Parents' Guide to Battleborn

While this game might not live up to its heavily promoted hype, the first-person action is fast, frantic, and fun. First, the good news, Battleborn is dripping with personality -- between its cartoon-like graphics, entertaining cut-scene sequences, and funny dialog sequences (including one-liners). Gamers will enjoy trying on a new character for size, to see what they're capable of in battle, and experimenting with their abilities. Character selection (and growth) is one of the game's greatest assets -- and there's five more to be released soon as a free download. The game's many modes add value to the play, too, whether it's the co-op option to tackle these alien enemies and boss fighters together with a friend, or by partaking in one of three competitive modes: "Capture," where teams must capture and hold objectives on a map to win; "Incursion," where teams must defend their base sentry bots from waves of computer-controlled enemies; and "Meltdown," where teams must guide their minions to the center of the map and points are awarded for every minion who throws themselves into the incinerator.

But the main issue with Battleborn is repetition. While there's a ton of variety in the characters you control, the combat is formulaic. In a nutshell, you'll attack the enemies with your primary weapon, time a special attack, and then retreat a little to regenerate your shield before you continue on with the fight. That's basically the gist of it. Many missions are about escorting someone to safety, destroying all the alien minions, and then taking down a boss character. Its still fun, mind you, but some variety in the missions and gameplay -- or smarter artificial intelligence, perhaps -- would've been ideal. Overall, Battleborn is a solid B-grade title. It might not be one of the best games of the year, but it's still good fun for action fans for multiple platforms.