Let us all welcome the sleeper hit of 2009, and quite frankly, a contender for game of the year. Borderlands from Gearbox Software and 2K Games is one of those rare games that come from out of nowhere and hits it out of the park. With shortages already occurring a few days into it's release, Borderlands is going to be a force to be reckoned with.

         Concept
     A shallow story about treasure hunting and a mythical alien vault. The legend on the planet of Pandora is that whoever finds this mysterious vault on this post-apocalyptic planet will gain enormous fame and wealth. Basically, this is all an excuse for you and up to three friends to tear it up and go around exploring the vast world. Weapons and treasure galore here, and you will literally find great new pick ups every ten minutes or so. The gun roster is huge, boasting roughly, and I quote, "87 bazillion". And from what I've seen, there are that many. (Give or take)

     Gameplay
     As stated before, the story in Borderlands is pretty much an excuse to shoot stuff. So mission wise, you shouldn't expect a great connection or reason as to why you are doing what the quest asks you to do. The mission structure is based off text boxes either from a computer or an NPC that tells you what they require you to do. When you first start off you will get the regular "kill five of these things" or the standard fetch quests, but later on you will start exploring dungeons and mines to kill certain henchmen and head honchos. After you defeat the dungeon boss you will be greeted with a few great pick ups to either use or sell. Pick ups include weaponry, shield variants, or grenade modifications. Weapons differ form one another by fire rate, damage and the like, but certain weapons have the ability to have electric or incendiary rounds (and other types) which have great effects against specific enemies.
     When you rank up from gaining experience points you will be able to add points to a perk tree system. There are four classes in the game: Soldier, Hunter, Heavy, and the female who is a stealth type character. These four classes have there own perks to utilize, and each has there own unique assist perk. While the perk tree is great, some of the perks don't really add anything that is instantly noticeable.
     A really great feature is the Second Wind element. With this, you will be able to come back to life with full shields if you kill an enemy while downed. This will really save your rear as you are getting swarmed by different enemies.

     Presentation
     The graphics have a cartoony style to it. While apparently the developers don't consider it cell shaded,  thats what I consider it. The world is vast and rich, but this great world suffers from the frequent graphical hitches. Many times the frame rate will drop in one of the many hectic firefights, or a lot of the textures take a while to load as you enter a new area. While the texture loading won't really be bothersome, the frame rate drops can really take you out of the experience.
     The weapons really look unique and different from each other, and you can tell the artists really devoted themselves to creating them. From the bright colors to the shear bad ass way it looks, every weapon really brings something new to the table.
     Lastly, the presentation is topped off with the slick way the menus are shown. Everything looks perfect and organized, so it will really be hard for you to not know what to do next.

     Value
     This game has a great amount of value. The first play through can take around 30+ hours to complete, in which case you can start a second go around with the same character and a harder difficulty. A great thing about Borderlands is that it really encourages you to play cooperatively. 2 player split screen, system link, and 4 player live are the three different ways it is possible. When playing co-op, the game becomes harder according to the amount of players, and better items are dropped. And with DLC coming on the way, this game will surely spin in your disc tray for a while.

     Overall
     Borderlands is a really well developed game. The team at Gearbox really took their time into creating this title, and if you play it you will see how much this shows. From the movie-like opening cinema to the vast world of Pandora, you and your friends will have a blast with this title. Aside from the graphical hitches and the pointless story, Borderlands is near perfection. The comedy in this game can only be compared to the likes of Fallout 3 and Team Fortress 2. There is always something to see and to find, and I highly recommend picking up this title.

9.2 out of 10