Gearbox’s Borderlands franchise has become one of the most popular franchises around, only three games in we are clamoring for more to come and thankfully Borderlands 3 has been teased. Recently Borderlands finally arrived on the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One as the Handsome Collection, a collection of games that features the second entry in the franchise as well as the technical third but in actuality 1.5 entry in the franchise the Pre-Sequel. But what about the game that started it all, well sadly this collection did not bring this game back for some recognition but even if this is the case I feel we should provide a highlight for where this amazing franchise began and return to the classic Borderlands as April’s Game of the Month. With Game of the Month I enjoy highlighting games that are special at the moment and thanks to the fact I am presently playing the Handsome Collection I thought I should give some time to this game and discuss why this game is so special.
The original Borderlands set the bar for the entire franchise setting up the groundwork for the franchise as a whole, it brought in many of our most beloved enemies, characters, and even one of the gaming’s most beloved worlds with Pandora (and I don’t mean the one from the awful movie Avatar).
Being honest with this game, it really isn’t the best entry in the Borderlands franchise, in fact both of the follow ups to the game from Borderlands 2 to the Pre-Sequel were both much better games. Of course this is my opinion, after returning to this game after playing Borderlands 2 I found the world to be dreary and the story to really lack a whole lot of polish, even the trademark humor which the franchise has grown to be known for barely ever saw a showing, it was rare I laughed or even slightly giggled at a joke made.
Of course even with my complaints about this game it isn’t a bad game by any means, honestly it is enjoyable it just lacks some of the polish found in the games that followed. Still this is Borderlands an amazing franchise that is constantly worth noting, and the best reason to note this game is for what it did right.
Borderlands set the groundwork for much of the gameplay found in the later games, it introduced classes, characters and even skills. Much like later games which I assume more people have played Borderlands featured a selection of characters to choose to play as, each contained their own specialties, and preferences in playstyle. Of course in playstyle choices how you played mostly came down to the player and their type of system, should they prefer to be the distance player they can choose to use sniper rifles which is my playstyle, or if they are the up close and personal player there were always several weapons on hand that were helpful in these situations.
Each class even came with their own perks in the type of special skill they wielded, the later games far improved on this but Borderlands set the guidelines, each was handy in a certain situation, whether you were sending a bird to attack people, setting a turret, or for the up close and personal player going forward to punch the daylights out of enemies skills were amusing.
However the best part about Borderlands was the lore the game set up. In the game you played as a vault hunter, a person seeking great riches and treasure from a rumored place called the vault. This journey takes you across Pandora, seeing many of the planets depressing locations and coming face to face with the planets less then hospitable natives. The search was long but the game set up the great search that we continue to go on in future games.
The game may start off bad and generic with a dull opening of our games characters getting off a bus, a reference I love in the Pre-Sequel. Where would we be without the original Borderlands, well for certain we would not have the much better future games and because I am really enjoying the more recent games I though it was worth giving this months game of the month to the original Borderlands and if you haven’t played the game I recommend giving it a go.
Keep in mind I will be doing more editing on this article, at the time of writing I realized I was late to come up with a game of the month so I have quickly thrown one out, I will improve this article over the coming week.
