Hey I was thinking I might start to make segments in my news posts only a few ever read once in a full moon. One of my ideas for a segment is just me reviewing games, movies, music and whatever else that has already been our for several years or so and nobody really cares about my opinion since it is so old and updated. Hence the name "Late to the punchline".

Any way my in first review I would like to take a look at the game Borderlands. What did I think of it? What was good and what was bad. Well continue reading and you will find out.

I actually got this game very recently, because this one of those games that I always sort of have seen mixed reception . Some people say it and say it innovative and all that good jazz, and of course others says it is a massive borefest. So I didn't really want to risk spending money on a game I might not enjoy. But then several years later after its release I bought it and decided to give it a try.

Now giving a rundown of what the game is about would be kind of pointless, since I guess even one hasn't played the game the ought to know by now what the fuck it's about. But any in case, you play as one of four mercenaries each with their own set of skills and abilities and depending on if you play single player or the multiplayer you or the other mercenaries is on mission to find a legendary vault said to be filled riches and yaddi yaddas. But this awesome MacCool vault is located on most inhospitable planet ever called Pandora which to unlike James Cameron's lushes jungle planet filled with blue space cat-monkeys this Pandora is nothing more than a wasteland filled psychotic and dangerous alien animals. Pretty much anything wants to kill you.

When played through this game I played on single player because I don't have xbox live (or friends...) and I choose to play as "The Solider". Which clearly was the best choice if you are going to play solo, since the other classes are way to specialized to actually work own their own. That is kind of under stable I guess, that other classes works better with support from the others so you can get a good balance. But then again it kinds of alienate solo players like me from trying out all the classes.

The game is as most of you probably know a first shooter, and I don't know if could be called a pure RPG but it clearly got elements of it with how you level up and how damage is shown in numbers. I can't say I don't like FPS game with RPG elements, hell one of my favorite games of all time is Fallout 3. But there some things that work and some things that don't, such as action aspect of the game is actually quite good and fun most of time and I can't say there is anything in the game mechanics that makes it a bad shooter game.
But as an RPG it doesn't really is that good. But hey maybe it is not meant to be a fully fledge RPG. But it fails to like a living world where cool and fun stuff happens. Well yes they do happen... off screen.
When you interact with a friendly NPC you don't really talk to them, it is more like a little window that pop ups that describes what they want you to do. Sure the briefings can be fun, but that begs the question why hilarious things don't happens when you're around. All you get to do is to kill bandits and/or various animals. Sure this can be fun to do, and hey those Bandits sure say some crazy things, but after awhile that just get dull. If I didn't read the mission briefings I would not really know I should kill this bandit guy and all his men but what I do know it is hell of a lot similar to a mission I did some minutes ago. Killing little Jason Voorhees bandits can be fun until the point where you've mutilated more people than actually live on Pandora. Also something that is more or less a death sin to me when it comes to respawning enemies in games. Please don't make the same guys in the same level respawn at same place when happen to pass by when it haven' been more than a couple minutes since I last was there. I get it that it is like this for the sake of grinding which is cool not many games have grinding as an aspect in their games any longer, but this is not fucking pokemon where you walk in the tall grass to met a hundred lvl 2 pidgeys. It seems like it should be more of an organic world where actions means something, and when the respawen that fucking fast it make me feel like it didn't matter I just killed those guys they will come soon. It is also not just ordinary enemies thar respawn either it would seem. Semi-boss-ish guys also respawn. Enemies that was hard to kill comes back to life... Okay, the average Joe enemy is understandable for respawning (with a longer set of respawn time) but when a guy called"Bonehead" that killed several times comes back to life I lose the sense of accomplishment. I worked hard to kill that fucker why the fuck does he come to life!? Guess they all use New-U station (badoom dish*).

I want to get back to aspect of interaction of friendly NPCs. As I said you can only interact with them when they want you to shit for them, otherwise you can't really talk to them which is kind of sad because they seem like a fun colorful bunch and I want to get to know them better, and I know it is not its intention because it wants to focus more on action than Mundey conversations, like why talk when you could shoot stuff. But I kind of like those Mundey conversations you can find in other games, it has a charm to it. Sure I love action too, but sometimes I just want to talk to Zed about how things are going or ask any nameless NPC what they are thinking about, because they only thing I know about most of those guys is that hate this place.

But let us look at the story... There is none really, more of an excuse to shot things and I that is okay sometimes you just want to be a guy looking for fame and glory, and as mercenary it obvious you don't really care about these people problem. You just do what they want because they pay you or lets you get closer to your ultimate goal. But I never felt I wanted to find the vault, like nothing really drove to that goal and that it was just another job. Hey maybe it is but I could at least have used a little more context why I should even care about the riches and yaddi yadda stuff in the vault. Hell if you just dick around long enough you'll probably be a millionaire before you've even finished the game.

Okay I mentioned a lot of stuff I don't like and just little that I think was good. Is there anything else in this game that actually thought was kind of good? The intro is fucking kick ass!

But as final verdict, I don't not really like this game and I'm glad I did not buy it when it was new and more expensive. f you like the game that is okay and you have all the right to like it.