Retrospective: Borderlands

 

After completing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands on the Playstation 5, I have decided to go back to where my love for the looter shooter began: Borderlands. Booting up the Game Of The Year remastered edition was an instant blast of nostalgia. Even with the updated graphics and faster loading times, I could not help but think of the first time I played this game. I was living in my first apartment. Sort of rundown and sketchy but that didn't matter. All that mattered was my mind being focused on Borderlands. From it's silly little robot barking commands at me while I pew pew away at vulgar mouthed bandits, or the fact that this cel shading was so interesting and fresh from what I have been playing at the time.

Borderlands is STILL great. Easily. Sure, it may feel a little flighty compared to later entries like 3 and Wonderlands but it still remains a fantastic shooter. Gunplay is such an experience since the millions of random gun combinations completely change your playstyle every time you play it. I still got my boss loot and still had the dilemma of "this one does 5 more damage but reloads 2 seconds slower. What do I do?" I personally find this great. The thrill of anytime a random chest or Skag would drop a better shield or weapon keeps me going. Especially since the weapons often times do crazy things. A shotgun that launches cannonballs? Sign me up!

Picking through the classes, I went with the Hunter, Mordecai because I remember that his bird Bloodwing eventually becomes an OP monster build. What I failed to remember was that I was playing solo so I had no friends to revive me early in the game. Through my playthrough I went down. A lot. The good thing is Borderlands introduced the "Second Wind" feature. This means if your health is depleted you will go down BUT you now have a chance to kill an enemy to pick yourself back up. It is a great system but in Borderlands 1 you cannot move in this state and some of these enemies are SPONGES if they are a level or 2 ahead of you. While I did save myself a lot, I would either run out of ammo or an enemy would run so far away that my gun would be wildly inaccurate and miss until I died. The penalty for death in Borderlands is a percentage of your money goes bye-byes and enemy health is restored. This can be frustrating early on as one of the first bosses you fight is usually 2-3 levels ahead of you unless you do some grinding. I maybe lost to him 3 times before finding a corner he couldn't get to and cheesing him until he was no more. This was actually the only issue I had for the majority of the game.

Leveling up my skills felt like an immediate impact which is good, especially with all the new loot you come across. If I did ever feel entirely underpowered I would just head back to my last completed area and fight the enemies again to gain one level and it happened to even the playing field. Not too shabby and standard in most RPGs anyway. 

Borderlands has some good writing and is improved majorly in the second game. For this one, though it was still pretty funny in a lot of parts it was a whole different feel than what it becomes in it's sequels. As much as I LOVE Borderlands 2 and it's writing/story, I feel the series needs to tone it down a little bit and come back to this game's feel. It is now in the territory of "too much potty humor." It's fine but it can feel like it is trying TOO hard sometimes.

You play as a Vault Hunter in search of a Vault. What is this Vault? It holds the loot and riches to make your wildest dreams come true and basically, you need to get your hands on it before the bad guys do because they, naturally, want to destroy the world with their power. You'll meet tons of characters who will either make you laugh or make you mad depending on the situation. Like Dr. Zed, who is not a real doctor, but practices on his specimens alive or not. He's probably one of my favorite reoccurring characters in the game.

Playing through the story again was honestly a fun time. I was able to shut my brain off a bit from the outside world and blow baddies to bits. It felt like the good old days for sure. Grabbing trophies I some how remembered and finding hidden chests and easter eggs were all a real joy to go through once again. Snagging up side missions and making sure they were all completed before moving to the next main chunk of the campaign wasn't really a chore (although let us be honest here...heading back to a completed zone to pick up pieces of a weapon you have to find yourself can be a bit tedious) but felt like something I needed to do to appease my own OCD needs. Getting that Legendary weapon drop and having it carry me through a few missions before was the thrill I needed. I did find that whenever I wasn't playing Borderlands, I wanted to be. I'm pretty sure that is how you find out the game you are playing is good. 

Overall, heading back to Pandora to get that illusive vault key and annihilate my enemies has been very rewarding. Not only did I get to relive a great game, I got to feel the need to hunt loot again in a satisfying fashion.

If I could recommend a good game for you to go back and cherish, it would be Borderlands. Great characters, good gameplay (except you, grenades), and an even better time with friends! I played through this the very first time with some buddies back on the Xbox 360 and it was one of the best gaming moments I have ever had. 

Go out and snag up any of the Borderlands collections you can find and trust me that you are in for a good time.