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Border
Down has subtle depths. At first glance it comes across as a fairly plain traditional
shooter, with only 5 levels and little in the way of impressive power-ups.
However, it soon becomes apparent that first impressions are misleading.
There are a multitude of stages, levels and game pathways to choose from and
the minimalist nature of the weapon design frees you. Free to forget about
which weapon to choose and instead concentrate on what really matters.
Dodging bullets, shooting aliens, owning the bosses and racking up the
scores.
It’s a side
scrolling / horizontal shooter, based on the necessarily thin plot of aliens
attacking a colony on Mars. To battle this threat, we humans have developed a
remote controlled combat ship piloted by RAIN (Remote Artificial Intelligence
Network). Three pilots take part in each attack stage, each one with a
slightly different plan of action, but all with the same goal of neutralising
the boss on each stage. The three pilots constitute the Border system that
gives the game its name, each one representing a life: green, yellow or red
border. Losing a life whilst in green forces a “border down” to yellow, and
similarly from yellow to red. Dying whilst in red finishes the credit.
The border system
is more than a simple life count. The border dictates how each stage will
play, including varying difficulty levels, changing attack patterns and
different backgrounds, some of which are strikingly beautiful. All three
borders rejoin at the stage boss. The border system is completed by the
ability to select a different border at the beginning of each stage, although
the prerequisite bonus must be achieved during the previous stage if you want
to “border up”. The whole Border concept instantly trebles the scope of play.
Whilst initially disconcerting to find yourself in a different time of day or
even a completely different area when killed, it soon becomes second nature
and occasionally even deliberate. The border chosen at the start of each
stage determines the underlying difficulty level. If you border down within a
stage (get killed), the game gets slightly easier, for a given border, than
if you had started the stage in that border. For example, if the green (easy)
border is selected on stage one, then the mid-stage sub-boss meets you with a
flurry of bullets. If you die here and drop down into the yellow (medium)
border, the bullets are less numerous and easy to dodge. However, if the
yellow border is selected at the start of the same stage, then this sub-boss
meets you with both the flurry of bullets and aimed particle-beam weapons.
Therefore, a player might want to border down deliberately to reduce the
difficulty level while trying out a lower (more difficult) border. If the
stage is completed with a decent bonus, you can border up again at the
beginning of the next stage and repeat the process over again.
The stage bonus
that determines permission to border up for the next stage is made up from a
combination of an end-of-stage boss time bonus and the total number of hits
raked in with your “break” laser. This secondary weapon fires a huge
horizontal death ray that annihilates most enemies and their bullets / lasers
and also makes the player invincible. Any objects destroyed with this weapon
contribute to the break laser bonus, including bullets, so wise choice of
when to use it is important, perhaps waiting till a boss starts spewing out
bullets, before unleashing its power. Using the break laser also saps away at
the power of the standard weapon, so over-use could cripple you. The
end-of-stage boss time bonus is unusually maximised by destroying the boss as
close to the time limit as possible. Instead of trying to finish them off as
viciously and quickly as possible, this feature forces you to keep the bosses
and yourself alive, whilst damaging it just enough, so that you can instantly
polish it off when the timer reaches zero. Going past zero starts to reduce
the available bonus again. This makes for exciting boss encounters and edge
of the seat tension. The break laser bonus is added to a border gauge during
the stage, which gives a vague idea of just how close to the boss time limit
you will need to aim to border up for the next stage.
The primary
weapon can be fired in two ways. Holding the button down fires a powerful
stream of horizontal energy-beam death. Tapping the button releases less
powerful energy bolts. From the rear of the ship, they swerve round and home
in on the nearest enemy. This is extremely handy when you just want to
concentrate on finding a path for the ship through a hail of bullets and
enemy ships. From the front of the ship they fire out in a solitary
horizontal line. It is difficult to pay much attention to how pretty the
homing bolts look when playing the game. It is well worth watching someone
else play, just to appreciate the way they fly around the screen, and videos
of the stages being played are unlockable for you to enjoy at your leisure.
The fire rate of the homing bolts from the rear of the ship is limited, so
madly tapping the fire button does not add much over a slightly slower pace.
Those from the front have a slightly quicker rate of fire. Essentially this
setup means that the game can be played quite successfully with a pad, so
does not penalise those without an arcade stick. The primary weapon powers up
through five levels during play, and reduces in power if the break laser is
used enough to drop the power gauge back down a level. This all adds to the
tactics and planning needed to succeed.
The final control
setting is a choice of three ship speeds, cycled through at the tap of
button. The medium setting is sufficient for much of the game. The lower
speed is especially useful at points during boss battles when confined to
small spaces, and the higher speed for evading those pesky faster homing
missiles.
The variety in
the stages and borders is highly appreciated and include your average side
scrolling sections, with both tunnel and open space areas, vertical scrolling
sections (the ship remains horizontal), and even some asteroid and space junk
fields to blast and dodge through. It is always interesting to see what the game
is going to throw at you next.
After navigating
through five stages, taking in the mostly attractive and thoughtful graphics,
along with the novel but strangely calming music, a final stage is reached.
You don’t border down in this stage, but the stage itself varies according to
the ratio of time spent in each border previously and has a fearsome boss
encounter.
To compliment the
arcade original mode, there is also a remix mode, which is sufficiently
different to spend some time playing. It presents a more frantic game, with
more enemies and bullets, but also more frequent power-ups, so the
break-laser can be used more often. Scores are therefore generally higher.
Some of the tunes have also been changed.
Border Down is
plenty hard enough to provide a serious challenge, requiring a decent time
investment to suss out all the available levels and even then, the constantly
varying difficulty level ensures you can never really learn the stages off by
heart. The developers have thought long and hard about how they can create
something original that remains superbly fun. This has paid off, resulting in
a tight game structure, where there is a real incentive to not lose any lives
unintentionally. Some players are going to be put off by the lack of obscene
power-ups and choice of only two available weapons, but others are going to
be drawn in by the thinking man’s combat system, along with the relaxed and
pure style of the gameplay. This is where Border Down excels. Dodging
bullets, shooting aliens, owning the bosses and racking up the scores.
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