Multiplayer games have been exploding this year with titles like “Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2” and “Overwatch” giving endless hours of gameplay to their respective communities. Deathmatch and Capture games are fun overall, but it’s hard to move from game to game when you’re dealing with the same old game modes.
In comes developer Gearbox Software to not necessarily save the day, but to put in their two-cents in the latest gaming trend. Their latest release, “Battleborn” has kept my interest not in just a genre-blending performance, but in character creation, too. On the front cover, alone, you’ll find a robot gentleman with a sniper rifle, cybernetic fencer princess, and a mushroom ninja warrior. Just from that description alone, I’m trying to figure out if I’m on acid or something.
No joke, those are characters mashed in a video game, and the characters is what “Battleborn” will sell you on. This IS a “hero-based” game, in which you select a uniquely designed character to send to war. You can choose from a variety of characters like a psychotic artificial intelligence, a robot who looks like he’s straight out of Transformers, an eagle with an affinity for explosive weaponry, and my personal favorite, an anxiously aggressive penguin piloting a mech suit. Each Battleborn (as they are dubbed) comes with their own unique play style and set of abilities to aid the team, whether its boosting defenses or controlling crowds of enemies. There’s twenty-five characters (with another five on the way as DLC) to choose from, so there’s someone for everyone!
How dare I start a review without mentioning gameplay! “Battleborn” provides a very slim selection of game modes to choose from, but games can last between thirty minutes to an hour. In an effort to attract the MOBA communities of “Dota 2” and “League of Legends”, the game provides an “Incursion” mode where you escort minions to destroy your enemies’ sentry units. It can be fun from how suspenseful matches can be…if your teammates don’t call for a surrender or spontaneously abandon you because of fear from losing, that is.
If competitive multiplayer isn’t up your ally, “Battleborn” also offers a cooperative story mode, where it will team you up with up to four other players to take on missions to thwart the sinister overlord of the Thralls, Lothar Rendain. Along the way, you’ll encounter shadow demons known as the Varelsi, elemental golems, and rogue robots. All eight story missions take roughly an hour to complete for each mission, which may cause a little bit of fatigue. At least the world is somewhat interesting and it gives you more opportunity in learning the lore behind some of the characters. Levels can get stale from visiting the same two or three planets over and over again. Yeah, objectives are different, but snow and ancient ruins can be interesting for so long. Why not visit planets run by the wealthy LLC faction or assist the Peacekeepers in a war or two? The story is centered so much on visiting Eldrid homeland that I find myself more interested in firing upon the environment and looting than actually caring to save it.
If you’re more interested in the characters than the actual story, “Battleborn” has you covered. Each character comes with five “Lore Challenges” to complete, which will tell you more about the character’s backstory. Some of these may prove tough, but are worth completing in the end. In addition, you’ll have simple combat objectives that will reward you with XP for both Commander rank (your overall rank) and Character Rank, which serves as your rank for whatever character you used in the previous match. This will allow the player to customize their appearance and unlock additional modifiers for a character’s abilities. Next thing I need is a “Pepsiman” costume for El Dragón, and I’m satisfied.
“Battleborn” may not be as great as “Overwatch”, and the gaming community has done more than enough to voice that. Despite its shortcomings, “Battleborn” does make itself unique in its characters and humor. Content may be lacking now, but hopefully, Gearbox will fix that and serve up more story or multiplayer modes. This game isn’t probably going to impress the average MOBA or FPS player, but I do recommend taking a look at it…when it’s at a lower price tag.
“Battleborn” for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC gets three slightly prepared Battleborn out of five. It’s not a bad game, but there could be more content.
