Borderlands: GOTY Enhaced Review

First-Person Shooter meets RPG!!

Borderlands originally released 10 years ago, back in 2019, and of course, when a game is out for at least ten years nowadays, that usually means a rerelease with prettier graphics and maybe a few quality-of-life improvements, for whatever reason. Well, if the game is good that is. Now, having played Borderlands 1 for at while now, that got me wondering if it really deserves a re-release. That is to say, is it really as good as we think it is? Also, just for the record, all the screenshots I'll be using will be from the updated Enhanced Edition, but I'll mention things that only the enhanced version of the game does when applicable.

Now, as I said at the very beginning of the review, Borderlands is an FPS game that blends RPG (Role-Playing Game) elements into the mix, meaning that instead of just running around and shooting at things until their dead and solving puzzles and opening locked doors, you shoot things until their dead to level up and steal their money, in addition to doing all of that other stuff that other FPS games make you do. You actually have to kill enemies not just because they're obstacles, but because you have to grind and level up if you want to survive later encounters in the game. Also, that money that you get from killing enemies? That's used to purchase guns, ammunition, healing items, shields, grenades, etc.

As far as Borderlands goes, though, for the most part, with the exception of needing to grind and buy better weapons, shields, and stuff all the time, it plays like a standard modern day FPS game, you run around, shoot things, get hit a lot, and wonder where the time has gone while your character is desperately bleeding out as you try to have him/her kill an enemy to get a second wind, but I honestly feel that the RPG elements help with that, if only a little. It's required, (un)fortunately, yes, but at least it gives you even more of an incentive to go on one of those brutal killing sprees that are, for the most part, illegal, so yay law.


In order to help you carry out your fantasy killing spree, you're allowed to choose one of four people to play as on the journey, each of them with their own strengths and weaknesses. Now, I'm going to be a bit unprofessional here (because I am unprofessional, having only written about three other reviews at this point) and say that while I have played each of them, I've only done so for so little an amount of time that I can't speak on what their strengths and weaknesses are, the only character that I ever truly play in Borderlands is Roland, the Soldier character, as he's the one who is closest to what I consider to be my preferred playing style: well-rounded with no true weaknesses, but on the downside he has no true strengths, either. He can be a guns-blazing, head-first shooter kinda guy, he can be the party's resupplier (because this game is both single- and multiplayer, but I'll get to that later) which can resupply your ammo reserves, or he can be a healer, and you can choose which one he is, but the others seem to fill very particular roles. Mordecai is the sniper who scores critical hits on enemies from afar, with a pistol for a sidearm should enemies get to close. Lilith is a Siren, meaning... well, in this game, it's more like the Mage/Thief class combination from Dungeons & Dragons. That means that Lilith is all about sneaking around and letting damage fly from some hidden area in the enemies' ranks and, after she's come out of her 'Phasewalk' (sneak mode, of a sort, if you prefer, except way more safe, for the most part, as she literally cannot be harmed in Phasewalk mode) she can cause a blast of energy to harm enemies further and try to get back to safety. Brick is the Berserker, and he's all about getting up and personal, and when that's not an option, give him a shotgun, a rocket launcher, and watch him wreak havoc! In case you couldn't tell, Brick is the character that I've used the least in Borderlands. You're probably wondering why? Because of the guns, man!

Oh, yes, Borderlands actually won an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records simply for having so many guns (eleventy-billion on the game's box, but the developers stated they simply stopped counting after three million) and it really is one of the main draws of Borderlands, at least to me. You see, it's always exciting to open a chest in Borderlands, because you never truly know what you're going to get... from the red chests. The green chests always have ammo. Some other non-red chests later in the game contain higher-level gear, but it's the red ones you'll be on the constant lookout for, because they could contain anything around your level, give or take a few levels.

Oh, yeah, in the enhanced edition of Borderlands, you get these chests that require keys to open, something that I believe came from either Borderlands 2 or Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I don't remember which, except that this particular chest wasn't in the original game, nor were keys, as far as I remember. I assume this gear is a bit better than anything else you can get around the same area, since it requires a key, but I'm not sure.

You know, since there's that screenshot that not only shows that chest but some of the other things that I mentioned were quality-of-life improvements, let's move onto them now. First, there's the minimap in the upper-right corner of the screen. That wasn't there in the original version of Borderlands. It REALLY helps out a ton because that means you don't have to pause the game constantly just to look at the map, only to find that the cave entrance that you're looking for is a few feet from where you're standing. The graphics for the health, shield, and ammo bar look a lot better, too!

As you can see (I had to set my graphics setting to Low to capture this, forgive me please) they added a few small touches to the environment to make it more believable to the player, something I agree with, although while I want the environments to look realistic, I want to be reminded that it's a video game, although this game does a very good job with that, considering that it's a desert planet named 'Pandora' with a Fallout 3 feel to it.

Fun fact: Borderlands, according to a Gearbox Software Employee, was their answer to Bethesda Softworks' own Fallout 3, another FPS-RPG combo sort of game.

Unfortunately for me, at least, not everything was all Pizza Rolls with Ranch Dressing and Mountain Dew with this remake. The cutscenes in this game don't seem to go all that well with my computer's graphics card. Case in point:

And that's just a cutscene, man! Here's another screenshot from a loading screen of the game!

Now, because I'm not a computer technician, I don't know if they used a different rendering engine for the game, or if it's because my computer is on a budget, (probably the former, but whatever) but the game doesn run okay on Low settings on my crappy budget Desktop, with a few stutters here and there, mostly whenever anything happens when a lot of dudes are on-screen, but again, whatever.

I don't really know of anything new that was added to the game. Regardless of what was added, it's still the same Borderlands 1 we all know and love, and even better is the fact that if you owned the original game on Steam all those years ago, then you got the Enhanced Edition for free!

This review and the screenshots located herein are © 2019 Jestan Diams. Please don't repost this review, in part or in whole, anywhere else on the internet without my express written consent. Borderlands is owned by Gearbox Software. All rights reserved.