It's about time that I went back and replayed a game I had, but play it differently. Recently, I realized that I had bought the DLC for the original Borderlands at some point, and decided that I should probably get to playing that. Even though the sequel has been out for some time, it's not that old of a game.

Borderlands is a cooperative first person shooter with some role playing elements. Thank goodness this is more of a run and gun type FPS than another festival of chest high walls that have been fashionable of late. The environment is pretty brown, but the art style is very comic bookish. Other games claim to have a "cartoony" look, but Borderlands actually looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. The game world is inhabited mostly by rednecks and insane people, and there are not many pretty areas.

Whatever passes as a story is not that great. If you want one of those, look elsewhere. The game is set on an alien planet called Pandora. There's supposedly a vault around, but no one knows for sure what's in it or even if it exists. So you go and dick around some piles of trash, navigating though the camps of bandits and roads full of alien creatures that want to eat your face. I have taken note that while this is a sort of science fiction setting, you have no clue where in time or space you are.

There are four character classes to choose from, and each has a unique ability. There's a soldier class which fits right in with traditional FPS players, and specializes in assault rifles. He can deploy a turret that pitches in the fight and can provide cover. Secondly, there's a sniper class, which seems kind of boring, but his ability is releasing his pet bird. Some how that thing is vicious enough to kill enemies. Thirdly, there's a siren class, who can shock enemies when turning invisible. Finally, there's a berserker class, who's specialty is to go into a blinding blood rage to punch the crap out of things.

The actual gameplay is solid. You go on missions around the game world for NPCs, who give you money and perhaps something else (often a gun, but might be something else, like an inventory upgrade). There are distinct character levels, and you are free to customize your class a little bit. Most importantly, there are crap tons of loot. Seriously, the game can have billions of unique combinations of weapons. It seems that every one is generated randomly when you open the various chests you find everywhere.

In the end, I just recommend you play Borderlands 2, unless you are really curious and/or really want to be filled in on the almost inadequate backstory.