It has been like pulling teeth trying to complete this game for the past 5(?) years. I was a day one purchaser, big fan of Gearbox’s only good franchise, and on paper Borderlands 3 should be great - but Ive been just so impossibly bored. Ive spent a long time wondering why… and I think I figured it out: for a game thats called “Borderlands 3”, it sure doesnt feel like its really about The Borderlands anymore, does it?

Maybe its strayed too far from home. It seems the bigger Gearbox makes the bottle, the more they let the lightning out. As much as I hate Pandoras sometimes monotonous beige desert feel, I think Borderlands used to represent a specific kind of space-western vibe. The harsh trappings of the desperado wasteland, mixed with the exotic qualities of alien wildlife, made into a comically deranged satire of a Mad Maxian society. Without that, what is it a satire of? What satire is happening when you plug the Ice-T teddy bear into the navigation of your colony ship?

The game calls you Vault Hunter alot but did it ever feel like you were hunting or searching for anything? What were you, then?

Im not a big fan of Telltale or this style of game, and Borderlands only barely works in this format - but Tales From The Borderlands is captivating for one real reason: it is meta-commentary. I have no clue if its on purpose but Rhys running around haunted by the literal ghost of Handsome Jack seems to curiously mirror how the series struggled to get out from under the shadow of Jack itself. Its a very poetic observation.

Its even more poetic considering that it doesnt seem like its worked out for Borderlands as a franchise quite as well as it did for Rhys. I also personally mourn the loss of mystique for Hyperion, made all too mortal and comprehensible by the events of Tales (made partially as a companion to the events of Pre-Sequel). Something of a bittersweet feeling emerges here: yes, Tales From The Borderlands is entertaining but its also…. not really Borderlands.

While technically a full complete standalone game, Pre-Sequel feels as tho it is simply a substantial extension of Borderlands 2 - and this massive DLC-like dynamic might explain why it feels just as janky and buggy as some of the DLCs do. The fact that this game serves mostly as fanservice for Handsome Jack makes it hard to care too much about its issues (tho maybe Gearbox took the wrong lessons from this)

Personally speaking, I was ready for more diversity in environments, and Elpis provides an excellent change in color palette; neon purples and blues and aquamarines. More time spent in space-age structures, lunar stations, energy refineries. Its a great vacation from Pandora, but I also feel like Pre-Sequel starts to pull the series out of orbit with too much focus on exposition, setting the series up to take itself too seriously. (The Handsome Jack stuff does whip ass tho)

Borderlands 2: The Video Gaming Experience is a slightly acquired taste - but there is an undeniable flow here once you figure it out. With the Diablo influence finally finding its feet, the game walks the line between Zany and Serious in both its combat and narrative in a way thats riveting and compelling. The sad truth is: Gearbox will probably never write a character as good as Handsome Jack (or most of the cast) ever again.

In fact (hot take) it was probably essential that Borderlands 2 was written with a largely comedic lean, because the unserious attitude helps you feel less seriously about the games cheap feeling gameplay. The games looter-churn means youll be obligated to use guns that suck in a game where the shooting already kind of sucks, the artstyle is pretty but also very poorly assembled and buggy - it all feels less irritating (key word being “less”) when the world is already absurd and illogical.

While Im charitable to the fact that this game has First Draft Syndrome, its impossible to ignore how the ugly Brown Aesthetic of late 2000s video games merged with this austere desert looter shooter to form the most rancid vibes known to man. It is so mind-numbingly bare that it almost feels like a surrealist project, some David Lynch psyop where theres just an uncomfortable amount of dead air.

And in some ways thats interesting, its like Borderlands 1 is a peek into an alternate reality. Its a much more dismal, less successful reality to be clear, and this is something that can only be appreciated retrospectively; its difficult to regard Borderlands as the “starting point” of the series when its such a distant relative to what the series is at this point (and really its estranged relationship with the series is the only worthwhile thing about it worth talking about)

The Devil May Cry format, set up as a rhythm game - and while its not uncommon for the game to fail you for QTEs, the real magic lies in how Hi Fi ties every aspect of the game to the beat. Encouraging (instead of strictly requiring) rhythm promotes a groove within players, a sense that with every action they take they are jamming along with the game - achieving a potent and unbelievably addictive sense of flow when synchronized.

Frankly, I think Hi Fi’s aesthetic would otherwise be a liability for me. Garish color palettes, generic and undiverse enemy design, even the music selection is not my favorite. The supreme, engrossing nature of the combat puts me on a wavelength that elevates every other aspect of the game, I can forgive significant holes in the character writing because I am actually, literally vibing. Any mission thats mostly a gauntlet of enemies is a great time - the opposite of how I usually feel about the genre.

My first instinct was to regard this as a “flawed, but promising” take on the game-night horror boom - but as the experience sat with me, Ive started to realize: I dont think this game has a soul. I dont believe that the game itself' believes in its concept. Much like its subject matter, this feels like a stunt. A toothy-grinning facade hoping to capture nothing but attention, like a decoy predator. A skinwalker, a doppelganger. A veneer. It almost tricked me, almost got in.

Which isnt to say the game is nefarious. What Im saying is, I dont think its… well-meant. Theres an obscured hollowness to it. A fakeness. Plastic, dressed to look warm but when you touch it all you feel is cold - and there is a low-level deceptiveness to that. Your nerves sense it, they fill you with distrust. I withhold my trust from it.

What did I even want out of Dragons Dogma 2? I began this game with a severe sense of disappointment, frustrated that it wasnt something “more”. But Im glad the game has a much greater sense of itself than I did, unwaveringly retaining its unorthodox core with a much more grand presentation. When I get over myself, I see theres just as much here to love as the first game - I would be ungrateful to not appreciate its weird and rare nature.

However it must be said that I hate these characters and their side quests and Im glad half of them are sitting in the NPC Lost And Found (the morgue). I would have liked a slightly less vast open world full of nothing but caves and aged beast skags, but I had the most fun carrying pots down ancient cliff faces than I did trying to council Hugo on how to live his life after being a bandit patsy (with that council being "Ill throw you off the cliff myself")

Dragons Dogma is at its absolute best when its behaving like a classic dungeon crawler, and Dark Arisen exhibits this in spades. Deep in the bowels of Bitterblack Isle, the game takes on a gritty, heavily D&D inspired, slightly Monster Hunter-esque dynamic where youre getting stomped by some of the most grueling creatures the game has to offer. Boldly oppressive, distilling Dragons Dogma to its strongest elements.

This wasnt exclusive to Dark Arisen of course, the original had things like the Everfall. But the addition of Bitterblack and the expansion of “The Endgame” really heightens this aspect of the game, tools and challenges to express some mastery of Dragons Dogmas systems - which could be very valuable considering how weird Dragons Dogma is as a fantasy ARPG. You might not get too many of these so you its good you can really dig in.

For me, the thing that made Dragons Dogma special was how raw it was. In a world of incredibly user-friendly high fantasy narratives and safe, padded RPG systems, this extremely unorthodox approach to design and Capcoms weird lil brand of combat behavior made for a surprisingly engaging experience (even when it kind of sucked). Something sort of accidentally brilliant, a diamond in the rough.

Things like user-sourced NPCs to populate the world and community-pooled boss fights are obviously avant garde on the network side, but I have a fondness for even the much-aligned Portcrystal system. Personalized fast travel means making decisions about where /you/ care about going and nesting in these parts of the game world. I would put Portcrystals inside tents next to merchants and it was almost like taking ownership of those places.

Helldivers 2: The Game is a pretty snappy time. Putting in the Konami Code to perform actions is fun and fresh, dropping down all kinds of ordinance left and right is so satisfying (even if I hate the controls sometimes.) Helldivers 2: The Live Experience is where its really at tho, and boy is it nice to finally see the possibilities of Live Service start to be explored by someone with even a shred of imagination (or dignity)

This could be all of them, you know. All the Live Services could have been doing this instead of shoveling out a series of unrelated themed events like “Oh, time to go to Pirate World! Time to buy the Jolly Roger emote and Captain Blackbeard skin!”. We havent even begun to live, theres still so much unbroken ground to traverse. I dont know if Helldivers 2 can keep it up for very long (Im almost certain they cant) but theyve done the industry a favor.

Modern Arcade games are, of course, not really designed to be "video games". Theyre designed to be credit-crunching spectacles, meant to wow children with yet uncritical tastes. But as I play Super Bikes 3 while waiting for the text that says my tables ready at the korean BBQ place next door, a nascent thought I have every time Im in an arcade crystalizes into focus: why dont real video games play up this spectacle more?

Why are there so many racing games where youre driving through an "authentic" (but highly abbreviated) Mexican desert and so few games where youre shattering through a Himalayan ice shelf to discover the Yetis long-lost Hidden Forest? All people care about are expensive graphics and yet were not using them to make a game where you drive through a hurricane? What a fuckin waste.