3/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition.

Ah, the simple joys of Borderlands. Go to the waypoint, shoot things and get stuff to shoot more things with. Repeat. That pretty much sums up this games mindless but fun core loop. The real kicker here is Borderlands setting, tone, and atmosphere. Im not really a fan of shooters, i think the settings are usually pretty fuckin boring, but Borderlands is refreshing. If you like shooter gameplay with a fun backdrop, and a touch of RPG, this one’s for you. So Borderlands takes place on this Mad Max style planet called Pandora, where everyone is fuckin strapped and batshit crazy. Wreckage and junk are strewn about everywhere; I’m not sure if Pandora is in a post-apocalyptic state, but that’s certainly the vibe. Players take the role of vault hunters, where you are given the choice to play as archetypes, sniper, soldier, tank, etc. I played as the sniper character back in the day, and gave the siren (the sort of magic character) Lilith a try this time. Each character has different strengths and a special movie ability, I don’t know, does not seem like a huge deal which one you pick. The story is…there. Some aliens, a hologram guide, blah blah blah, I don’t know, I don’t care. It’s less the narrative, more the combination of a great setting and writing worthy of a cult B movie. But oh man, the fuckin opening sequence of this game; I swear to god, when that Cage the Elephant song drops to the shot of a bus full of killers driving through a wasteland. “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” appearing in Borderlands definitely played a hand in Cage the Elephant becoming as huge as they were. Cool thing to experience back in the day. The shooter aspect of Borderlands feels really solid. You feel the recoil from the guns without making it to realistically difficult; there’s still features like aim assist. There are so many different types of guns, many run of the mill and disposable, some seemingly unique…there’s definitely a lot of sorting through menus, picking guns to keep/sell, but it’s never overbearing. I just finished up Wo Long a bit ago, and that game just always felt like I had way too much shit in my inventory. Borderlands makes sure the give ample opportunity to offload unwanted gear for sweet cash. Them guns though; so many types, so many different effects…I definitely gravitated towards combat rifles, but each of the broader gun types got use. While the different enemy types do become somewhat monotonous, each enemies weaknesses encourage players to experiment with different weapons. I replayed this real quick as part of a watch project I’m doing on Letterboxd. I’m playing games alongside film adaptations of said games. The Borderlands film adaptation is pretty fuckin terrible, by the way. But this is my second entry in this project, after House of the Dead, and I’m really enjoying it so far. Yeah, it’s Borderlands, it’s the father of all looter shooters. It’s fine. Bit of a classic. The second one is better.