"It's always fascinating how so many unexplored planets just happen to have breathable air."
— The Marine
GREED: Black Border is a sci-fi Action RPG developed by Clock Stone Software and released by Head Up Games for the PC in 2009. It uses the same isometric view, equipment doll and other features popularized by Diablo, though with much more emphasis on ranged combat with various guns.
It's 20 Minutes into the Future, and humanity has spread out amongst the stars, establishing itself in five different colonial nations, who are at war over a new and valuable resource, Ikarium. This stuff glows yellow and can be used as money, weapon enhancement, rocket fuel or even conveniently-placed Exploding Barrels. The problem is, the stuff is only found on a few tightly-controlled planets owned by colonial authorities, so "wildcat" miners and the like go out in search of new worlds that hopefully host deposits of the stuff.
The player takes the role of one of three ex-government operatives, The Plasma, The Pyro or The Marine, who've recently struck out on their own in search of fortune. Their journey gets sidetracked when their ship gets auto-grabbed by a seemingly derelict mining vessel…
The game can be played alone or with up to two others cooperatively.
GREED provides examples of:
- Absent Aliens: In the backstory. That is, until your character encounters the bizarre robots on the desert planet.
- Acid Pool: Found in the toxic waste dump in Chapter 2.
- Undead Chemists and Toxin Spiders create these as a special attack, both actively and when they die.
- Action Bomb: Some of the cyber-zombies come equipped with a barrel of liquid Ikarium.
- Action Girl: The Plasma.
- Asteroid Miners: The Yukon 5 and her crew.
- A Father to His Men: The Marine used to be a top military officer but quit because he was sick of his men being sacrificed for pointless missions.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Chapter 2 is fraught with them, culminating in the mutant carrion beetle boss at the toxic waste dump.
- Book Dumb: The Marine remarks upon entering the Yukon 5's data center that libraries make his head hurt.
- Chainsaw Good: Early enemies you face include circular-saw-mounted robots and long-saw packing zombies. Good thing you've got a big gun.
- Class and Level System: As a Diablo-alike, this game gives you access to three classes, each with a set of active and passive skills. You get two attribute points per level to distribute amongst health, energy (your Mana Meter) and shield, and one skill point. You can equip one active and two passive (offensive and defensive) skills at a time but can switch them on the fly.
- Cold Sniper: The Plasma.
- Cyborg: The aliens found in Chapter 3 appear to be this, though they may just be Mecha-Mooks.
- Death World: The desert planet is extremely hot and full of Big Creepy-Crawlies, including but not limited to Giant Enemy Crabs.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Marine, and rather stoic at that. His response to a giant mutant carrion beetle from nowhere?"And I thought I had giant cockroaches in my kitchen."
- Defector from Decadence: All three characters, in some form.
- Deflector Shields: You've got a regenerating shield meter. It pays to wait for it to recharge between fights. You can invests in certain skills to speed that up.
- Energy Weapon: Used by many Mooks. The Plasma's Sniper Rifle is this.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Pyro was part of a government "Cleaning" crew, but he drew the line on being ordered to level a civilian settlement.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: Kamishiro is the only survivor of the incident. Other than you, of course.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: The Yukon 5 suffered its own little Zombie Apocalypse, but oddly enough, The Virus only affected those with bionic implants. Anybody who didn't turn was quickly killed by those who did, it seems.
- Exploding Barrels: Goddamn everywhere, especially where they shouldn't be. Like bathrooms.
- Expy: The Plasma's appearance and fighting style (long range sniping) may remind you strongly of Nova.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Pyro's favored weapon.
- Forbidden Zone: The Subtitular "Black Border", for largely unexplained reasons. Though a horde of hostile alien robots might have something to do with it.
- Gatling Good: The Marine's preferred firearm. He begins the game with a quad-barrel gatling. Where does he go from there? To guns with dual tri-barrel assemblies and finally to ones with three tri-barrel assemblies. These spin the entire setup in addition to the barrels themselves, creating a hailstorm of bullets.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: All three bosses. The second one gets bonus points for actually being a giant space flea (well, carrion beetle).
- Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: On the cyber-zombies. They never go out.
- Greed: Well, duh. It's the reason eccentric billionare Lorca took his mining crew beyond the Black Border to look for Ikarium. Kamishiro is clearly driven by it, the player characters mostly just want to get out of this with their heads attached.
- Green Rocks: Yellow, in this case. Later seen as blue in a super-refined form.
- Heal Thyself: You can only carry nine of these. It seems like a generous amount… that is, until your shield meter depletes.
- Humans Are White: Everyone is the same color. Kemshiro takes it further: he's a stereotypical middle-aged, fat, bald white guy with a Japanese name and a Yiddish accent, so it could be a case of In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race.
- Interface Screw: Parts of the desert planet's surface (dark colored dirt areas, as opposed to lighter sand) are so hot that they warp the screen — and screw with your mouse!
- Intrepid Merchant: Masato Kamishiro, whom you first meet on deck 5 of the Yukon 5. Though his voice will quickly grate on your nerves, he'll gladly take all that stuff that's been piling up in your inventory, and he gives you an item that allows you to teleport to and from his location, a la Diablo's town portal scrolls.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: Of the same vein as Diablo, though with less complexity. You can only carry a single stack each of medkits and energy cells, but equipment takes up a huge amount of space. You need only equip three items — a helmet, armor and a weapon, though each can be equipped with a small enhancement and these fill up space quickly if not used.
- Monster Is a Mommy: The Alien Queen, no doubt. You've been stomping all over her minions/children for the past three levels.
- Mana Meter: Smaller than most, but it regenerates quickly. One of The Marine's active skills taps into it to replenish his shields, while a passive one causes it to act as a second shield meter.
- Mineral Macguffin: Chapters 2 and 3 have you searching for refined Ikarium, a liquid form of the stuff to use as fuel for Kamishiro's ship.
- Mecha-Mooks: The Yukon 5 is crawling with security mechs of all shapes and sizes that don't like you very much. The aliens aren't much better.
- No Name Given: A planet, in this case. It's just called the "desert planet" if it is mentioned directly.
- Nuke 'em: Several of The Marine's higher-level skills involve micro-nukes. They don't explode, though. They sit there spewing radiation.
- Sentry Gun: Watch out for these, they're indestructible and will kill you quickly. Seek ways to avoid them, like cover or distractions.
- Shifting Sand Land: The Yukon 5 wrecks at the beginning of Chapter 2, leaving you temporarily stranded on an uncharted desert world that happens to host huge Ikarium deposits. Jackpot!
- Shout-Out: Upon encountering the first boss, The Marine will invoke The Joker's Catchphrase from the 1989 Batman movie.
- Shouting Shooter: The Marine does this when using the "Frenzy" skill.
- Socketed Equipment: Every item has one socket and the "gems" (in this case, enhancement chips) are plentiful, but they cannot be removed or replaced, so choose carefully.
- Spider Tank: The first Boss Fight is against a robotic spider mech with a Gatling gun, seeker bombs, and an Energy Weapon that sprays a cone of small blasts. You really don't want to get hit by the gatling, but thankfully it has very slow tracking, so just keep circle-strafing.
- Stock Foreign Name: Kemishiro. Funny enough, he has a New York accent.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Grenades, explosive rounds, Exploding Barrels…
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The alien lair, with its glowing crystals and Bizarchitecture in Chapter 3.
