The RPG shooter game Borderlands was given to me as a gift via Steam by my very very good friend Vincent (yes the very same Mr. Vincent Haoson). At that time, I was knee-deep in work and so out of the loop when it came to what’s what in the gaming world that I didn’t even know what game it was. So after a bit of research, it got me curious enough. Thanks to my very SLOW internet connection, I didn’t get to play the game right away. Coupled with my busy schedule I’m not exagerrating that I only got to play it after a month.
Borderlands is set on the planet Pandora. The planet for me was like an abandoned wasteland. It’s mostly desert and decaying structures. The main object of the game is to find “The Vault” which is an elusive legendary treasure of alien artifacts, technology and wealth. So yeah, find the vault and beat the game. Simple enough right? But I was wrong. After playing for two months now, I’m deeply addicted to the world of Borderlands. I still haven’t found The Vault, but I’ve found that I’m really loving being a Siren.
There are four character classes to choose from in the game – a soldier, hunter, siren and a berserker. With the siren being the only girl (her name is Lilith by the way), naturally she’s the one I chose. Thank goodness you can modify the way your character looks for a bit. So I splashed on purple shades of color on her and renamed her with my gaming handle – lotuspixel.
I’m counting on Borderlands to be keeping me awake for most nights in the coming weeks or maybe longer, due to the numerous game elements that I really like. The graphics are good, they’re presented in cel-shaded style and for me it’s like playing within an animated graphic novel. I’ve always loved games that came with so many quests and this one is no different. The only downside is, it’s easy to get distracted from the main storyline by getting sidetracked in trying to finish everything on the bounty boards. I love the humor on some of the boss characters and the fact that I could go on a bandit and monster killing spree. Not to mention all the loot! Oh boy I can spend hours just trying on stronger weapons. The rarer the better.
But what I love most while playing are my character’s abilities. I’ve chosen to lead my siren into an elemental path. So everytime I levelled up, the skill points I get are distributed there. The siren has a special ability called Phasewalking. This makes my character invisible for a few seconds then inflict damage when she returns to visible form. Two of the most valuable abilities of my Elemental Siren are the Phoenix and Intuition skill. The Intuition skill adds a certain percentage of increased experience for the team and grants me the additional ability to move faster with each consecutive kill. While the Phoenix ability inflicts fire damage to clustered enemies and at the same time sets my character on fire (with no damage of course). This kinda gives my character the appearance of the girl on fire, mimicking Katniss in the Hunger Games trilogy. Â A sight to see if I may add.
So again, thanks for the game Vincent. Proved to be a good distraction for me, a good stress reliever to say the least.
