Written by Christina Wade on May 30, 2016 / Reviewed on PS3
Support your local bounty hunters.
Where has Borderlands been all my life? Why have I put off playing it until this year, despite owning the game for quite a few years? Those are questions I’ll never be able to answer beyond just a shrug and a mumbled excuse about my overwhelming backlog.
In the interest of full disclosure, I actually finished Borderlands around a month and a half ago, and I’m currently in the middle of playing through the second one. However, I was also suffering through my final semester of school at the time so please forgive my unwillingness to write anything that wasn’t directly going to affect my grade at the time.
I’m quite late to this party, and reviewing this game at this time is difficult as I can’t help but compare it to its sequel, which is for all intents and purposes superior. So for that reason, and also because I’m likely one of the few stragglers just now discovering Borderlands, I’ll keep this review concise.
Borderlands is a very fun game with a lot of underused characters and elements. The gameplay isn’t as varied as it could be, but the complex upgrade system, dark humor, and interesting world building do a lot to make up for that. The class system is fun, especially the Siren.
The vehicle missions are the absolute devil if you’re playing alone. One boss fight in particular requires you make use of the vehicles, and after losing half of my money to Hyperion in respawns, I found a way to spam my way through the fight on foot instead.
There are many missions to choose from and I recommend doing them all. Borderlands has a way of making each mission, even the most pointless ones, feel rewarding either through humor or world building. Or through really big guns.
There isn’t a whole lot to do after completing the final mission. The final mission itself is also a bit of a letdown in both gameplay and narrative terms. Be prepared for the final credits song to be stuck in your head for days.
Verdict
The original Borderlands is a fun RPG shooter with a lot to keep gamers busy. The environments are not as varied as they could be and the de-saturated color grading could be more… saturated. The fun is nice while it lasts, but there isn’t a lot to do after the final boss beyond replay the game or move on to the next one (which you should).
Pixl Eggs 