Borderlands - E3 Previews

Gamebanshee posts links to a pair of previews for 2KGames' and Gearbox's action fps/rpg post-apocalyptic title, Borderlands.

The first is from Strategy Informer:

Borderlands is different [from Fallout 3] in many, many respects. First, it's an FPS/RPG that only gives you one mode, first person. It takes place in "Pandora", a wasteland that is literally as the game's title implies, on the border, nearly deserted, with little to do or seek. Except that players are fortune hunters, and that fortune hunters always know where to look to find that special something.

That said, everything in Borderlands is playable. There are no fake backdrops, no inaccessible areas (that aren't fifty miles up); everything is there for your sandbox entertainment. This ties in perfectly with setting, no real cities or laws, just a long road of desert, hidden treasures, and insufferable people who still live in the barren Pandora.

The second is from VideoGamer:

The game itself appears to be a similar mix of familiar elements and ingredients being put to work in unusual ways. Borderlands is primarly a first-person shooter, a co-op action game with support for up to four players, but underneath that there are several RPG-like qualities. For a start, the game is class based, offering a quartet of diverse characters who can be further customised via branching skill trees...All of these skills and abilities will be fuelled by experience points, so expect a cheery little XP score to pop up every time you blow away a critter or marauding gunman.