If you're a 12-year-old that thinks Deadpool is the peak of comedy or you're a 42-year-old man that thinks racial stereotypes and loud voices can make anything funny, then Borderlands is made for you. Do not play this game if you're outside these limited age ranges, or if you have the mind of someone outside of those age ranges, because then Borderlands starts looking lame and unfunny and fucking boring. And we wouldn't want that, now would we?
(Saying I 'completed' this game feels disingenuous. I beat the game online with friends back when it came out and I was only 2 months old or whatever, but I dropped it after giving it a solo replay last year and deciding I was fucking done with this one boss at the top of a canyon that had like three turrets and could rocket one-shot you with pinpoint accuracy at random. I think his name was Krom. Fuck Krom. I hate Krom. I hope Krom gets his balls dipped in a vat of acid.)
Borderlands 1 is somehow the perfect blend between obnoxious and boring. Borderlands is loud, crude, and utterly loaded with quirky-murderer characters that refuse to shut the fuck up for even a second, but it's also a grindey and repetitive slog dominated by fetch quests and samey setpieces and dogshit map design that simultaneously feels too limited and barren to be truly expansive but so preposterously big that the only way to traverse through most of the zones in the second half is by vehicle. And the vehicles are absolute hogwash, but at least they're funny - they're bulky and weighty and yet they'll spaz out, flip over, and explode at the drop of a sudden pin. Whenever the vehicles explode you either fucking die or get stranded in the middle of nowhere, both of which are unacceptable in a game as slow as this, but honestly who even gives a fuck after a certain point. At least Borderlands has something that makes me genuinely laugh, even if it's by total accident, because the Deadpool meets Homestuck brand of psychopath humor doesn't cut it for me. In a game as plot-sparse as this, dialogue really matters, but you spend most of the game wanting to just gag everyone and be done with it. Even your player character never shuts the fuck up!
Combat is a bland, monotonous, grating experience, full of enemies that have a negligible amount of stun at best, and even then I feel like I'm being generous because it feels like everyone and everything has super armor in this game, Fallout 3-style, and it makes the process of shooting feel unrewarding, unsatisfying, and fucking boring. Please just REACT to getting shot in the head at least, I am BEGGING you. Borderlands does give you a bajillion guns to pick from, but guaranteed 96% of them are total shit you won't want anything to do with after thirty minutes have passed and you find a new one that does the exact same thing but slightly better. Most of the guns also have garish coloring schemes that range from the super muddy to the obnoxiously bright, and you can't customize their color schemes so you're pretty much stuck with em. There's a nice enemy variety on display here, but pretty much all of the mooks are either piss-easy to deal with or have an obnoxious tendency to swarm or snipe you to death, there is no in-between. The bosses of Borderlands are what really makes this game ludicrously hard, because they're tanky and damage-spongey and dying resets their FUCKING HEALTH BAR AND IT ALSO COSTS MONEY TO COME BACK FROM DEATH, CREATING AN INFINITE FUCKING MOBIUS STRIP OF DYING AND BEING ANNOYED AND DYING AGAIN
This game is fucking rank. It's fucking rancid. The 1/5 rating is a courtesy because I do have to give Borderlands credit on visual flair alone. It's got a unique style, a pulpy cel-shaded comicbook look that's helped the game age pretty well visually and helps distract you from the fact that the environments are aggressively samey. I also like Claptrap's design even if Claptrap can go to hell. Fuck this game. Handsome Jack sucks. He's not even in this game, I just felt like saying that because the truth needs to be stated and I ain't playing Borderlands 2 again, I got better bad games to play.
(Saying I 'completed' this game feels disingenuous. I beat the game online with friends back when it came out and I was only 2 months old or whatever, but I dropped it after giving it a solo replay last year and deciding I was fucking done with this one boss at the top of a canyon that had like three turrets and could rocket one-shot you with pinpoint accuracy at random. I think his name was Krom. Fuck Krom. I hate Krom. I hope Krom gets his balls dipped in a vat of acid.)
Borderlands 1 is somehow the perfect blend between obnoxious and boring. Borderlands is loud, crude, and utterly loaded with quirky-murderer characters that refuse to shut the fuck up for even a second, but it's also a grindey and repetitive slog dominated by fetch quests and samey setpieces and dogshit map design that simultaneously feels too limited and barren to be truly expansive but so preposterously big that the only way to traverse through most of the zones in the second half is by vehicle. And the vehicles are absolute hogwash, but at least they're funny - they're bulky and weighty and yet they'll spaz out, flip over, and explode at the drop of a sudden pin. Whenever the vehicles explode you either fucking die or get stranded in the middle of nowhere, both of which are unacceptable in a game as slow as this, but honestly who even gives a fuck after a certain point. At least Borderlands has something that makes me genuinely laugh, even if it's by total accident, because the Deadpool meets Homestuck brand of psychopath humor doesn't cut it for me. In a game as plot-sparse as this, dialogue really matters, but you spend most of the game wanting to just gag everyone and be done with it. Even your player character never shuts the fuck up!
Combat is a bland, monotonous, grating experience, full of enemies that have a negligible amount of stun at best, and even then I feel like I'm being generous because it feels like everyone and everything has super armor in this game, Fallout 3-style, and it makes the process of shooting feel unrewarding, unsatisfying, and fucking boring. Please just REACT to getting shot in the head at least, I am BEGGING you. Borderlands does give you a bajillion guns to pick from, but guaranteed 96% of them are total shit you won't want anything to do with after thirty minutes have passed and you find a new one that does the exact same thing but slightly better. Most of the guns also have garish coloring schemes that range from the super muddy to the obnoxiously bright, and you can't customize their color schemes so you're pretty much stuck with em. There's a nice enemy variety on display here, but pretty much all of the mooks are either piss-easy to deal with or have an obnoxious tendency to swarm or snipe you to death, there is no in-between. The bosses of Borderlands are what really makes this game ludicrously hard, because they're tanky and damage-spongey and dying resets their FUCKING HEALTH BAR AND IT ALSO COSTS MONEY TO COME BACK FROM DEATH, CREATING AN INFINITE FUCKING MOBIUS STRIP OF DYING AND BEING ANNOYED AND DYING AGAIN
This game is fucking rank. It's fucking rancid. The 1/5 rating is a courtesy because I do have to give Borderlands credit on visual flair alone. It's got a unique style, a pulpy cel-shaded comicbook look that's helped the game age pretty well visually and helps distract you from the fact that the environments are aggressively samey. I also like Claptrap's design even if Claptrap can go to hell. Fuck this game. Handsome Jack sucks. He's not even in this game, I just felt like saying that because the truth needs to be stated and I ain't playing Borderlands 2 again, I got better bad games to play.
2 Comments
based, agreed
Kago
1 year ago