Greed: Black Border is a game that doesn't quite feel like it knows what it's doing, or what it wants to be. At first glance, it looks to be a Diablo-esque title, where loot is the name of the game. But then they forget the loot early on, try to add in a lackluster plot...things quickly devolve and everything becomes worse as time passes.

This is a simple game: shoot things, collect loot, shoot more things. The plot is pretty much "Investigate a distress signal, oh no things have gone bad." The gameplay isn't much deeper either. Black Border is much like any RPG-lite top-down shooter out there. If you've played Alien Shooter, a previously released title, you'll know exactly what this game is like. Unfortunately, Black Border is worse in nearly every way.

The game begins with you choosing one of three characters: the long-range sniper, close-range pyro, or mid-range soldier. They don't really differ in any appreciable way except for their starting weapons. As you run through the ship-in-distress, you shoot enemies that don't have any real variety to them, and collect equipment that differs almost in no way except for an attack or defense attribute. It's not fun playing a Diablo-lookalike when your only find different armor every half hour or so. Finding weapons is even more of a chore.

Levelling up gives you a skill point and an attribute point. The attributes are nearly pointless, since the game doesn't really have any attributes beyond things like health and shields. Skills are a little better, but don't really offer much variety or purpose. You can put points into passive skills, for example, but only one offensive and one defensive passive skill can be equipped at a time. You can also equip skills that must be activated, but few of them have any purpose beyond just increasing damage. There's a lack of imagination here and it is showing.

It doesn't make a difference though, since the core gameplay - shooting crazy zombies and robots – is unexciting and bland. Environments are dull, featureless rooms with little to do or interact with (though the graphical effects like lighting are nice). Enemies' tactics involve slowly walking up to you while you fill them full of bullets, watching as their health decreases agonizingly slowly. It's just not fun to play this game, especially when there are similar, superior titles out right now.

Greed: Black Border isn't fun to play. It tries to be an RPG-lite loot game, but doesn't include the loot or good RPG elements. The combat isn't any fun, since enemies aren't plentiful enough and the ones that you do shoot take too long to take down. Graphics are decent, but not great, and the audio of the game isn't good to listen to either. There's nothing redeeming here, and anything that is decent has been done much better in other dungeon crawlers, sci-fi in setting or not. Avoid this one.

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