Borderlands

Guns. Lots of guns. Worth: $25
based on 360 retail

This may be you sometimes when playing this game, but most of the time you make the baddies want to do this.

Plusses: guns, guns, guns! Built for Co-Op from the ground up. Mission structure. Game world packed with things to shoot.
Minuses: it doesn't look all that great, and the difficulty balance is all over the place. Confusing information layout.

There are a lot of good things about Borderlands, and I'll probably like it more as I get better at it. What I miss though is my Halo 3 control scheme, Bumper Jumper. My Borderlands character has the agility to avoid a lot of the damage I take, but the control scheme doesn't facilitate the Gypsy Two-Step and so I get the crap beat out of me.

A major disappointment for me was that the unique gun-generation system is handled entirely by the game code. I thought I'd be able to construct my own weapons, but sadly this is not how the game works. What does work is the shooting, the mission structure, and the game world. The characters you meet are barely two-dimensional, but they get the job done.

I'm ambivalent about a major design decision: the areas in the game world repopulate with baddies almost as soon as you clear them. In fact, I had one area respawn it's baddies while I was still standing in it. Not surprisingly, I got my butt absolutely blown off. The respawning allows me to churn my character's level very quickly, but it also means you have to fight your way _everywhere_, even if you were just there. Again, there is good and bad to this, so I have mixed feelings about it.

I think I'd notice these flaws a lot less if I were playing Co-Op. Once I get a chance to do that I'll revisit this review.