Youâre in the wasteland, taking on quests, picking up look, and wandering around for miles, only this time youâre trying to get into the Vault.
I had a chance to check out a demonstration of Gearbox Softwareâs cosmetically mercurial Borderlands today, and it felt rather familiar. Take the wasteland environment, role-playing, and first-person shooter elements of Fallout 3, add in a little bit of Diablo-esque looting and weapon generation, and then give the whole thing a strong focus on co-operative multiplayer and there you have BorderlandsâŠand thatâs not a bad recipe whatsoever.
Gearbox President Randy Pitchford himself guided us through the demo, which started with two players working their way through a co-operative kill x number of y type mission. This is the first time weâve seen the new graphics in motion, and screenshots really donât do the game justiceâŠwhich I suppose is a problem with any cel-shaded title. While the areas are bleak and expansive, they are also full of life and characterâŠwhich I suppose is a plus with any cel-shaded title. The game definitely looks sweet in motion.
Gameplay is a mix of standard shooting with spe3cial skills gained through a roleplaying game type experience system, complete with a skill tree that allows players to customize their character to fit their play style as they advance. Characters are persistent, so you maintain your levels, equipment, and experience in every online or offline game you play.
Like I said, a bit like Diablo, as is the random creature generation. As in Blizzardâs game, youâll sometimes find hordes of monsters congregating around a larger, boss monster of the same type. These monsters are labeled âBadassâ versions of their species, much tougher to kill but chock full of loot. Randomly generated loot too, as Gearbox has programs that randomly generate weapons, adding together shapes, attributes, and elements to create everything from lightning grenades to shotguns that catch your opponents on fire. Once again, another parallel with Diablo.
Pulling up the menu, another similarity to Fallout becomes apparent. A happy little robot caricature waves to us from underneath an âadvertisementâ for something called The Vault. This one isnât an underground town that people locked themselves in to survive nuclear holocaust, but a legendary vault filled with treasure which the player is questing for. Itâs just a bit too close.
The team grabs another mission, heading there in a dune buggy looking vehicle procured at a vehicle spawn point. On the way to their objective they stop to explore, only to be attacked by armored ants, incredibly difficult to harm unless you aim for their abdomens. As Pitchford put it, you have to âblow their asses out.â Indeed.
Rather than continue on with current quest, they joined two more players who had progressed further in the same mission line. Four players is the max for co-op, with the enemies scaling in difficulty and reward with each new player. Again, standard shooter game play, only with a couple more players in the mix. After an extended firefight they manage to activate explosives planted about a fuel depot, retreat to a safe distance, and watch the rather impressive destruction caused by the resulting explosion. Thus ended our demo.
During the brief Q&A session afterwards, I questions Randy about the Fallout 3 similarities. âThe difference here is that Fallout is a roleplaying game with first-person shooter elements. We started as a first-person shooter and then added roleplaying elements to it.â
âOn top of that, I loved (Fallout) and I was having a great time, but there was also something missing â I couldnât play with my friends â I could never have anyone join in with me. Weâre actually the first game thatâs delivered these genres ever thatâs offering that feature (on consoles).â
I suppose thatâs true. Thereâs been drop-in co-op shooters and drop-in co-op action RPGs, but this is something relatively new.
