Borderlands Preview

Hooked Gamers has tossed up a two-page preview of Gearbox's co-op focused "role-playing shooter", Borderlands.
However, don't assume you can pick up just any weapon and burrow its shells into your foes. Apart from its combat characteristics, weapons have one other characteristic that players should take note of and that is the minimum required level for using it. Characters level up and also gain experience in the weapon types that they use. A high skill level with a particular weapon type may allow you to use weapons that are normally not available to your character's level.

The procedural generation system also applies to vehicles. The number of vehicle types and looks are much more limited than for weapons. Yet each time a vehicle spawns into the world, its weapons will have been procedurally generated. One dune buggy may end up being a lot more effective fighting machine than the next. A fun aspect of teaming up with someone else is that most vehicles are designed to be driven by two players. The buggy we were driving allowed one person to focus on steering while the other could fire the on-board weapon at enemies trying to overtake the vehicle. If you are unhappy with the seating arrangements, you can switch seats without having to stop. To depict the change, a smoothly animated transition shows the two players seamlessly '˜hop' into the other's seat.

Obviously the enormous amount of weapons will mean having to make choices of what to bring and what to leave behind. Gearbox has done away with the standard inventory pack and replaced it with something they call the '˜storage deck'. In it your items are stored in digital form, only to materialize when you take them out for use. The size of your inventory is based on the amount of '˜drive space' that you have and it is expected that this can be upgraded over time.