Review: "Borderlands: The Handsome Collection"

Borderlands 2 was one of the first games I ever played start to finish in Co-Op. The unique artistic style, dark comedy, stylish gunplay and sheer levels of dumb fun kept me fluttering around it like a moth to a flame. Even after my group of four disbanded and we parted ways to play other games, I still found myself being drawn back into the world of Pandora, wanting to beat the challenges, obliterate raid bosses and just get some god-damn better loot. It's fairly safe to say that at least Borderlands 2 has quite a sentimental place in my life, as it was a game that I played with some of my closest friends, and it also allowed me to drag my girlfriend, albeit reluctantly at first, into the world of video games.

Now, why am I bringing all of this up?

The steam summer sales rolled around, during which I bought Borderlands: The Pre-sequel and Borderlands with all of their respective DLC's. So I figured I might as well look back on the series as a whole, and see what went so incredibly right for the geniuses at Gearbox. For the sake of comparison, I won't be mentioning Tales from the Borderlands, as while I do have it, I'm yet to play it, plus its a completely different genre to the main body of the games themselves.

BORDERLANDS

So this is where it all began, being greeted by an annoying robot after I get off a bus. As far as shooters go, it's fairly innovative. The different element types, class variation and gun randomisation make the game far more interesting than it looks. However, its pretty easy to see where all the love for the series came from. The game itself is fairly challenging, requires a lot of patience and skill, and overall makes you feel like you've accomplished things when you beat certain bosses or done certain quests. The game has this nice feeling of steady progression, and with the constant need to upgrade and change your loadout, and therefore playstyle, it doesn't get stale quickly. The story is fairly captivating if albeit a little short compared to its sequels. The skill trees also feel a little stunted, but considering that this game was a new IP, I'm okay with it.

The DLCs, although not adding any new playable characters, makes for a good and fairly reasonable expansion to what already available, adding in some interesting new NPC's and locations. Overall the first game was a really good place to build from, allowing for the sequel to be even better.

BORDERLANDS 2

There is train-crash, and I'm greeted by the same annoying robot. First of all this game makes one hell of an impression as soon as you launch it. I love the way in which the entire story of the first game is summed up, and the all the consequences are delivered in the pre-start narration. Considering that I didn't play the original game before this, I felt going into it that it was a new game in its own right, which personally I thought was well reinforced by the introduction of new playable characters, and the original characters playing a pivotal role within the story, as NPC's, or in some cases providing an extra AI hand in combat. The introduction of a new elemental type, Slag, makes for an even greater reliance on both environmental damage as well as teamwork in multiplayer, as while it deals no damage itself, it causes damage received by those under the effect to be magnified significantly. This game does what the last game did really well, but even better than the last game did. The slightly oddball characters in the last game are now outright batshit crazy. The larger than life characters and pure charm alone carries the game so much further than the original. The inclusion of the customisation system that includes new head skins and colour collections rather than the choose your own colour scheme system in the original adds so much more personal depth to the player's characters than previously done in Borderlands. The DLC's are phenomenal, and that's not including the story or Headhunter DLC's, but also the two character DLC's that add new and exciting variation to an already varied class list.

Speaking of the story DLC's I couldn't resist singling out and mention one specific DLC. "Tiny Tina and the Assault on Dragon Keep". This one DLC is an absolute masterclass in storytelling. The setting is beautiful. The interjection from the characters makes the game so much better, as it makes it seem like the Dungeons and Dragons game imitation that it is. But it also does something that I wasn't expecting, it shows all the stages of grief through the eyes of the youngest NPC, as a final DLC to conclude the Borderlands 2 experience it so beautifully ties together all the mechanics, characters and gunplay that makes the game incredible.

BORDERLANDS: THE PRE-SEQUEL

Unfortunately, this game is a step in the wrong direction, in some aspects. Whilst the main mechanics are essentially the same as Borderlands 2, there are two additional mechanics which are a welcome addition to the game. First of all Cryo damage, this acts as a slag replacement, because in terms of the lore of Borderlands, slag damage doesn't exist yet. Cryo damage is easily better than Slag, as it makes enemies far more vulnerable to critical damage, as well as melee and explosive. Hopefully, there will be the co-existence of Cryo and Slag in, what I assume will be, the final instalment of this series. The other mechanic, that I'm not sure I'm sold on, is the low-gravity, double jumping, ground pounding, semi 'aerial' combat. Whilst the majority of the new combat adds much-needed variation to the series, allowing for the arenas to open up vertically, the majority of the game takes place within these low gravity areas, which in some cases makes everything just a tad more uncontrollable. One of the slight complaints I have is that nearly everyone who is on the moon is Australian, apart from, to my knowledge, a single random cockney ten-year-old. As far as I'm concerned, the story of Pre-Sequel is both good and necessary, as there was the entire backstory of the villain of Borderlands 2 to explore, and credit where credit is due, instead of giving us egregious amounts of exposition in the form of audio backstory, we actually get a game that develops five of the existing characters, introduces family of a fan favorite from Borderlands 2, and fills that gap between Borderlands 2 and 3.

I consider this game very much what Fallout: New Vegas is to Fallout 3. A large DLC, developed by another studio, released as its own game, with other DLC. Unlike Fallout: New Vegas, however, it's not better than in predecessor, that's not to say its bad, but it would be incredibly hard to live up to the phenomenal game that is Borderlands 2.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Its quite obvious that as a series Borderlands has been going from strength to strength, even if Pre-Sequel is a bit of a step backwards from Borderlands 2. I am very excited to see where the game takes us in the, technically fourth, but the third instalment, there is so much they could do. This however also leaves me cautious, as there is so much that could go wrong. With any luck, the game won't be overhyped, won't have a large number of its details leaked prior to release and won't make the mistake of not moving on from Handsome Jack. For once, there is a game series that I'm genuinely excited for, as it has colossal amounts of potential, but with that comes the danger to disappoint.