Bordering between genres

I’m generally not a big RPG guy. I’m more of a shooter fan with games like Call of Duty or Team Fortress 2 in my repertoire. Like most other twitchy, head-shot junkies (NSFW: Naughty words), I lack the patience to spend a weekend killing spiders in World of Warcraft in order to level up. This is why I was excited about the new game by Gearbox Software that came out October 20th (October 23rd for PC players) called Borderlands. It combines the real-time shooting of an FPS with the level-ups and progressive improvement of an RPG. As the trailer says, “The RPG and FPS made a baby.”

This idea of combining two genres is really starting to pick up in gaming. While plenty of games had elements of a different genre, like Tomb Raider combining platforming with shooting elements, they usually could be classified in a single area. However, a true hybrid like Borderlands is rather rare.

Still, the self-titled “Role Playing Shooter” is awfully reminiscent of Fallout 3 (a bit graphic), the 2008 game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Both had a level-up system to improve your skills, quests given by Non-Player Characters (NPCs), random drops of money, weapons, and armor, they even both took place in a barren wasteland populated by random bandits and monsters. The main difference between the two is the tone. While Borderlands has a light tone with silly little robots, screaming midget psychos and cartoony graphics, Fallout 3, while still having it’s silly moments, goes a more serious route, taking place in a post-nuclear apocalypse Washington D.C. called the Capital Wastes.

Ultimately which game style you prefer depends on personal taste. Fallout 3 looks a lot better and feels more like a shooter. It’s also a lot more realistic. Borderlands feels more like an RPG with numbers popping up when you shoot something and different guns having elemental damage types. It’s much lighter with it’s crazy characters and it’s 87 bazillion guns. Borderlands also supports 4-player co-op so you can play with your friends if you like, just like WoW! Perhaps games like these might make us shooter fans branch out a bit and explore new genres. For now though, I need to go play some more Modern Warfare before my adrenaline rush goes away.