I originally got into Borderlands because a friend bought me Borderlands 2. And first of all, man, thank god she did. Borderlands has become one of my favorite game series of all time. I’ve sunk literally thousands of hours into playing.
Borderlands 1, the original, was actually the LAST Borderlands game that I’ve played. People told me that I might not enjoy it that much because it’s extremely bare-bones compared to the later titles that I’m accustomed to. While it’s true that the game IS indeed bare-bones compared to the sequels, I wanted to play through it just to see where it all started. I’m glad I stuck with it.
The game is actually oddly great. Yeah, sure, it’s very simple compared to the games that came after it, But despite the simplicity, the game is excellent, fun, and relaxing to play. The leveling feels good, the balance feels appropriate, and the guns are fun to use.
The one thing that the game hadn’t done yet is to assign Legendary item drops to specific enemies, allowing you to farm up the items you want. In Borderlands 1, everything is a random world drop. Additionally, the parts system in the game is wild, with items that are way lower level often outperforming much higher level ones.
Despite all these issues, the game is enjoyable and still worth playing. In the last 2 months, I’ve done 4x 100% runs, and loved every minute of it.