borderlands 1 absolutely nails a complete and utter sense of dread and carries that into its very bleak atmosphere perfectly. every character feels like someone thats gone insane from living in a world where theyre lonely and have to fear for their life every single day. i honestly adore the way the game sometimes makes you take long drives across the maps with the ost setting the tone in the background. driving through both of the rust commons is a very memorable experience. some of the side quest content is also genuinely haunting (is tk ok? and tannis' echo logs primarily). unfortunately this game is kinda crushed under the weight of its own ambitions. the gunplay - while extremely satisfying - is also extremely basic, and despite the large amount of weapons in the game, most of them kinda feel the same to use. the balancing is also really wack with how weapons are more about parts than level. a level 25 double anarchy will still do you very well at level 50, its a little goofy. nothing's ever stopping you from using the sledge's shotgun or a double anarchy for the entire duration of the game. the story is also rather minimal, and while i partly do enjoy its wordless minimalistic nature, its hard not to feel like the game is using its atmosphere as a cover for the lack of any substance. the sense of balance is especially made goofy by the fact that two out of four vault hunters are significantly worse than the rest. there is very little reason to run anyone but lilith and brick on high level play. regardless of all of this, i still absolutely love this game. its absolutely something special and nails such a specific niche in my heart that i just cant help being in love with it (a little like dark souls 1, except that game is still actually amazing). all in all, i'd say this game is definitely worth experiencing, and it makes me sad that this game's poor reception when it came out from gamer dudebros who just called it boring resulted in them developing borderlands 2 as the opposite of everything borderlands 1 was (especially on the sense of humour lmao)