"Borderlands" is a strange beast. It's a cooperative shooter crossed with a role playing game.

It's a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) mixed with a single player campaign.

It's a first-person shooter that crunches numbers more than it focuses on crunchy combat.

I've heard it described as "Diablo" meets "Left 4 Dead" and "World of Warcraft" meets "Fallout 3." None of these really explain the core concept, so let's start over.

"Borderlands" takes place on the planet Pandora, a nearly-abandoned desert world where the remaining inhabitants live like people in the old West, except with high-powered weaponry.

The player is tasked with finding The Vault, a mythical spot hidden on the planet's surface and rumored to contain untold riches and alien technology.

As you arrive in Fyrestone, the first outpost on Pandora, a mysterious entity starts speaking with you, giving you instructions to find The Vault.

Who is this person? What are their motivations? And better yet, who cares?

The world of Pandora is an empty shell, a rough idea cribbed from shows like "Trigun" and "Firefly" and splattered with the bright colors of a cartoon to give it a distinct look. The plot is utter nonsense, a MacGuffin to keep you playing as you are tasked with several quests to complete across the planet.

So, it's basically like any other classic role-playing game. Only this one is played from the first-person perspective with a lot of shooty guns.

It's a strange setup. The traditional appeal of most RPGs is either the customization options in American games and/or the strong storylines in Japanese games.

We've already discussed the plot, so let's try the options: There are none.

At least, not many.

There's four character classes to choose from: The Berserker (melee combat), the Siren (magic user), the Hunter (sniper) and the Soldier (basic gun dude). Each class looks the same, so if you team up four Berserkers to work together online, expect to see four meaty guys with the same scarred face roaming around, killing things.

As characters gain levels, by murdering bandits and monsters or through quest completion, they also earn character points which can be used to upgrade your skills, though never to buy new ones.

And, that's it. That's the game. Played either by yourself or with three other people, you wander the planet and do odd jobs for people that involve following waypoints and killing anything that tries to kill you first.

Each mission is given with a splash of character context, but, it's largely unnecessary. In fact, you can just skip all conversations and get straight to the killin' and the grillin' without hesitation.

I suppose this sounds monotonous, and maybe it is. Without a larger context to drive you forward, you're left with the basic game mechanics. Motivation comes in building a stronger character, so you can kill bigger monsters and, in turn, go to more areas and get more quests.

It's a mobius strip of game design. The player must move forward to continue to advance. Advancement is necessary to continue moving forward. If you ever stop to ask just why you are doing this, the developers will probably start to cry.

For me, this doesn't inspire a lot of faith. But, to counter my vitriol, let's talk to my brother, Daniel, who bought the game on Day 1 and calls it "kind of awesome."

He's a fan of games like "World of Warcraft." For him, it's the empowerment that keeps him playing.

"As you keep playing, you get more and more powerful," he told me. "Once you've leveled up enough, you can go back and kill things that you had to run away from before. It's pretty intense."

So, there you have it. "Borderlands" is intense, according to my brother. You can slap that quote right on the box and use it for promotional purposes.

And yet, despite my complaints, I keep playing the bloody thing.

I picked the hunter/sniper character, because shooting dudes in the back from a 1,000 feet away sounds like my kind of thing.

As I play, I envision my character as a silent, Clint Eastwood "Man with No Name" type, dispatching bandits and wasteland monsters with barely a word. Heading out into the desert as the sun sets over the large mechanical windmills in the distance, you can really feel the desolation of this place; where to live and die rests solely on the power of your guns and a willingness to use them.

It is kind of empowering, now that I think about it. Way to go Daniel, you've written my review for me.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2425.

(Nov. 6, 2009)