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Battleborn
PC (Steam)
Born to be Mostly Overlooked
3.5/5 stars
Battleborn seems to have all the pieces necessary to be a successful game. Developed by Gearbox (of the Borderlands fame), a popular genre (MOBA) and a roster of distinct characters giving the player plenty of options. Unfortunately, Battleborn came out at pretty much the exact same time as game doing the exact same thing... perhaps you've heard of it: Overwatch. Overwatch pretty much buried every other MOBA that tried to compete with it, Battleborn included. Thus the game never caught on and, following one last update in September, it appears Battleborn is not long for this world. The MJ crew isn't known for having any compulsion for online games, anyway, we got this because it's the only MOBA with a multi-player story mode and, in that aspect, it succeeds.
Presentation: While the game doesn't share the same cel-shading as Borderlands it retains much of the same spirit as Gearbox's more well-known franchise. The 25 characters certainly stand out - from the dandy butler/sniper Marquis (who Nelson chose as his main character) to the insane four-armed, eyeball-poking witch Orendi (my character of choice). There are so many others - the tiny-headed lumberjack, gatling-gun wielding Montana, the bare-butt shaking, axe-wielding dwarf Boldur, the combat botanist (mushroom) Miko and the cute lil penguin in a giant mech Toby are just a few of the colorful cast of characters. Gearbox enlisted plenty of talent as well with plenty of well-known voice artists providing a wide array of taunts, quips and general hilarity including Ashly Burch, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Caitlin Glass, Todd Haberkorn, Christopher Sabat, Elizabeth Maxwell and Jim Foronda. While the game mainly uses one-liners or brief dialogue, it is all very well done and is one of the highlights of the game. The music is totally metal, but mostly forgettable. The biggest drawback to the game is the horrible loading times, due, apparently to the servers - which isn't going to get any better and will probably eventually be put out to pasture.
Story: Battleborn is, at heart, a MOBA so the story doesn't seem to be the main focus. There are only a handful of levels (plus some extra DLC we didn't purchase) and the story is fairly straight-forward: We are told an ancient prophecy foretells the end of all life in the universe, a force of darkness that soon becomes known as the Varelsi. The evil race has managed to almost complete their goal - as only one star remains in existence. A group of various races, rogues and soldiers comes together to save this last star at any cost. The big bad is Rendain, a turncoat of the militaristic Jennerit Empire (think Star Wars Empire), who is working with the Varelsi. The Battleborn are a joint faction that includes Jennerit forces, The Eldrid (nature-focuses elves and dwarves), Rogues (crazy mercenaries), Peacekeepers (defenders of Solus, the last star) and the Last Light Consortium (LLC) (war-profiteers out for their own gain). Each level has you going to various planets to either rescue or kill someone in order to add to your ranks or prevent the Varelsi from gaining a foothold. Missions include the likes of escorting a giant robot (voiced hilariously by Christopher Sabat), protecting people/things from waves of enemies and, of course, massive boss battles. Nothing spectacular, but good enough for a few nights of gameplay. There is a prologue you must complete alone first and, surprisingly, the opening mission is probably one of the tougher in the game. Still, the story is pretty short, though the voice acting and Gearbox humor is definitely intact. I think if they would have put more effort into making this more of a story (like Borderlands) than a Hero Shooter, it would have turned out much better.
Gameplay: With 25 characters to choose from, there is a Hero everyone can enjoy whether you like getting up close and personal with fists or blade, sitting back and sniping, playing support or overwhelming enemies with DPS (like me!). The catch with Battleborn is that each time you start a level, your character also starts over. As you kill enemies and advance you unlock your abilities - a helix tree that gives you two options (up to level 10). I played as Orendi, the Rogue witch (voiced by Gearbox favorite of mine, Ashley Burch aka Tiny Tina). As I said, she is a DPS machine with mid-range projectiles and abilities that are meant to kill enemies fast - a pillar of fire and a push back wave. Each character also eventually unlocks their special that has an increased cooldown but usually will get you out of a pinch. Orendi's tree consists of either increased damage, effects or decreased cooldown for her abilities (thus being able to chain multiple abilities in short order, doing even more damage).
Levels we played are linear, there are a few areas to explore, but it's still pretty much laid out so you must follow the path. There are plenty of things to collect on the way - the most prevalent are shards, which help you build turrets and support bots when available and, during certain missions, can also pump up your robotic ally. Other drops include temporary boosts to speed, shields and even extra lives. Shards are awarded to each characters, regardless of who collects them, while lives are shared by all characters, and you only have a set amount of lives - if you lose them all between characters (which we did a few times) it's game over. You can also collect bonus tokens, which count towards your overall score. The last item you can collect are accessories - this is the colorized loot (white, green, blue, orange) that Borderlands veterans will recognize. While you can't change your own weapons or armor, accessories (unlocked by shards as well) grant game-changing abilities, including regeneration, damage boosts and the like. Higher level accessories cost more shards, so balancing them out is advised.
Pretty much everything you do in a level (from killing enemies, to dealing damage to not taking damage) add up to your overall score and thus leads to increasing your Commander Level. Back in the day, Commander Level unlocked various characters, but since essentially going F2P, now all it does is unlock taunts, outfits and accessory bundles. You can also unlock various Lore about your given character by completing certain tasks (usually using an ability a certain amount of times, or performing a certain task multiple times or completing levels with the same characters in your party) and while it is nice to learn more about the characters, these tasks can also be tedious, requiring multiple playthroughs of the same levels over and over again. Battleborn is not a failure, but I wanted more. We completely ignored the PvP aspect and, judging by the lack of player base at this time, we may not have been able to find a match anyway.
Replayability: With so many characters, a bunch of crap to unlock and online multiplayer it would take a dedicated person to earn all the achievements... if the servers stay up and running long enough, that is.
Overall: The game was just released at the wrong time, having been completely overshadowed and essentially forgotten thanks to Overwatch. That being said, if you want a storymode MOBA you can play with friends, this is pretty much your only option and it retains the spirit of the Borderlands games, but not the longevity.
Presentation: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Replayability: 5/5
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
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