Borderlands (PC) First Impressions

I was finally able to unlock Borderlands (360/PC/PS3) on my PC last night, and what an experience it was.  During my first few hours in the game I managed to climb the ranks to level 10, grab my first blue item, unlock numerous challenges – achievements that aren’t linked to any meta account – and begin working on my character’s spec.  Here’s some of the highs and lows based upon the first section of the game, Fyrestone, which I just escaped.

Pros:

• Polish – The game mechanics, controls and optimization are all superb.
• Atmosphere – It’s a rough world, but full of offbeat, dark and tongue-in-cheek humor.  For instance, one NPC is commonly referred to as CLAPTRAP.  The bus driver knows he’ll see you again, because you’re a loot whoring RPG player that will surely role a second character.
• Explanations – Damn near everything in the title is explained.  From the hilarious robot that acts as your early tutorial (and dances), the helpful and ever-increasing-in-complexity HUD, respawn points, to the reason for your trip to the desolate lands, they are all given a believable back story.
• Loot – It comes fast, and it comes often.  Get ready to start crunching numbers and weighing pros and cons.
• HUD – The heads-up display is very clean, delivering all the information you need, with little distraction and without ruining your field of vision.  Key to a FPS.

My Tentative Spec

Cons:

• User Interface – Borderlands’ PC edition fails exactly where Mass Effect’s did – before that title was fixed – it’s simply too consoley.  Everything outside of the clean HUD is convoluted, unintuitive and downright frustrating.  Selling gear is time consuming, equipping gear requires a few clicks, and looting is a crapshoot.  The time lost does matter, as the game doesn’t pause when in menus.  These are exactly the kind of things Gearbox should have been optimizing changing with the delay time.
• Customization & Options – PC games are supposed to be the bastion of customization, but there’s a lack of it in Borderlands.  For instance, auto weapon switch on pick-up is on, and I can’t find a way to turn it off.  Voice chat keybinds are oddly missing from the menu, and the party chat system is too easy to overlook.  Color the chat window, or give us the ability to.  And for the love of god, why can’t we scroll up and down?!
• Hello.  Hello?  Echo?! – Borderlands’ opening area is extremely empty.  There’s only two NPCs to speak of, leaving me feeling very alone.  Hopefully the later towns are more populated by new colorful characters.  It may be a coincidence, but there’s little to no plot at this point, and it has been a few hours.
• Gamespy – On the PC Borderlands uses Gamespy for its matchmaking purposes, and I have no idea why.  Why would any company use Gamespy when the game is delivered over Steam?  Just stick with Steam.  If you are going to force some convoluted system on us at least go Games For Windows – Live like Dawn of War II did.  Then the ‘challenges’ can actually be Achievements.  Stupid contractual obligations and/or monetary concerns almost got me killed thanks to a Gamespy invite interrupting my game.

Borderlands’ drawbacks may seem nit picky, but collectively they tarnish what could have been a perfect FPS Diablo clone.  Don’t get me wrong, the game, so far, is frakking fun as hell, and one to pick-up if you need to scratch that loot itch without a subscription attached.  Thankfully, most of the issues can be fixed in patches -  including that awful proficiency and skill resetting bug.