A year of sequels with a few original titles. By no means are any of these sequels bad, Left 4 Dead 2 remains one of my favourite games, but for the most part there is little innovation. For me I enjoy games that strive to be different, to travel off the beaten track and along the way improve gaming as a whole. Nothing bores me more than carbon copy games littering the shelves. Sometimes these experimental games suffer as Mirror’s Edge did but nonetheless at least they tried to be different as opposed to being Call of Halo 4: Gears of Evil.
After that disclaimer on how I judge games, my contender for GOTY would have to be Gearbox’s Borderlands. Fusing together an FPS with RPG elements on paper sounds like a bizarre creation but in practice it works wonderfully. Imagine World of Warcraft where actual skill is involved, none of these add-ons or auto-lock on. Seeing numbers fly everywhere after igniting a whole bunch of enemies with your SMG is strange scene indeed. Strange but satisfying.
What improves this RPG shooter tenfold is its guns. With any FPS you want some variety in your weapons so imagine a game that offers electric rain grenades, rocket firing shotguns or corrosive revolvers. The loot then is the RPG element and with plentiful varieties of guns any RPGer will be happy. You’ve not lived until you’ve melted your first skag with your fists.
The multiplayer is also the way forward. Single player can be pretty bleak but when three more people are thrown into the mix things get harder and much more fun. Do you play properly and have a designated tank, healer and ranged DPS or do you all play as Brick and melee everything to death? The lack of harsh penalties for death make for interesting games something which should be promoted in other games.
Most features cater for RPG and FPS fans whether it be the talent trees, the variety of enemies each with different weak spots and even the obligatory zombies. There are problems though which arise from the negative aspects of both genres. It suffers slightly from RPGs tendancy for grind based gameplay whilst with FPS it maintains the trademark of having little in the means of story. The level cap is also another minor issue something which can be alleviated with future DLC, hopefully.
For all its problems Borderlands has its charm and that is what keeps me playing it. I’ve achieved every achievement weeks ago yet I still play on my characters because the allure of rare loot coupled with a humourous landscape littered with easter eggs and references keep me enticed. Rest assured I downloaded Mad Moxxi the other day and the next couple of days will be filled with screams down the headset after a Bad Mutha Alpha Skag tears my teammates apart. If you haven’t had the chance to play Borderlands do so now, I dare you to put it down after ‘finishing it’.
My pick for Game of the Year 2009 – Borderlands
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