Joseph Guzman
Arts and Entertainment Editor
We asked. We waited. We received. Borderlands 3 was welcomed to the public by Gearbox Software on September 13, and many of those gamers who have played the three previous games in the franchise have shown excitement nonetheless. With constant Youtube ads, this seems to be the most advertised Borderlands yet. (This made me more excited for the game because that means they have a larger budget for it.)
Borderlands 2 was the first first-person shooter I truly got into because of its comic book style of art and animation, easy gameplay and colorful array of language that was used to grant this game its Mature rating. I’m sure if that didn’t give Gearbox Software the incentive to make the game mature, the nonchalant Quentin Tarantino-esque amount of blood and gore was more than enough to have parents steer their kids away from the game.
Like every other Borderlands game, Gearbox gives you the option to pick from four different protagonists that each have their own skill set that changes the gameplay. The four protagonists this time around are Amara the Siren, FL4K the beastmaster, Moze the gunner and Zane the operative. Amara can control energy around her and can use that energy to fight various things in the game. FL4K’s appeal is that since he’s “The Beastmaster” he can control various dog-like beasts to fight for you. Moze is interesting because she can control a giant gundam style robot machine that she can shoot from. Zane is probably the most straightforward character; he is an assassin who likes to specialize in combat weapons like Sentinels, fake Digi-Clones to fool enemies and Barriers to protect oneself.
Already having the game pre-ordered, I started the software and was welcomed to the same “Mad Max” meets “Deadpool” aesthetic. With a new cleaner and fresher polish over the graphics of the characters, each character pops a bit more with exuberant color. I thought it was a nice touch that they gave the gameplayer the chance to customize whatever character they picked with some clothes or new colors.
The overall gameplay controls are basically the same as the previous installments and I think it’s easy for people to get the hang of. (If you play any of the traditional first-person shooters like the Call of Duty series you’ll pick it up extremely quick.)
One of the things I did was bring this game to different people (four friends) and had them play the campaign I had already started. Every one for the most part needed very little explanation and by the end of the night, one of them was playing better than me!
The biggest thing I realized that was different about this game is that Gearbox Software remodeled all of the teleport stations and viewings of your guns. To a newcomer, I think that it will be easy to understand how to choose everything. But, from what I was used to, it caught me off guard and took a longer time to get it. Something that was kind of a nice difference was that they added a slide feature for each of the characters if you’re running. The last feature is that each character has three different action skills instead of one, allowing for more chaos!
One of the only downsides to Borderlands 3 is that everytime I have booted this game on my Xbox One its loading time takes a couple of minutes to finally start up and begin playing. The only other bad thing I have to say about this game is sometimes it’s unclear whether or not you’re playing a side mission or the actual campaign of the game.
Other than those things, I still think this game has a lot to offer and I’m excited to play through more of the campaign and enjoy the story that it sets up!
8/10.
Joseph Guzman can be contacted at
jguzman@kscequinox.com
