The Post-Game: Borderlands

Borderlands leaves me with mixed feelings. I had a great time playing it – when I wasn't bored by endless fetch-quests, easy combat and (in the DLC) re-used bosses.

I enjoyed the weapons the most. They feel and fire great, with a lot of variety. There's a finite amount of cash, so most of your weapons will be found via looting. And there is a TON of stuff to loot. Any fallen enemy drops loot, from bandits to wild animals. And if you find a stash, well, you just might land yourself a rare. Sniper rifles have a fixed zoom, though.

The game world is huge and drab; a real wasteland. The visual style is still unique (even with Telltale using a similar hand-drawn, cell-shaded look for most of their games). It was a little jarring at first, but after a few hours I found the graphics very appealing. And light on system resources. I am able to run Borderlands at max settings @1440p on an R7 260X! Borderlands is just not that demanding.

Getting around the huge world isn't a problem; Scooter's vehicle terminals are everywhere, making it very easy to “Git you one!” But why are we traversing the gameworld? Fetch-quests, mostly. “Bring me 20 fish!” “Destroy 3 fuel tanks!” “Find 20 parts!” They're not all fetch-quests, of course, but there's quite a bit of padding. The attraction was supposed to lie in the combat (and looting) while completing the quests. Which is fine, except the combat is easy. If you do a few side-quests and suddenly find yourself 2 or more levels higher than recommended, you'll breeze through the missions. Co-op play is supposed to mean harder enemies and better loot; I found co-op even easier.

I'd heard so much about how good the characters of Borderlands are, and they're there, but barely; the characters are the start- and end-points of the missions, but that's it. You'll barely even see a cut-scene with them (except in some of the DLC). Claptraps are everywhere, and they're obviously designed to be cute. What about the story? Well, you're looking for a vault; think of it as a box. You're on a planet named “Pandora”. Put the two together, and hopefully you won't be too disappointed when you finally get to the vault after an endless level of “guardians”.

So, I have mixed feelings about Borderlands. I found it tremendously fun in co-op, though, so if you have a few friends who want to run around together shooting and looting, grab it by all means. If you're planning to solo most of it, it will be a solitary, easy grind for loot. Not a bad thing if that's what you're looking for; if you were hoping for more, though, you'll be disappointed.

"Wait, you forgot about your reference to 'recycled bosses'!"

Read on.

On DLC:
There are four DLC, all of them substantial additions to the main game; campaigns are large (as are the rewards) and well worth the purchase – especially if you're buying the game for its co-op.

Some problems with the DLC, though:
- No fast travel. Wait, wtf? That's right. You fast travel to the start of the DLC campaign, but within the DLC, there is no fast-travel, meaning you'll spend a lot of time running (or driving). If you pass a save-point deep within a level, and quit your game, the next time you load your save, you'll be back at the beginning of the DLC, and have to run / drive all the way back to where you were when you saved.

- RECYCLED BOSSES. You'll re-fight the boss from the main campaign, and in the Claptrap Robot Revolution DLC, you'll also re-fight the bosses from The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and The Secret Armory of General Knoxx – sometimes even multiple times! Borderlands tries to be self-deprecating as it does this, but it doesn't change the fact that they're re-using assets. It reeks of being cheap. Did the devs seriously think we would swallow the EXACT same boss three times without complaining? Come on.