Extremely addictive, unique, and stylized Borderlands is a must play for fans of FPS's and RPG's.
In Borderlands you take control of one of four mercenary character classes, Hunter, Soldier, Siren, or Berserker. Each class has their own special action skill that ranges from the Hunter releasing his deadly pet bird called Bloodwing to the Siren's phasewalk ability which allows her to turn invisible for a brief amount allowing her to escape combat and release a phaseblast when entering and exiting phasewalk damaging nearby enemies, upon reaching level five a player's character will receive their first skill point which will unlock their action skill and skill trees. Each class also has their own unique skill tree which is divided into three different branches, for example the Hunter has the Sniper, Scavenger, and Gunslinger branches, which each improve the character in different ways and can be adjusted as the player sees fit allowing the character to customize their characters abilities and skills.
Without out any of the downloadable content the max level of a character in the game is fifty so gaining experience and questing, as in most RPG's, is what the player will spend the majority of the game doing, one may gain experience in the game by simply killing enemies or by completing quests that are given to the player's character by other characters in the game, Questing though is the easier way to level up as you gain much more experience by doing this than by just simply killing enemies.
Gamers who like weapon variety will likely enjoy Borderlands due to the fact that the game generates different weapons with different stats and abilities at random, these guns can range from SMGS that fire lightning rounds to shotguns that fire rockets. Collecting weapons is one of the best parts of Borderlands just because of the extreme amount of variety of weapons and the different abilities and stats that they have.
Not only does Borderlands game play give it much style but its cel-shaded graphics make it stand out from most games that are out today, and though these graphics may seem cartoonish and primitive they actually make the games desert planet environment pop out by giving it a cartoon/comic book look rather than just having it look like a boring sea of tan and brown.
Though Borderlands has great game play, graphics, and style, the sound and story are sadly not as good as the rest of the game's parts. The music in Borderlands practically never changes except when one encounters enemies and upon playing for multiple hours one will likely get very bored of the music, the sound effects such as vehicle sounds, and gunshots are done quite well though.
The story in Borderlands is probably the least impressive part of Borderlands, the story in Borderlands is that you are on a desert wasteland planet named Pandora and are in search of a legend of the planet called the vault which is supposed to contain alien technology and other valuable items it is also said that upon finding the vault one will receive extreme power, wealth, and fame. Surprisingly this is about as much as the story contains and does not progress very much save a few moments that aren't very compelling or climatic.
Though Borderlands may have a bland/boring story and its music will likely bore you its and extremely fun, stylized, and addictive game which will last on average about twenty hours that fans of FPS or RPGS, or fans of both for that matter, should definitely give a try and not miss out on therefore Borderlands for Xbox 360 gets a 8.5 out of 10.