This is where Borderlands all began. I first played this way back in the day at my best friend's house, and I've treasured the franchise ever since.
In your journey to find and open the legendary Vault on the desert planet Pandora, you have the option of playing one of the four original vault hunters: Roland the soldier, Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the hunter, and Brick the brawler. Aided by the mysterious Guardian Angel, you'll travel across Pandora in search of the Vault key fragments, battling dangerous wildlife, bandits, Eridians, and the Atlas Corporations private army, the Crimson Lance led by Commandant Steele (Lani Minella).
First of all, the gameplay is spectacular. It mixes FPS elements with those from Diablo, like finding loot, experience points, and completing missions. There are literally billions of different weapons, grenade mods, class mods, and shields you can find and equip. You'll collect XP from completing missions, killing enemies, and beating challenges. Combat involves challenging and pitched action against groups of enemies. Good thing they have a 'Second Wind' system to avoid dying too much and co-op makes gameplay harder but more rewarding and fun, so playing with friends is recommended.
I loved the games cel-shaded character and enemy models that gave them unique comic-book like appearances. The games scenery has a post-apocalyptic theme that reminded me of Mad Max and Fallout with its wide-open and barren landscape, ruined and abandoned buildings, trash and debris strewn everywhere, rugged desert vehicles, violent gangs and dangerous wildlife. There's even a boss named Mad Mel. Besides that, there's plenty of other charming pop-culture references, like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Monty Python, and many others.
All of the sound effects are great and intense, like Skags snarling, Raak cawing, and bandits and Crimson Lance shouting and screaming through their microphones. Battle sounds, like gunfire, explosions, and vehicle engines make combat sound intense and heart-pounding. There's a remarkable voice cast involved, with names like Colleen Clickenbeard as Lilith, Christopher Sabat as Sledge, and Brina Palencia as Mad Moxxi. The soundtrack has an arid and somewhat forlorn sounding theme that perfectly suits Pandora's barren environment. Other songs include the urgent and ominous final boss theme that's played while fighting the Destroyer, Crawmerax, and Undead Dr. Ned. There's even the original song, "No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant that's played in the opening cinematic.
The games tone is more serious, and the series legendary humor started off relatively lukewarm here. Plus, the four original Vault Hunters aren't fully fleshed out yet. But things pick up more in the DLCs, where the humor is stronger and the NPCs, like Scooter, Tannis, and Marcus, are all more developed. This goes for the villains too; Commandant Steele was just another hammy, power hungry villain while General Knoxx was much more grounded and surprisingly sympathetic. And the game's treasure hunting story is pretty straightforward. Luckily, this was expanded on in the sequels.
The games replay value is through the roof and still worth playing, especially if your new to the franchise and are curious just how Borderlands started out. So, by all means, try it out on Steam.
