Goodwill Games #1: borderlands

By Oliver Giles


Release Year: 2009

Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX

Goodwill Price $3.99


Every major franchise has to start somewhere, and for Gearbox Software that was on mainline consoles and computers back in 2009. While the company as a whole doesn't have the best track record when it comes to games, Gearbox struck gold when they introduced the world to Borderlands, an RPG-style first-person shooter with an instantly recognizable comic book aesthetic and a good sense of humor to go along with fun and challenging gameplay. As the world prepares for the launch of the spin-off Tiny Tina's Wonderlands in just a few days, I figured it would be a perfect time to pick up a copy from Goodwill and see just how well the game has aged almost thirteen years later.

As a disclaimer, while I had never owned the original version of the game prior to picking it up, I do own the remastered Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition from 2019 and greatly enjoyed it, so I wasn't going into this game completely blind.

Due to the game having a cell-shaded, comic book-inspired aesthetic, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the graphics hold up fairly decently. They aren't brilliant or anything, but considering that the title is over a decade old at this point, they have certainly aged better than other games from its era. That being said, certain areas of the game do appear rather ugly at times, not so much because of the game's graphical fidelity, more to do with the color palette chosen for a lot of the game. While the other games in the franchise are known for mixing vibrant colors with more simplistic backdrops, the original Borderlands often comes off bland and murky. While it doesn't detract too much from my enjoyment of the game, it does cause my walks from place to place to feel rather dull at times, something not helped by the large amount of backtracking you'll be doing to complete all the quests in an area.

That is the only large flaw however as everything else is a pure example of what the Borderlands franchise is. The boss fights are challenging but fair if you've prepared enough. The design of enemies throughout the game is creative without being too outlandish, and the weapon selection and gun-play stay fresh and exciting.

The game's story is another aspect that sets it apart from other shooters of its era, such as Call of Duty or Battlefield. Instead of being another mindless military shooter, something that was all too common in the late 2000s, Borderlands meshes its brilliant combat with an engaging story that manages to keep the player's attention throughout the whole experience. Full of interesting characters and plot twists, Borderlands certainly isn't your typical FPS game, and it's all the better for it.

When it comes to how well games from this era age, there aren't many that have done it better than Borderlands. The action and story are still fun and engaging, and the graphics and frame rate can still hold their own for the most part. While the 2019 remaster is certainly the better version of the game, if you have a system that can play it and happen to find the game for a reasonable price, the 2009 original is still worth sinking at least thirty hours of play time into.



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