Borderlands
Key ideas represented:
Borderlands is a compilation of many borrowed ideas. Though the assets are unique, each of the games “bullet points” pays homage to another work, from the Mad Max-esque apocalyptic setting, the system of looting and leveling pulled directly from the Diablo games, or the direct translation of the controls of Call of Duty 4. It is a first person shooter that relies on the cycle of killing, looting, leveling and questing of recent role-playing-games to fuel the long-term experience. Quests are taken, wherein the player runs across enemies that, when killed, drop money, ammo, experience and weapons. These items are obtained, used to kill stronger enemies and progress on the game’s many quests.
In these many references lays one of the game’s strengths that ties in to one of our key ideas: Discovering the rules of this world are not difficult. The cel-shaded graphics display the cartoonish nonchalance of the game’s ambiance, even when heads explode like overripe grapefruit and bodies sway in the wind, held aloft by their nooses. This is not a grave, grim world. It is a comic book. Quests are called quests. Guns function as they should. Everything is as expected, though arranged in a pattern not seen before. In this respect, the ludic mediation is immediate and thorough. All one needs to say to the average gamer is “it’s Diablo, but you play it like Call of Duty” and they’ll immediately comprehend, as both of those games are commonly played and well-known, even among “main-stream” gamers.
Additionally, because of the well-tested (see World of Warcraft, Diablo, most MMORPGs) pattern of gameplay, Borderlands is successful in engrossing the player, not through sophisticated narrative means, but through constant positive association. A perfect example of Bi-Planar Behavior, as the player will find themselves compulsively progression to the next step of the cycle of: approach enemy camp/quest goal, butcher those in your path, loot the corpses, abscond to greener pastures/the quest “turn-in” point. Even though the only rewards in the game are making your player character more fit for pursuing the fitness, the gamer is enticed by future prospects of grandeur. Or simply, they are thrilled to be accomplishing something, anything, after a frustrating day at work or a tedious day at school.
Though this motivation varies from player to player, the compulsion that drives us (the gamers) through this cycle is very common. One needs only to look at the staggering number of subscribers for World of Warcraft to see how many people are engrossed in the cycle of collecting to get better at collecting.
Pictured here are three (out of four) of the game's available characters. Each character's profile belies the character's abilities in one way or another. For instance, Mordecai the Hunter (pictured in the middle) is agile, skilled with melee attacks (note the machete strapped to his back), Roland the Solider (right) is the happy medium combat class with specialties in shotguns and combat rifles, Brick (left) is the explosives specialist and all-around bullet sponge. Not pictured is Lilith the Siren, the elemental abilities specialist and absolute wet dream for the school of Feminist Criticism.
These easily-identified archetypes allow the game to be approached more readily, giving a player no hoops to jump through when they choose a character at the beginning of the game. The average player can surmise what the character does through his (or her) many advertised characteristics and choose accordingly. Ludic mediation at work, once more.
Pictured here is the original “look” of the game. Before a critical point in design, Borderlands resembled the typical gray-and-brown palette shooter that crops up every other month. Without the crucial draw of visual style, the game draws less attention to its carefree violence and more attention to grim reality. In Borderlands’ current state it is very clear that the game is meant to be abstract and cartoonish but if the old style had held, monsters dropping money-clips and ammunition might have clashed with the dirty realism perpetuated by the assets, infringing on both the ludic mediation between the game and the player and bi-planer behavior of the player.
- Gameplay is comprised of discovering rules while deciding whether or not to play.
- The idea of “Ludic Mediation”: Transmitting the “will-to-play” to the player.
- The idea of “Bi-Planar Behavior”: The player is engrossed in the game although he knows that after all it is only a game.
Borderlands is a compilation of many borrowed ideas. Though the assets are unique, each of the games “bullet points” pays homage to another work, from the Mad Max-esque apocalyptic setting, the system of looting and leveling pulled directly from the Diablo games, or the direct translation of the controls of Call of Duty 4. It is a first person shooter that relies on the cycle of killing, looting, leveling and questing of recent role-playing-games to fuel the long-term experience. Quests are taken, wherein the player runs across enemies that, when killed, drop money, ammo, experience and weapons. These items are obtained, used to kill stronger enemies and progress on the game’s many quests.
In these many references lays one of the game’s strengths that ties in to one of our key ideas: Discovering the rules of this world are not difficult. The cel-shaded graphics display the cartoonish nonchalance of the game’s ambiance, even when heads explode like overripe grapefruit and bodies sway in the wind, held aloft by their nooses. This is not a grave, grim world. It is a comic book. Quests are called quests. Guns function as they should. Everything is as expected, though arranged in a pattern not seen before. In this respect, the ludic mediation is immediate and thorough. All one needs to say to the average gamer is “it’s Diablo, but you play it like Call of Duty” and they’ll immediately comprehend, as both of those games are commonly played and well-known, even among “main-stream” gamers.
Additionally, because of the well-tested (see World of Warcraft, Diablo, most MMORPGs) pattern of gameplay, Borderlands is successful in engrossing the player, not through sophisticated narrative means, but through constant positive association. A perfect example of Bi-Planar Behavior, as the player will find themselves compulsively progression to the next step of the cycle of: approach enemy camp/quest goal, butcher those in your path, loot the corpses, abscond to greener pastures/the quest “turn-in” point. Even though the only rewards in the game are making your player character more fit for pursuing the fitness, the gamer is enticed by future prospects of grandeur. Or simply, they are thrilled to be accomplishing something, anything, after a frustrating day at work or a tedious day at school.
Though this motivation varies from player to player, the compulsion that drives us (the gamers) through this cycle is very common. One needs only to look at the staggering number of subscribers for World of Warcraft to see how many people are engrossed in the cycle of collecting to get better at collecting.
Pictured here are three (out of four) of the game's available characters. Each character's profile belies the character's abilities in one way or another. For instance, Mordecai the Hunter (pictured in the middle) is agile, skilled with melee attacks (note the machete strapped to his back), Roland the Solider (right) is the happy medium combat class with specialties in shotguns and combat rifles, Brick (left) is the explosives specialist and all-around bullet sponge. Not pictured is Lilith the Siren, the elemental abilities specialist and absolute wet dream for the school of Feminist Criticism.
These easily-identified archetypes allow the game to be approached more readily, giving a player no hoops to jump through when they choose a character at the beginning of the game. The average player can surmise what the character does through his (or her) many advertised characteristics and choose accordingly. Ludic mediation at work, once more.
Pictured here is the original “look” of the game. Before a critical point in design, Borderlands resembled the typical gray-and-brown palette shooter that crops up every other month. Without the crucial draw of visual style, the game draws less attention to its carefree violence and more attention to grim reality. In Borderlands’ current state it is very clear that the game is meant to be abstract and cartoonish but if the old style had held, monsters dropping money-clips and ammunition might have clashed with the dirty realism perpetuated by the assets, infringing on both the ludic mediation between the game and the player and bi-planer behavior of the player.
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