Oh man, this is such a clever idea. To celebrate the imminent launch of Borderlands 2, Gearbox has commissioned creative agency Ralph to produce a version of the original title designed as though it was a home computer release of the late eighties. Entitled The Border Lands, the game can be played on its own dedicated site, and it’s worth a go. It’s essentially an arena-based shooter, using the characters and bandits from the Gearbox titles. Killing enemies gives you XP which levels your character up, and dead baddies often drop new weapons, which you can steal.
It’s actually a very compelling blaster, which cleverly captures both visual and gameplay elements of the real games, and also gets the pixellated graphical style just right. And the PR campaign doesn’t end with this browser-based experience. Lucky games journalists (i.e. not us) have even been sent boxed versions of the game, comnplete with floppy disk players so they can load the software up and play it on their PCs. The box art is spot on – resembling all the awful air brush images that adorned Amiga, ST and early PC games. Gearbox, in short, rules.
