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Ain’t no rest for the wicked

Borderlands was first released in 2009 as an action role-playing first person shooter developed by Gearbox Software. It combined all of the best elements of its various genres to bring an incredibly compelling experience to the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. It’s character-building and leveling reward system is coupled with well-paced gameplay and a story that takes you for a ride from the Barren Wastelands of Fyrestone to the cold steel city where we find the Crimson Lance Headquarters. The game is packed with action, adventure and crude sense of humour portrayed through colourful characters and really awkward situations. The enemies are varied, smart and elusive keeping you at the edge of your seat as you move from land to cavern or traverse the desert in search of Skagzilla who has swallowed a weapon upgrade you could really use. Experience is plentiful and if you play your cards right can help you complete the game sooner than expected. All in all, Borderlands is an addictive experience from start to end with clever twists and turns along the road to the Vault. I haven’t come across a game that has made me lose track of time and kept me up long nights since I was 12.

This blog is going to explore the atoms of Borderlands and explain how they relate to one another and fit together in the overall picture. If you happened to have missed this terrific experience, here’s a video that should give you a good look into how the game works while the blog that follows will give you insight into why the game works so well.

Catch-a-ride at your closest re-fuelling station and let’s go!

Players

Borderlands is both a single-player and multiplayer experience rolled into one. It encourages players to work in teams and solve quests much like many MMORPGs. The interaction modes present here include ‘single-player versus game’ and ‘cooperative play.’ In the sequel, there are even sparring matches where the ‘player versus player’ interaction mode is explored. There are arenas in-game where you may go head to head against your friends either 1v1 or in ‘multilateral competition’. I first played on single-player mode but introducing another member to your team creates a whole lot of fun. Here’s where the brilliance of the duel system within Bordelands shine as the game is quite literally designed for either a one-player o two-player experience. The vehicles need a driver and a gunner (as with the Warthogs in Halo) but also work well in single-player mode as you may just want to drive to the middle of the action, switch to the gunner seat and blast away your surrounding enemies. When more players are introduced, the game becomes admittedly more challenging with a tougher group of enemies and several quests that adapt to support two or more players. The game would typically be played in teams when online where the player may use any character they’ve created.

There are four playable characters throughout the game and each is given special powers and attributes unique to their class. The four characters are Roland the ‘Soldier’, Mordecai the ‘Hunter’, Lilith the ‘Siren’ and Brick the ‘Berserker’. Choosing any one of these player types gives you a unique advantage specific to your character. The player is allowed to change the colours of their character’s outfit at “New-U” stations throughout the game. This is also where players spawn should they die during gameplay. Players level-up throughout the game and gain skill points which they use to upgrade their unique powers through their skill tree. Every player gets to choose a unique build which they will employ for the rest of the game based on what is available from their particular character’s skill tree. Every time you gain enough experience to level up, you are given a skill point. On my first playthrough, I managed to hit level 35 with the max upgradable level being 52. The amazing thing about the game is that enemies scale in difficulty after you.

Objectives

The primary objective in Borderlands is to level up your character as much as possible and to use weapons, skills and expertise to push through the game and find the Vault. The secondary objectives are seen through the side quests which act as a means to gain more experience, unique weapons and class mods which enhance your character’s special abilities. There are missions in the game where you need to find and obtain a certain item (relics and pieces of the vault key) which will unlock new missions and introduce new characters. There are some quests focused on chasing an enemy or hunting down a monster simply to kill it later on. Additionally, there are one or two areas where you need to rescue a prisoner or someone held captive by fighting off their captors.

The game involves a lot of exploration as finding new areas unlocks additional missions whether through bounty boards or new character found in these locations. Discovery also boosts your XP, constantly encouraging players to veer off the game’s path and explore for treasure, weapons and shields. Several objects require the player to find a solution to a problem although most of these problems involve a meathead in your way to completing an objective. In these cases it becomes more about outwitting the enemy and finding a way to get from point A to point B with your health intact. Although it may not be considered a real objective as far as the game goes, I often found being trapped inside of a cavern with several enemies gunning for me turn into finding a way to escape. There is, in fact, an area in the game where an underground cave takes you to a relic which unleashes aliens as soon as you come into contact with it. Your objective then turns into escaping the entire ordeal without dying.

Rules

The rules in Borderlands are well laid out and make it clear, at every turn, what’s allowed and what isn’t. The rules that limit player behavior include what you can and can’t do with your player type based on their choice of character. The Soldier is allowed to throw out turrets as his action skill but can’t use magic and isn’t as strong at melee attacks as the Siren or the Berserker may be. The player isn’t allowed to use a weapon or item which is a higher level than he is. Additionally there are certain enemies that may be fought when they are a higher level although the game strongly suggests against this and makes it very difficult for the player to face off against these opponents when they aren’t strong enough, A lot of areas are blcked off to players until the obtain the ability to lower a bridge connecting or gain access to Catch-A-Ride stations which unlock these locations. Any player type or class is allowed to use any weapon they choose but some are better suited to certain classes (such as the Sniper is well-suited for the Hunter and gives him bonus XP when using it).

Gaining XP will help your player level up which in turn makes him stronger and allows him to build on his action skill which is very beneficial and changes gameplay as the game progresses. The player may drive vehicles but the terrain these vehicles can travel on is restricted by the game’s system. There are several areas that the player needs to step out of his vehicle to access, while other areas allow the player to carry his vehicle through. Picking up certain objects trigger waves of enemies. Enemies have a pre-defined set of attacks and are susceptible to damage on different areas of their bodies. Headshots are usually the safest bet and deal the greatest damage. Not using cover leaves he player exposed and will lead to his eventual death. This rule strongly encourages players to duck and cover. Adversely, if you stay in the same place for too long, a berserker enemy will run at you forcing you to back out of your hiding spot and exposing you to direct gunfire. When you kill a boss, you typically get a lot of XP allowing you to level up faster. Completing side missions also earns you tons more experience, which encourages players to explore everything the game has to offer.

In order to progress through the game you must earn XP to be strong enough to defeat bosses, gain vault keys, meet new characters, be assigned more objectives, and unlock new areas.

Resources

The resources in Borderlands centre on character-building and personal preference, really. Players are encouraged to pick up items that they feel are needed for their particular character build and to enhance the way they play the game. Resources include money, health, shields, ammunition (for different weapon types), guns, grenades, class mods, and pieces of the vault key. Health is the most valuable resource and can be replenished using health kits, quick-healing vials or can be re-charged using shields or specific player-type class mods (the Siren has this in her repertoire). Shields are excellent and come in various varieties based on your play style. The attributes change with every shield except for capacity and recharge rate which are tweaked based on the shield type (impenetrable, high capacity, quick recharge, etc). Some shields have additional attributes such as shock resistance, corrosive resistance and protection from explosion damage. I even came across a shield that would replenish a percentage of your health constantly over time.

Ammunition and health packs may be bought at vending machines to replenish your stock. Guns can also be bought here but, quite honestly, the gun vending machine is used primarily in the beginning of the game when enemies drop mainly weak weapons. As you progress, guns become a powerful resource and are dropped when enemies are defeated. Usually, the stronger the enemy, the better the gun. Enemies also drop ammo and health vials but most of the time you’ll find yourself fighting an enemy hoping that you can get his gun after you’ve killed him – the real life of a bandit. Grenades work like they do in most game and can be used to inflict massive damage on large groups of enemies. Grenades also have attributes which deal additional elemental or explosive damage. Class mods are a scarce resource in the game and for a valid reason – they give the player a good boost in stats, amping up their action skill or providing them with a unique advantage for their specific player type. When playing the soldier, I came across a class mod that replenishes your ammo over time, this saved me tons of money and completely changed the survivalist mechanic of the game. Pieces of the vault key are the rarest and are scattered all around Pandora with only 3 or 4 to be found in total. These are strictly to progress the story of the game and give the player no special skills for their character.

The games resources are controlled through an inventory system that is stylized as a backpack where you carry all your gear, weapon, shields and money. Money is earned through quests and picked up from corpses and boxes plentifully spread throughout all of Pandora. Money can be used to purchase any and all resources except for vault keys. The player earns Backpack SDUs (Storage Deck Upgrades) and Weapon SDUs which expand the size of their inventory and ammo capacity respectively.

Game State

At any time during gameplay, Borderlands might be in any one of 3 or 4 game states. Combat is one of these game states. When the player is engaging an enemy (or another player) in combat he is locked into this game state until he has either defeated the enemy or has been killed. Of course, the player could always run away from the battle in which case proximity switches game states. However, enemies do chase you down if you don’t move fast enough and continue attacking you until you are considerably far away from their terrain. Other game states include idle. This usually happens when not too many enemies are around and the player is free to run around and collect the spoils of war in addition to purchasing ammunition and health or opening chests/boxes for money. The idle mode is usually when the player is allowed to take a breather and is also used as an opportunity to scavenge and explore.

Boss fights are another important game state in which players are restricted to a certain area of play for a certain amount of time (till the boss is killed). A health bar representing the boss’ life appears and stretched across the bottom of the screen and physical boundaries are created surrounding the player. Vehicle play may also be considered a game state in which the player is limited by the mechanics of the vehicle they are in and may only move as fast as the vehicle allows. Once the player steps out of the vehicle, he again enters idle mode. Games states in Borderlands change rapidly as the player moves between them from one moment to the other based on where they need to go and what they need to do.

Information

Information in Borderlands is defined by the player’s current experience and the characters the player has met as well as the quests they have given him and those he has completed. For the most part, information is readily available to the player and most of the game state is visible. The vehicle game state is one that is introduced in beginning of the game, but only after the player is given enough time and presented with enough challenges to gain a good understanding of the world around him before he steps into a runner and goes on to tear up the sands of Pandora. Based on the player’s experience some information, like levels and characters, will be restricted. The game is sandbox-style but is more semi-linear than non-linear in that there are several side quests for the player to go on should he choose, but in order to progress the story, main story mission must be completed.

When the player receives a new vault key, more information is made available in the form of conversations with characters who need his skills and expertise. Other information can be found in the form audio logs that are scattered throughout Pandora (some hidden and some not-so-hidden). There are certain times when you can choose one of two rewards offered on completion of an important objective. In these cases the choice not made may be considered hidden information. A lot of information in the game may be considered privileged information, in that it can’t be accessed except by higher leveled characters (weapons and enemies). Not all game states are visible as soon as the game begins as the player learns by progressing through. Additionally, enemy information such as stats and behaviors (amount of armour, how effective are headshots, how do elemental weapons affect the enemy, etc.) are hidden to the player until they engage in combat or level up enough to do so.

Sequencing

The sequence of events that follow the game are straight-forward and work in repetitive increments. The usual alternating repetition is [battle/scavenge/gather item or activate quest/battle] and so on and so forth. Usually from when you begin a mission, the process is to get to the area that the quest requires you to be in, kill everything in your way to get there, intermittently scavenger for loot, complete the objective. Sometimes objectives require you to fight a boss in which case this variable is added into the sequence which repeats over and over again. Most missions require you going somewhere for someone and collecting something that they desperately need or killing someone or something they don’t want around anymore. Variations include gathering parts of a gun which you later deliver to the quest-giver who combines the pieces and returns the finished weapon ready for use (or sale based on your preference). Almost every mission results in the player receiving money and experience. The player’s experience level will influence his choice of missions but the sequencing structure is basically the same. Once in a while the player will have to take a vehicle to get from point A to point B. In such cases there are often opponent vehicles that get in the way of the player doing their job or getting to where they need to be. The player is free to choose which missions to complete and in what order but story missions are mandatory to complete the game.

Player Interaction

Player interaction stems from negotiation, trading and information sharing. If players choose to quest together then they may share weapons and money with each other (trading). Most teamplay consists of players completing missions together where experience, monetary gain and loot is split evenly between players. Many times players will also share information with each other – this is especially true when one player is more experienced than the other or has found secret treasure or a strategy to kill certain enemy types or bosses. The player is also allowed to revive their teammate on the battlefield if they are in survival mode. There are certain action skills that allow for team-beneficial abilities such as team-heal and team-ammo-regeneration. This kind of player interaction encourages player to stick close together and assign roles when questing.

Theme

When I first played Borderlands, I was very emotionally invested. It became a person objective of mine to level up my character to a stage where enemies weren’t challenging anymore or where I could sail through missions with ease. This is mainly because I am the kind of person to grind through a task that will make gameplay easier for me in the future. It comes from a fear of the unknown or being stuck later on in the game where I can’t go back and change something I did wrong. The rules were well laid out from the get go and were introduced in a consistent and creative manner throughout the game. I definitely felt a deep connection to my character and wanted the best weapons and skills for him to get through the game.

Setting

Borderlands is set on the planet of Pandora and follows the story of four vault hunters who are after the treasures behind the fabled Vault which opens once every 200 years. Pandora is a wasteland filled with bandit scum that roam around looking for people to kill and loot. They are lunatics, beserkers and psychos all rolled into one happy family that is the only thing standing between you and the Vault.

Working Together

The game atoms in Borderlands work really well together to form an immersive and interesting experience for players hard enough to handle the rough terrain and gritty reality of Pandora’s massive wasteland. The game knows what it is and doesn’t try to be anything its not. The player types and interaction modes work well with the genre of gameplay and complement the objectives which are well thought out and offer enough of a variety to portray all the rules and mechanics needed to keep the game fun and dynamic. The resources that need to be plentiful (health) are and those that offer the player a significant advantage are hidden well but aren’t made too hard for explorers to find. The game states offer enough of a variety to make sure that the player isn’t seeing similar gameplay for too long and help sequence game events as well. The theme is set from the very beginning with the game’s unique toon-shaded art style and the gritty westerners that populate the planet of Pandora and portray the typical new settlers of any habitation. Players interact frequently enough to encourage teamwork but not to the point where the player has no freedom and isn’t allowed to veer off and explore of his own accord. The right amount of information is available to the player and some information is even restricted unless the player has a friend to join in the fun. Some information comes in the form of game states that the player has to work up to unlock.

Overall, Borderlands is a terrific game that combines all the best elements of the game I love and put it together in one beautiful but deadly adventure about the life of bandits, skags, vault hunters and the characters that surround their crazy story. There is a lesson to be learned in all of this of course

“There arin’t no rest for the wicked until we close our eyes for good…”