1. Summary
2. Background
3. Hype
4. Features

Borderlands has been hyped up as being a massive, procedural, and most importantly fun shooter. It supposedly incorporates role-playing elements in a way that will please shooter fans and role-playing game fans alike. Whether or not this is just hot air or correct is to be seen. However, this sort of thing has been promised before, so maybe it is time to deconstruct a little of the hype.

The most touted feature of the game is the upwards of one million guns that your character can find and use. These guns are procedural in that they are crafted from many different components, with a semi-random algorithm determining how the guns are made. While this sounds great for your average shooter fan, it will mostly likely fall into the same trap that any hack-'n-slash fan is comfortable with: weapon repetition. When you have that many components and ways to combine them, there will no doubt be upwards of a hundred thousand guns that are copies of others. While some guns sound intriguing, like a pistol that shoots massive shotgun rounds, the general rule is that for every unique item you find in a procedural game, expect a thousand knock-offs or derivatives.

The open-world feature is another major selling point, and is possibly the one part of the entire hype experience that can be taken at its word. The open-world has not quite reached its total promise, but most developers know how to work around te limitations modern hardware and users put upon the experience. The description of Borderlands' open world, with towns that stay in the same place and terrain that alters each time you enter a new area, sounds a lot like games such as Nethack or Diablo, which date back as far as the early 80s. This is an old standard in gaming, and Gearbox is approaching it just right.

Co-op plays a major role in Borderlands, and we're hoping that it genuinely pans out. Here's the problem with modern co-op, though. Most companies tend to place an AI in what should be a human's role. The AI then goes on to be so stupid that you can barely finish the game. If Gearbox is making the game to avoid all of the negativity around co-op, they will have it be playable without a team of AI to muck things up, and stick more to the classic hack-'n-slash scheme of players jumping into each others' games. Still, this is a major point of concern, especially if you love good co-op and can't stand bad AI.

Role-playing in shooters is a fickle mistress. On one hand, you have games like Deus Ex, which blur the lines by incorporating skill choices, inventories, and general atmosphere while never letting go to shooting roots. On the other hand, you have games like BioShock, which harbor some role-playing elements but never really break outside of the box when it comes to merging the two. We're sincerely hoping that Borderlands ends up more like the former than the latter. The gameplay videos shown offer hope, and the interface mixes the two beautifully, but until the general public has their hands on it, it's a coin toss.