.

The problem with adding stats to a shooter, though, is that there’s a lot of times something should work, but doesn’t because your stats are low. I first started playing as the Hunter, and I’d try to use the sniper rifle on enemies from far away. They’re not moving, the crosshair is directly over their head, I’d fire… miss. Then they’d start coming after me. I realize that my accuracy or whatever wasn’t leveled up, but what’s the point of having a sniper rifle if I can’t perform a headshot on a non-moving target?

My other complaint is really no fault of the game’s, but for me, it was rather dull because I was playing by myself. It’s very obvious that Borderlands was designed from the start to be a cooperative experience. I can imagine it being a ton of fun teaming up with four buddies and coordinating attacks on enemies and racking up experience, because hey, I used to do that all the time in Phantasy Star Online. As a single-player experience, though, Borderlands is severely lacking. If you don’t have a good crew to game with, you’re better off with Fallout 3.

To sum it up, Borderlands is by no means a bad game. In fact, I’d say that it’s actually really good, just not for me. If I knew a couple of people who had it, I can definitely see myself setting aside some time each night to really sink into the co-op mode. As it stands right now, though, it’s not really my thing, but I definitely see the potential in it. If any of you out there every feel like giving it a shot, let me know, because I’d love to try it again and experience it the right way.