Let’s measure our initial interest in Borderlands. Press release: “Choose from an arsenal of hundreds of thousands of weapons, each with their unique manufacturers, specifications and advantages.” Zzz… This essentially means that one weapon is different from another because you’ve attached a scope to it, or added some other inane tool to differentiate it from a pile of other machine guns. There are hundreds and thousands of different weapons by a technicality, sure, but that doesn’t mean any player is interested firing every last bloody pistol due to some OCD-oriented fixation. With the game looking dull as dishwater aside from this ‘cool’ feature, the game was phased from our minds during one deep afternoon of focused apathy, writing our previous preview of the game.

Then, though, the game vanished from the radar, before reappearing recently with this gorgeous, cel-shaded style. Thank the lord it did – the old screens of Borderlands were ugly. Before, it looked like the most generic, uninviting third-person shooter imaginable, but in one inspired transformation, the game has shifted rapidly up our agenda. This is vain of us, admittedly, but then again, this is also testament to Gearbox’s abilities as designers; recognising that there might be backlash towards the game, a change of direction at this stage in development suits us just fine.

The game itself, as far as we know, is still a first-person shooter with RPG leanings and character progression. This could still be an engaging mix – we’ll find out at E3, when the game finally becomes available for hands-on. Multiplayer, including a four-player co-op and as yet unrevealed competitive play, rounds out the package, for those panicking about not being able to shout ‘noob’ down the headset like a gigantic prick.

At the moment, though, we’re still not convinced that Gearbox can even finish a game, let alone finish one properly after the delay debacle involving Sega’s Aliens: Colonial Marines. We’re just buying into the swank of this lovely new visual style – it’s not Okami with violent mentalists, but it’s a quarter of the way there, and that’s just great.