Imagine a game that combines the most addictive elements of multiple genres.  Imagine you have a solid shooter with a leveling system, complete with a re-assignable skill tree.  On top of that, imagine you threw in a massive WoW-ish loot system.  My friends, this is the stuff of dreams.  My friends...this is Borderlands.

  As I said above, this game does an amazing job of creating a really fun and fast paced first person shooter experience.  Story wise, you can play as one of four renamable characters.  There is Brick the Berserker, who loves his fists and explosives; there is Lilith the Siren, who prefers small machine guns and can make herself invisible for sneak attacks; there is Mordecai the Hunter, who excels with snipers and calls upon his bird of prey for a helping hand; and finally there is Roland the Soldier, whose weapons of choice include assualt rifles and deployable turrets.  Now, just because they excel at certain weaponry up front, doesn't mean you can't take them in a different path if you so choose.  It is totally open to the player and there is no class restrictions on guns.  If you are the right level, you can use it.

  Although a lot of reviewers claim the story is the weak point of the game, I moderately disagree.  Though simple, it does its job and leaves the true enjoyment of the game up to it's main focus; baddies and loot.  Basically these four warriors arrive on the sparsely populated planet of Pandora in search of the mysterious "Vault" which is only available to access once every two hundred years.  Again it is basic in nature but I can't fault the game for not putting more emphasis on it.  If the game were bogged down with dialogue and cut scenes it would actually pi** me off, due to the fact I just want to get back in the action and get more loot.

  Ahh, speaking of loot; for this game Gearbox created a Procedural Content Creation System, which takes into account a player's level and stats and then uses a massive loot table to randomly generate a gun, shield, or mod based on the allowed loot tables available to the player.  At last count the game was capable of randomly generating over 17 million different types of guns.  In addition, it seems they openly used WoW's color coordinated loot system which is a totally welcome addition.  You simply crave for a purple or an orange highlighted gun to pop up.

  The RPG elements in the game, as I mentioned above, are brilliantly mixed in.  A player gains experience by completing missions and killing bad guys.  Once a player receives enough experience, they will gain a level and unlock an additional skill point to use in their character's skill tree.  These skill trees have three different paths you can follow which focus on different strengths of the character.  The neat thing however, is that you can be selfish and focus on your own character's abilities, or you can use your skill points in skills that will help out your co-op teammates...

  ...Which brings us to the co-op experience.  If you look at any forum where Borderlands conversations are occuring it is widely known that the game is more enjoyable with friends.  This is 100% true.  During my single player sessions I yearn for a friend to pop on and share the experience with me.  Killing the increased number of bad guys and harder enemies rewards us with even better loot.  For my friends and I, we personally settle any "I WANT THAT" loot disputes with a friendly slap in the face, followed by a one-on-one duel to decide who gets it.  It's fun and fast and highly rewarding if you should win, but be cautious; you may lose a friend or two if you happen to be good at dueling.

  The missions in the game, whether you play single player or co-op are not your run of the mill "fetch X or kill Y amount of baddies."  They are fun and interactive and have enough creativity to acknowledge that Gearbox put a lot of effort into integrating the missions with exploration.  They also seemed to have borrowed the "sort mission by region" system from WoW which allows you to knock off all missions in a particular area quickly and easily.  This is a much overlooked feature that would have made missions tedious and annoying if it were not in there.

  Lastly I'll mention the already announced downloadable content.  The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned will be released at the end of 2009 and will include new missions, loot, and baddies.  Essentially, you will follow Dr. Ned to his island to help with the mutated bad guy cleanup effort.  Seems simple enough in premise, but any further missions I can get my hands on for Borderlands...sign me up.

  Please guys, do yourself a favor and go out and purchase this game.  Gearbox created a masterpiece and should be rewarded for it.  These quality games are too few and far between and we really need to support the guys that get it right.  We as gamers need to send a message that we want more of this.