Borderlands

Borderlands Game of the Year with every DLC bundled in, it’s the perfect reason to jump back into Pandora and experience the game from a fresh angle. The graphical upgrades are immediately noticeable small details like Mordecai’s skill animations stand out more than ever. The characters have been tweaked to look closer to their Borderlands 2 counterparts, and honestly, it’s a change I really prefer. The core gameplay is untouched, which makes sense for a remaster, but it’s still great to finally have a proper FOV slider instead of relying on mods and clunky workarounds like in the original. It's a minor addition on paper, but it genuinely improves comfort while playing. One of the best features here is the ability to import your original characters, achievements included. For returning players, that’s huge it means you can pick up right where you left off and jump straight into the enhanced content without losing progress. Between the original and the Enhanced Edition, the remaster easily comes out on top. Better visuals, improved settings, all DLC included, and at a lower price than the original ever was it’s a straightforward upgrade for both newcomers and veterans.

Thank you Borderlands, for introducing me to Cage The Elephant.
BL1 is one of those 'product of the times' games where you kinda had to be there. It's similar to Undertale in that sense that if you weren't playing it when it was new, the "Why was this regarded as so cool?" is lost. BL1 stood out because it was the first to really do a lot of things well. We'd had looter shooters before but none that were actually... good. Gamers were still kinda meh on the whole cel-shaded thing that we associated with the Wii and BL made it cool. The humor was peak aughties "Penguin of Doom!" nonsense. Having RPG-style progression in shooters was still relatively new. It was a co-op shooter where you weren't just another military grunt. And so on.
Now that stuff is everywhere so it no longer really makes up for the other shortcomings in the game. To be fair, it was quite a new thing at the time to be a Diablo shooter. It probably doesn’t feel great now but for the time, no one was really doing passable action with RPG mechanics. As crazy as that sounds with where todays industry has gone in terms of bolting loot and "builds" into every genre. I still find it okay but maybe it’s because I played it at the time and know what to expect.
This game is practically prehistoric now, so it's a bit dated. I mean, I'm getting close to 40 and I feel like I played this game a long, long time ago. Xbox 360 if I remember right. Despite this I replayed it recently and still enjoyed myself. The gameplay is very dated like I said though, and the environments are far more samey than the sequels, which can be a pro or con depending on how much you like the wasteland theme. I still don't think people should skip Borderlands 1 but it's not the sort of game that's worth more than a single playthrough just to experience it.
7/10

The best Gearbox game and the best Borderlands of all. Love this game
Its a shame that it was just a coincidence, because in the next 15 years Randy Pitchford couldnt make anything even close to borderlands 1.
R.I.P. Gearbox

Borderlands is still such an incredible game to play, even after all these years. The art style is just something so unique and special. The game holds a sense of humor, while still keeping the bleak and lonely tone along with it. Ambiance is incredible for the tone as well. Characters are memorable and add so much personality to the game.

Originally played this game years ago on my own, but now am enjoying it and appreciating it even more with friends.

That being said.. Randy Pitchford still sucks.

This is the premium game for premium gamers randy. You mistakenly called borderlands 4 the premium game.

This game walked so Borderlands 2 could sprint while screaming.
Borderlands GOTY is rough, loud, and very much from another era, but the core idea still works: shoot everything, grab loot, repeat. The guns are fun, the wasteland is empty in a charming way, and the humor is simpler but still lands.
You’ll spend a lot of time driving across the desert, fighting the same enemies, and opening chests that may or may not hate you. It’s not as polished as the later games, but it has personality.
If you want to see where the series started and don’t mind some jank, it’s worth playing. If you’re here for nonstop chaos and modern quality-of-life features, you’ll feel the age.
Still chasing better loot.

Borderlands GOTY is a brilliantly chaotic trip to Pandora: weird bandits, ridiculous amounts of guns, and Claptrap testing your sanity on a regular basis. The humor hits, the action pop , and going for 100% completion took me 75 hours. Totally worth it. Loot is love, loot is life!