Borderlands Preview

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford is in ebullient spirits. He’s presenting Borderlands to a roomful of journalists in Cologne, and though he’s probably doing it for at least the fifth or sixth time, his enthusiasm is overwhelmingly infectious. It’s clear that he loves his studio’s latest game: He cheers on the demo players, yelling out advice whenever a new threat shows up, singing out praise when somebody scores a spectacular kill. As his presentation is interrupted by an unexpected squelch, Randy whoops for joy. “You ran over a midget!”

This is the third time I’ve seen Borderlands in as many months, and I have to admit that I’m almost as excited as our host is. Indeed, after my first hands-on with the game in July, my only complaint about today’s appointment is that I’m stuck in the spectator’s seat. Still, this is Cologne: time is a valuable commodity here, and as a result play-tests are comparatively scarce. As expected, some of the demo focuses on things we’ve seen or heard about before, but there are new details too – and I seize upon them like a hungry dog. Borderlands is my most anticipated game for the rest of 2009, and I’ll take any fresh info I can get.

First up, we get a peek at the one of the game’s vehicles – a lightweight two-seater buggy that, like pretty much everything else in Borderlands, looks pretty damn cool: the cockpit sits low to the ground while the front wheels are mounted on a pair of arms protruding forward, and at the back of the vehicle there’s a hefty-looking gun turret. This thing probably wouldn’t get your kids to and from school, but for a murderous rampage across the alien deserts of Pandora, it’s pretty much the perfect ride. In keeping with the co-op nature of the game, one player shoots while the other drives – but if you get bored with your role, it’s possible for characters to switch positions while the buggy is still moving.

There are four people playing co-op in today’s show, and in the space of 25 minutes they blaze through several quests. First up there’s a rescue mission, although the subject of this task is hardly your typical damsel-in-distress. The assignment is dished out by a chap named Scooter – a Mr Garrison sound-a-like who wants to free his chum from a group of bandits.

“Lucky’s an old buddy of mine,” explains Scooter. “And by old buddy, I mean ‘asshole that ruined my mum’s girl-parts. It sounds like he’s in trouble, so you go on ahead and try to keep him alive long enough so I can kill him at a later occasion.” How terribly charming! For bonus yuks, it turns out that the jokers at Gearbox have given this quest the title “Get Lucky”.

There may be a subtle way to handle this mission, but if so it’s not on display today. Instead the gang roars into the bandit camp with guns blazing, taking down several masked thugs who are riding around in vehicles of their own. The resulting battle is loud, bloody and messy. One of the many things I love about Borderlands is that the audio work is brilliant: I caught the entire demo on my dictaphone, and when I listen back to the tape it sounds like several arms dealers doing battle in a mental asylum while someone makes love to a giant mantis… with Randy Pitchford providing the commentary.

Lucky is eventually found sitting on an abandoned toilet in a corner of the bandit’s camp. Skip forward a few minutes, and the gang are already onto their next task – the destruction of an enormous creature named Skagzilla. Mr Zilla is (or was) the big brother of the alien dog-lizard things I mentioned in my last preview; he’s huge, jumps about barfing killer vomit, and survives roughly three minutes worth of sustained bullet-rain before he finally keels over and goes to Reptile Heaven. As he dies he drops a load of loot, including several rare guns. It’s always a good idea to grab new weapons, since you can always sell them back to vending machines if they turn out to be rubbish.

Somewhere amidst all this chaos, a whole bunch of other interesting things happen. The player controlling Lillith uses her Phase Walk – an ability that turns her into a sort of psychic ghost. Once invisible she sneaks into the middle of an enemy camp and then detonates, unleashing a lethal shock-wave. At another moment, Roland (the all-round soldier class) challenges Brick (the tank class) to an impromptu duel by smacking him in the face. Brick responds in kind, and suddenly a dome-shaped force field appears to trap the two mercs in a makeshift arena. The two duke it out, but Brick’s massive fists give him the edge and he swiftly beats Roland to a pulp. This is no big deal, as these spontaneous fights are merely a bit of fun that allow players to humiliate each other. To show that there are no hard feelings, Roland later gives Brick a health boost by shooting him with healing bullets. That’s right, healing bullets. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but whoever it was they deserve a medal.

After merking Skagzilla, the quartet’s next objective is to activate part of the Fast Travel Network. Randy explains that this is part of the game’s teleport system, allowing players to warp between any of several terminals that can be discovered around Pandora. The activation process is pretty straightforward, but needless to say the gang is attacked halfway through the job – this time by quick-moving insecty things called Scythids. This variety of Scythid seemed to come crawling out of the ground, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll all behave this way, since at least some of the enemies in Borderlands will have randomly-assigned attacks. For now, I can confirm that Scythids make a squealing noise when they get shot in the head. And of course, these are just one of the many weird beasties that await you on Pandora. “There are all sorts of interesting creatures,” says Randy. “Mostly they just want to eat your face off.”

The final quest in the demo was entitled “The Road Warrior”. Here the objective was to kill a hard-as-nails brigand named Mad Mel, who just happened to be hanging out in a large (Thunder)dome-shaped fortress. Yes, the Mad Max-o-Meter went off the scale at this point, although thankfully Tina Turner was nowhere to be seen. This final battle went down as a vehicular Royal Rumble, with Gibson’s doppelganger doing battle from behind the wheel of a colossal six-wheel truck that spews fire. Our four fortune-seekers did their best, managing to take down a great number of Mel’s cohorts, but in the end this last foe proved too much to handle. The lead demonstrator succumbed and collapsed in a bloody heap – or at least, his character did – and then the demo drew to a close.

That’s a whistle-stop tour of four Borderlands quests, but Randy tells me that the full shindig will have well over 100. Some will be connected to the central story, but many will be optional. Lest we forget, the game will also feature over 600,000 guns, and a whole menagerie of things to use them on. There will be midgets, parasitic pets, and break-dancing robots. And I, for one, cannot wait.

Borderlands is due for release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on October 23.