My Rating: 8.9

Quick Facts

Genre: Open World First person shooter RPG

Multiplayer: 2 player co-op plus online multiplayer

Similar games: Fallout 3, Rage (Released next year)

Positive

Awesome playable characters and powers

The Graphical style works very well

Addictive especially co-op

Good dark humour

Randomiser means all kinds of guns/shields/grenades

Claptrap (Especially Ninja-fied)

Negative

Despite open world the storyline is Linear (Not Bad just misleading)

Only “Choice” is whether or not to do side missions

Largely Unbreakable Scenery..And most people are effectively background

(In other words the negatives are strictly matters of taste)

Storyline

You arrive on a planet where almost everything tries to kill you, in search of a mythical vault.. On the way you meet many weird and wonderful people, a couple of whom stab you in the back. And you cause wholesale destruction of the wildlife in the area but to be fair.. they start it.

Gameplay

First person shooter in a world where you are free to explore or follow the missions, (best to do some side missions to level you up). It is a Role playing game in that you choose 1 of four characters, level them up in the areas you see fit, and the random weapons you receive means that each character is at least a little unique. Exploring around the map will also yield great results in forms of weapon chests, though be careful as the best items are often guarded.

Your skill and damage with your weapons increases with how much you use them, so if you love using a shotgun you’ll find your damage and accuracy rising as you play.

The downside to this game in my eyes is that besides shops and people who give you missions you cannot really interact with any NPC in the game, but then this game is more about blowing bad guys up than having a chat.

There are also vehicles to use after a while with a choice of rocket launcher or machine gun.. Certain areas you cannot get into but on the large maps you can drive around creating roadkill, though it’s easier it also gives you less XP. And later still in the game you get the option to fast travel, which arrives well timed at the point when the world starts to get too big to drive across without being boring..

Graphics

The key differences between this game and say..fallout 3, are the randomness of the items, the damage system (besides blood bad guys also bleed numbers to show the damage), and of course the graphic cartoon style.. Now normally I’m not a fan, The new Prince of Persia looked great but then so do games like uncharted 2. However.. This game sells it, and sells it well. The combination of graphics, damage counters and characters such as Dr Zed works like a dream, especially as the NPC traits are often a bit crazy.

The Playable Characters

I don’t want to spoil any of the story for you..and i can’t. Though each of the characters has his or her own back story, this has no effect on how people interact with you in the game. The differences are entirely to do with base skills and powers. Powers are all temporary and suit different styles of play. So..

Brick – Berserker – Good if you occasionally get annoyed at being shot at and feel like pummelling some bad guys with your fists while being near invincible.

Roland – Soldier – Has a deployable Turret.. Especially good if playing co-op as it can be upgraded to heal and give ammo to those close to it, also does decent damage if upgraded.

Lilith – Siren – Goes invisible for a short time..cannot shoot while invisible but runs very fast, especially good for sneak attacks or running away very very fast.

Mordecai – Hunter – My favourite..Has a pet called “Bloodwing” You throw it and it kills one regular bad guy for you, when upgraded can kill 6 normal bad guys, just throw it and wait for the screams to die down before picking up the items dropped. However will only attack any bad guy once so less good for bosses.

Tips

Carry an assortment of guns in case you run out of ammo

Rescue Claptraps they make it worth your while

Go Co-op where possible it’s more fun

Don’t buy much stuff unless you really need to, bad guys will drop stuff you want too.

Listen out for midget psychos.. not even joking

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