Game hits, misses

In the wake of midterms week comes "Borderlands," a nice treat for stressed students.

"Borderlands" was released on October 20 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and October 26 for the PC. The game was developed by Gearbox Studios, who also developed some games in the seminal FPS series, "Half Life." "Borderlands" successfully combines the FPS genre with elements of RPGs, such as customizable talents and leveling.

"Borderlands" brings the player to Pandora, a planet teeming with fortune hunters searching for the mythic "Vault." Your character is lucky enough to come into contact with the guardian of the Vault, who enlists your aid. From there, you meet a bunch of zany side characters, but the plot does not progress beyond an excuse to get from point A to point B. Gearbox is fully aware that the story is superficial and adds humor to keep things from becoming too bland.

"Borderlands" will not go up for a literary award, but the gameplay is where it truly shines. Running and gunning is fast and fun. The enemies are delightfully whacky and the game boasts an unimaginable amount of guns, consisting of an endless combination of types, stats, scopes and elemental properties. Your tactics will change whenever you get a new gun, but this presents a double edged sword. On the one hand, you will get to mix things up, but if your character build effects shotguns and you do not pick up any for 10 levels, you're out of luck.

Like most modern shooters, the game comes complete with vehicle segments reminiscent of "Halo."

Much of the game is driven by loot-seeking, similar to Blizzard's "Diablo" series. Each of the four character types in Borderlands (Hunter, Siren, Brick and Soldier) has a unique play style and three talent trees, similar to "World of Warcraft." The trees do not have the depth of the "World of Warcraft" ones and sometimes the changes are unnoticeable until you max them, but each build offers a unique play style once you get into the higher levels. In addition, you only have so many options at any one time. You have your guns, grenades and a single action skill, but not much else. You'll be dependant on changing weapons, grenade mods and talents to add variety.

If you are playing in single player, the first playthrough can seem too easy. Thankfully, the online mode ramps up the difficulty and allows you to play cooperatively with three buddies. After completing the 20 hour first playthrough, a harder difficulty is unlocked with tougher enemies and better loot. One could say the first playthrough is a warm up.

Instead of striving for photorealistic graphics like other modern shooters, "Borderlands" opts instead for stylish cell shading. Everything looks crisp, if a little unvaried. There are only a handful of enemy types and the same goes for areas. It is not that the game does not look good, but most areas have a funky Wild West feel and do not stray far from the formula.

Unfortunately, "Borderlands" has quite a few glitches. Some skills in the character talent trees do not work as intended. I had to restart after getting caught between two objects a few times and loading screens can be a pain, especially online.

If you can overcome these obstacles, "Borderlands" offers an addictive loot-finding romp that can be played with friends or online. The game offers Player Versus Player arenas, but the most fun is to be had teaming up against badass enemies and getting to gun chests before your teammates. "Borderlands" might just be that post-midterm treat you were looking for.