Borderlands - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

Lock, Load, & Face the Madness

Get ready for the mind blowing insanity! Play as one of four trigger-happy mercenaries and take out everything that stands in your way! 
 
With its addictive action, frantic first-person shooter combat, massive arsenal of weaponry, RPG elements and four-player co-op*, Borderlands is a breakthrough experience that challenges all the conventions of modern shooters. Borderlands places you in the role of a mercenary on the lawless and desolate planet of Pandora, hell-bent on finding a legendary stockpile of powerful alien technology known as The Vault. 

Previous Play Time

1 minute

What Was I Thinking When I Bought This

Sometimes, I shop for less than noble reasons. As I recall, the day I bought Borderlands for the PC, I was feeling a little depressed, so I decided to browse the Steam Store in the hopes of finding a cheap game to buy as a pick-me-up. It just happened that the Borderlands game of the year edition was on deep discount that day, and I figured that since I already owned Borderlands 2, it would be nice to play the entire saga when I eventually got around to it.

Such dubious, emotional and completionist driven purchases are a significant factor in why I have so many unplayed games. (I'm trying to be better, I swear).

Expectations and Prior Experience

I played the hell out of this game on the console. I got all four characters up to level 69 and had an incredible stockpile of orange weapons that I never used. I even played online to take out Crawmerax, though I got kind of disillusioned with that whole scene when people kept giving me modded weapons.

In a way, I think my prior experience gives me some extremely realistic expectations of what I'm about to experience. There is literally no part of Borderlands that I have not already played 4-8 times (I'm pretty sure that I skipped some of the DLC on the first playthrough and only tackled it in new game+). However, I haven't actually touched this game at all (on either PC or console) since Borderlands 2 came out, and I'm a little worried that the later game has completely eclipsed the earlier in my affections. Perhaps going back to the original will expose me to flaws in the game that I did not notice the first time through, and have grown unable to accept.

Then again, Borderlands was strong enough to occupy me for literally hundreds of hours, so it's kind of doubtful that it's lost all of its charm just because a sequel did certain things better. Only time will tell, though.