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The only obvious way to start a review for an RPG is by stating that I don’t really play them. In actuality, the last RPG I played was Pokemon, and I’m not even sure if that counts. When I tell people that I don’t play Role Playing Games, I’m often greeted with shock and then the obvious question, why?

It’s probably down to a number of different things. I’m not too keen on the whole go-to fantasy aesthetic that most RPGs rely on and the gameplay was never engaging enough. Hey, I can see the appeal but personally, navigating through a list or clicking on a character just wasn’t enough. But if you swapped that out and replaced it with a solid first person shooter then you might have something.

Levelling, quests, experience meters, hit points, critical damager and loot, lots and lots of loot.

There are probably more than enough clues on this page to suggest that, that combination is Borderlands, a Diablo-esque RPG with levelling, quests, experience meters, hit points, critical damage areas and loot, lots and lots of loot. Only, instead of being another run-of-the-mill RPG, Borderlands infuses the almost MMO framework with a more than capable first person shooter.

Instantly loot drops become full of items more important than an alternative title given to a sprite or a different coloured piece of armour. Loot is definitely the main appeal of Borderlands and although most of it is ammo, health or modifiers, the exciting loot drops often contain new weaponry.

“Bazillions of Guns” is the oft plastered bullet point seen on advertisements and they aren’t wrong, well technically they couldn’t be wrong because it’s not a real number, for all we know bazillion could mean six.

Luckily, for loot whores that is, it doesn’t mean six because there is seemingly an infinite number of pistols, rocket launchers, sniper rifles and more, available to you and you’ll always get something different each time. Gearbox must have spent many sleepless nights trying to think of as many modifications you can apply to the standard set of gun archetypes, never mind getting randomly generated guns to work smoothly.

Gearbox must have spent many sleepless nights trying to think of gun modifications

You’ll be able to unleash the power of a bazillion guns (although it must be said, not all at the same time) on a plethora of enemies. The problem here is that, all enemies still work on the RPG system of hit points and personal statistics. Meaning that if you have a rocket launcher, you might have to unleash a few on a foes face before actually chipping away their health meter.

It feels goofy and unsatisfying when every fight can be compared to what would normally be a final boss in a standard FPS. However, it’s quite surprising that this is the only noteworthy issue about the combat, especially when you consider the massive backlog of failed RPG and action crossovers.

Borderlands can be played from one of four characters, which basically boil down to Solider, Hunter, Siren and Berserker. I’d honestly recommend going through your first play through as a Solider, the natural choice anyway, because he’s an all rounder that will let you grasp the key concepts. Once you’ve got them down you can opt to replay it, with the same character to achieve higher levels or with one of the others.

Essentially Borderlands could give you enough of a reason to play through it eight times and considering that the game is roughly twenty hours per playthough, it would be no mean feat.

I know this sounds like a quintessential RPG, but grinding within a shooter, isn’t fun.

It’s also something that might become a chore considering I found a majority of the sub-quests incredibly mundane; I now truly understand the self-loathing term ‘fetch quest’. Meanwhile, most if not all of the integral story quests require heavy grinding before hand. I know this sounds like a quintessential RPG, but the game plays like a shooter and constantly shooting the same things with no variation, just to ‘unlock’ some variation, isn’t fun.

One of the quintessential RPG elements that Borderlands seemingly misses out is a compelling narrative. You really could be grown into this grey rock filled world and not really pay any attention to the story at all. It just doesn’t grab you.

It’s a real shame because when I talk to people who play RPGs they constantly spout how this game with an awkward Engrish sounding title, had an excellent story. Unfortunately any driving story is absent and as a result you’ll never truly feel absorbed and engrossed into the universe.

Something Borderlands has in droves, except for guns, is graphical charm. Borderlands takes this Fallout-esque wasteland and presents it as a colourful and cel-shaded Fallout-esque wasteland. Fine, there is no escaping that most of the game is made up of rocks and valleys but occasionally the odd quest will take place inside a cave or building, which is a welcome change of scenery.

With the game being so heavily based around an RPG structure, those valleys are gigantic. The whole map takes hours to traverse and the obligatory vehicles make getting from A to B a whole lot smoother. The problem is however, that they operate horribly because of the normally suitable Halo style control scheme but without the fidelity.

Vehicles control horribly because the lack of fidelity with the normally suitable Halo scheme.

I was often left with no vehicle after it bounced under a ramp, even though no contact was actually made. Needless to say that Borderlands suffers from its technical issues, some intense pop-in and sharp frame rate drops plague Borderlands from being the seamless experience it should be.

Ashamedly I rarely play RPGs but Borderlands almost made me see their appeal. I say almost because the only parts of the game I didn’t enjoy seemed to be forced because of the RPG framework slapped over the game. Nevertheless anyone who loves the grind, and more importantly loves the loot, will find an ambitious and natural combination of a solid RPG and competent shooting. While Borderlands isn’t the best in either genre, the mixture of both is intriguing enough for it to suck a good forty to fifty hours from you and you can’t argue with that for value.