Not a bad start! Good fun with friends! Great DLC!

Borderlands: game of the year Edition is a remaster with full DLC of the original borderlands from 2009. This is a first-person looter shooter co-op rpg taking place in the distant future on a bandit planet called Pandora.

Gameplay: The gameplay follows closely to a traditional first-person shooter with the control scheme and the rpg elements work like most, with a skill tree where you pick the way you build your character in the game and 4 different starting characters to choose from. Each character has a different ability and skill tree with some characters coming off as better than others, like if you build Lilith "The siren" a certain way she can be one of the best characters in the game by the end. While all of them are unique, it seems Rolland "The Soldier" doesn't have as amazing of a build to go with. The game has a bunch of open world areas you follow from map to map in a linier manner as you progress the story with main quests and side quests. This is definitely an easier RPG to play then most and as long as you are on top of exploring, side quests and loot you will get good xp, gear and progression. I found this game hard as hell when I was younger because I didn't know what I was doing. I've played though it a bunch as an adult and am much more grounded and found it easier as you grind and progress. Overall, the gameplay is pretty balanced aside from a few minor snags in certain areas like for example, in Old Haven a quest will pop up you can’t complete or do until much later when you return. Aside from a few minor spots like this the gameplay was smooth. I will say I also found the analog controls for driving to be a bit challenging at first and clunky but it’s not anything that's a major problem for me.

Graphics, Music and Voice acting: The graphics in borderlands are cell shaded like a lot of the Telltale games are, it’s a cool feature that gives games a nice aesthetic and colorful vibe, unfortunately they don't really utilize it in this game and I found most of the areas to be dull and bland. The color pallet is a lot of greys, browns, tans with only some few areas actually being colorful and interesting. The DLCs utilize this much better especially 'The Zombie Island of DR Ned' This DLC chapter was easily the best one with the most color and map variety. The voice acting in this game is very minimal all around, most of the communication from NPCs as your characters stay silent unless they talk in combat but the minimal performances that were there were fun and enjoyable. The music in this game is pretty decent, the music plays more of an ambiance role in this game but is still enjoyable and fits well.

Story/ Minor Spoilers: This game combines a lot of unique features, aesthetics, and pop culture references. The game is essentially about a group of 4 vault hunters who came to the mining and junk planet to look for an ancient vault that is said to hold a great treasure. There are a bunch of opposing factions, corporations and bandits that live here and are also in search of this Vault. A mysterious girl named Angel talks to you as a guide throughout the game and sends you to allies and enemies to progress you to the vault. It’s a simple story filled with gore, violence, humor, memes and references. The quests, characters and even story is very reminiscent of things like Guardians of the Galaxy or Mad Max. Some very fun stuff but the biggest problem with this game aside from the bland color pallet is the lack of compelling villain or story narratives. You could argue this game doesn't even have a main villain, but I would say the Crimson Lance military are the main antagonists of this game and probably Commandant Helga Steele is the main villain but even then, you hardly interact with her or even really get to know her to say she is the true main Villain. Now obviously the sequel fixes a lot of these problems and creates arguably one of the best video game villains of all time, but I’ll leave all that for my Borderlands 2 review. As for this game if you are playing it alone you might get a bit bored with it. The games have a great lore and great DLC. Overall I’d give this game a 7.5/10

The start of one of my favorite video game franchises of all time! This game was so unique when it came out in how it had billions of guns for you to collect which makes every playthrough so good! I think I've played through this game more times than any other! The story is lacking, but it had that very dark tone to its humor that I loved so much about it. I can say nothing more other than this one of my favorite games of all time!

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

I played this game with my little brother on Twitch. It was one of my best bro-time and it may corrupt my thoughts about the game, but except for the backtracking and the teleport that could be better, I think the game is pretty good.

There are some missions that takes too long like collecting the brains in the Zombie DLC and most of time are repetitive. Find this, kill this man, find the Clap Trap and repair it. I don't think I would have liked the game if I had played it alone. I suggest to play this game with someone to make it a better experience cause the game is getting old and has his flaws that you easily forget when you're just having a good time with a friend.

THE way to play Borderlands 1 nowadays, with most of the changing you could ask for while keeping stuff intact. Borderlands is a game I really adore. Simple, barebones ass story. Charming, dry humor that's a good breath of relief from how wacky things could get in the other games (and sometimes, it got painfully unfunny).

DLCs are nice, and your thoughts on Underdome depends on if you got a fetish for round-based enemy survival I guess? This is where things start off, so a lot isn't too crazy yet. Skill trees, weapons, yadda yadda. But you should still be able to play the way you want to. VERY much worth revisiting or playing, I would say. The atmosphere is fucking unbeatable, and you might end up wondering why the FUCK it was just scrapped completely for future games. Putting this and 3 together? Honestly, it might almost seem like a diff. series at times lmao.

Borderlands is a great open world, first person shooter with a nice comic-esk art style with unique characters to play as.
This version is the game of the year version mostly is just enhancements to the game in terms of models and textures, and visually looks nice. Also including a minimap, a golden treasure chest, and some new weapons. In terms of playable characters, you're only allowed to choose the standard 4, but regardless, it keeps it both fresh as the original, but with new features from it's successors as well.

The characters are known as vault hunters, with each of them having special abilities that help them during combat.
These being:

1. Roland - (The leader of the group, who is great at using shotguns and assault rifles. He has the special ability to summon combat scorpio turret to help aid him in Battle. He also has 3 abilities for himself: 1. allows his weapons to deal more damage, 2. allows him to regain his shield at a faster pace, and 3. allows him to regain his health quickly as well as his team as well).

2. Lilith - (the second in command, also known as a Siren, has the abilities of a siren which allows her to use shifting, which allows herself to become invisible, and when the ability wears off, causes a damaging shock wave to enemies. She also is great at using SMGs.)

[Sirens are people who have incredible powers obtained from unknown circumstances, that give the user special mythical abilities, and physically represented by these symbolic tattoos on their bodies. In Borderlands series there are a total of 9 Sirens that appear in the games: Lilith, Maya, Amara, Commandant Steele, Tannis, Troy Calypso, Tyreen Calypso, Ava, and Angel]

3. Mordecai - (Hunter of the group, looking really disheveled, but has a tactical appearance as well. He's skilled at using snipers and pistols, and his abilities are to send his bird best friend, Bloodwing to attack enemies.)

4. Brick - ( Tallest and Strongest member of the group, though tends not to be that bright. You could say he's as strong as a brick, but he's stronger so that pun doesn't work. Anyway Brick's adept at using Explosive weapons as his expertise, as for his special ability, he just punches... really hard. His Beserk ability allows him to beat up enemies with his fists by punching them really hard.)

So there's the team, unique and helpful around to both each other and to themselves. Now Borderlands work's great as both a single player and multiplayer experiences. As single player experience allows you to get immersed in the world and able to get through difficult areas, with enemies leveled equivalently to you, or higher to where, it's fair if you kill or get killed when fighting.
When fighting in multiplayer, you and your friends will have to deal with tougher leveled enemies to make the experienced more fair. The idea is that the game increases the damage needed to kill an enemy based on the amount of players are playing together. So the experience becomes where you and your friends help each other in unison to get through enemies, bosses, etc. All the while using your special abilities to get through certain areas. In single player if you get hit too many times by bullets and your health runs out, you're death. However in multiplayer if you get hit and your health runs out, you get down in a similar style to L4D where you team will have to revive you.


The game has a story, that can be both considered good or ok. In the sense that you're looking for THE VAULT which is said to contain an amazing mysterious treasure inside. You fight a bunch of bosses with funny intros and with nick names, or sentences that state what the person or thing you're fighting is like. Most of the bosses consist of strong Psychos like: Nine-Toes, Bone Head, Roid Rage, Mad Mel...

The only bosses really worth remembering are:
1. Rakk Hive (Giant 4 legged alien beast cow thing that has Rakk come out of it's body, it attacks you and the swarm of Rakk also will attack by swarming you.)

2. Hanz and Fanz - (Brother Brusiers, one attacks via charging at you and using his sword, while the other shoots you, they can be very difficult to take out.)

3. (i'll save this one for later in the review)


Anyway after traversing through the worlds of Pandora, you go to different cities and areas each with their own enemies, with difficulty spikes based on the leveling up system all characters have. Which once you level up, you obtain skill points to put in your skill tree, allowing for more abilities pertaining to your class to increase.

After all the twists and turns of the world and story, you're ready for the final encounter which is... Commandant Steele who opens THE VAULT.
So you're ready to fight Steele only for a giant tentacle-eyed monster to burst through called "THE DESTROYER", to kill Steele via impaling her through her stomach and eating her. and begin fighting you.
The goal of this fight is... Shoot the giant eye until it's health is gone.... yep that it lol.
After defeating the Destroyer... you don't actually Destroy it, you just lock the Vault again, leaving that thing trapped. All this time the treasure of THE VAULT was actually this terrifying beast.
Your reward is you get a bunch of rare weapons, and chests to open up.

Now I know what your saying: "what no ending? That's it? You fight the thing, it leaves, you get a bunch of weapons, but no end cutscene"

Yep. :)

Well considering that it's an open world game it does seem really lack luster, but at the very least you are still able to explore the world, and kill optional bosses, as well as finish your skill tree.

Overall Borderlands 1 is a great gameplay experience, with an ok story. The game is really fun, and if you've been hesitant with playing it, I recommend you do cause I think visually, artistically, and gameplay wise you'll really enjoy it.

However that story and lack of an ending cutscene, or ending all together drops my score from a 5/5 to a 4/5. The "ending" is really lack luster.
Anyway, play Borderlands GOTY Edition. In fact, better to get Borderlands Legendary Collection that includes completed versions of Borderlands Game of The Year Edition, Borderlands Pre-Sequel Complete Edition, and Borderland's 2 Game of the Year Edition. The complete versions of the 3 games I recommend you all buy.

Thanks for reading.

TLDR: Good gameplay, awesome open world of Pandora, Characters have unique abilities, the story is meh, and the final boss and lack of a real ending is disappointing.