So I think it's safe to say that most people who play Borderlands games now 'n days got into the franchise with Borderlands 2 and never really think about Borderlands 1. I found it strange that people never really talked about it as Borderlands 2 was so popular that one would think that the game that came before it would live so completely in its shadow to the point of complete irrelevance. This curiosity has led me to play through Borderlands 1 and this review on my general opinions on the game. However, before we get into the review I want to state that whatever my opinions are if you love the Borderlands games you will like this one, even if it is a bit watered down, as it has all the elements that the future games have but maybe get it at a discount. (Full TLDR at the end)
Gameplay: So let's start with the most important part. The gunplay varies from passable to bad depending on what gun you are using. Most guns feel fine, shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, and revolvers(which are a different gun type but use pistol ammo), all feel fine as they all have weight to them and the animations aren't bad but launchers and snipers feel awful. The AOE on launchers is inconsistent and they don't feel as heavy and devastating that a good rocket launcher should, and snipers are barely accurate as they don't shoot where you point them really, though all guns have this problem snipers just feel it the hardest. However, the best gun two gun types have to be shotguns and assault rifles as they both do pretty good damage all around and feel great to use.
Weapon Manufacturers are in the game but are far less specialized. For example, Jakobs guns in Borderlands 1 have very high damage but low fire rate and reload speed, they also never manufacture elemental weapons. In Borderlands 2 they still do high damage but also fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. While the Weapon Manufacturers' differences still feel noticeable they come into their own in the later games with more pronounced quirks.
The Vault Hunters are fine but basic, Lilith can walk thru enemies, Brick can punch stuff, Roland has his trusty turret and Mordecai can Bird! While the Action Skills are fine the skill trees for the vault hunters are a bit basic, though it does work fine for the game, it can make leveling up a bit boring as most of the time it's just a minor stat increase, though I did have fun still so it's not all bad.
Healing is quite different than in the other games, you have healing packs that you can buy and take with you in your inventory. This is an interesting concept for a Borderlands game but these health packs get outclassed by skills that heal you can shields that heal you. While cool in their own right inventory health packs aren't useful for most of the game and they did get fazed out in later games.
The last thing I want to talk about in this segment is just the boring quests and the amount of them. Ok, so one thing Borderlands 1 does a few too many times is that it does this side quest dump, it just drops a butch of quests on you, and while you don't need to do them all the pure flood of quests is overwhelming. Most of these side quests are either fetch quests, kill quests, or both and outside of xp, the payouts are usually not great. And I mean flood like when you first get to new haven you can get three side quests from the bounty board, but the first quest you do in new haven is so simple you are going to do it immediately but doing so gives you three to four MORE side quest, it's just not fun to feel like I have to wade thru waist high water every time I do a main story quest.
The key thing here is that even though most of the gameplay is just ok it set the stage for Borderlands 2 to refine it all into a better game that drew people in. But what about some of the other aspects of the game well let's see.
Music and Sound Design: The gun sound effects and gun animations are nostalgic, While I didn't play this game as a kid it reminds me of some old shooters I used to play, and to extend on what I said prior while the gun animations and gun sounds aren't bad but they have dated to a point, though I do have a fondness for games of this age I can see most modern players being put off by this.
The overall sound effects are done well and are well-detailed. From the big and noticeable sounds to the small details it shows just how much passion was put into the sound design, as whenever I started to pay attention I could always find little things that I liked.
The music has a wasteland kind of grit to it, but its uniqueness of it tapers off toward the end of the game but it does retain some uniqueness thru and thru
The Voice acting is great, full of character and the script isn't half bad. You don't hear a lot of the voice acting outside of enemy and vault hunter quips but not only are both done well but whenever the game gives you some other NPC dialog it's up to the same standard as the rest of it.
Art Style and Story
The area design is somewhat boring but has some fantastic standouts that make it hard for me to write about it, on one hand, I'd say most of the game has a lot of boring areas that are just bland. They work as combat arenas but that's about it. But then you get to some areas that are so well crafted and lively that I was put into a sort of awe at how well it felt to look at things in the environment. Overall while the later games get better at keeping things lively it did take them a while to get the formula down.
The overall Art Style has aged well but is still a little boring to look at. Not that is bad per se but compared to the more vibrant colors of the later games it's more muted, Plus the colour pallet doesn't help with the muted tone but I think its part of the general style of Borderlands 1
The humor is something I call "us southern dad" funny, it never really got a laugh out of me but I did say audibly say "That was funny" a few times. It's amusing but not to the laugh-out-loud extent, really it's just ok.
The story feels like a background element instead of the driving force. Most of the story is told through mission info text boxes and this is fine but if you don't read the info boxes you don't know what's happening (which is fine, if you want to know the story then read it) but if you do read them then the story mostly boils down to "Go kill this guy cause I say so" or "Go get this stuff cause I say so". The story is really not a focus and if you go into the game knowing that then I don't think it's that much of a problem.
DLC:
This segment is going to be quick as the DLC for the most part is more of the same as the base game, however, something of note is that the DLC does try and build upon what the base game was doing, making improvements and the like. While playing the DLC something of particular interest caught my eye. The DLC feels more in the style of Borderlands 2 than Borderlands 1. This is done by having more dialog and character cutscenes that help tell the story but id say that the dialog in radio calls don't aren't as wordy in, say Borderlands 3, and aren't nearly as annoying but the DNA is still there.
Conclusion / TLDR:
Borderlands 1 was, at the time, a great game I'd reckon and still is great fun today. But it's not for everyone and is still pretty dated by today's standards. The gunplay is pretty rough even for 2009 but the art style, music, sound design, and alright gameplay, it set the foundation for Borderlands 2, and everything after that is history. Whether you're a new fan of the Borderlands games or an old fan I think there still is value to be found here as even if it's muted to some extent Borderlands 1 is still a fine Borderlands game. However, If you are looking to get into the Borderlands games I will say that you should start with either 2 or 3, and if you are unsure if you should give Borderland 1 a chance I'd say buy it on sale.
Gameplay: So let's start with the most important part. The gunplay varies from passable to bad depending on what gun you are using. Most guns feel fine, shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, and revolvers(which are a different gun type but use pistol ammo), all feel fine as they all have weight to them and the animations aren't bad but launchers and snipers feel awful. The AOE on launchers is inconsistent and they don't feel as heavy and devastating that a good rocket launcher should, and snipers are barely accurate as they don't shoot where you point them really, though all guns have this problem snipers just feel it the hardest. However, the best gun two gun types have to be shotguns and assault rifles as they both do pretty good damage all around and feel great to use.
Weapon Manufacturers are in the game but are far less specialized. For example, Jakobs guns in Borderlands 1 have very high damage but low fire rate and reload speed, they also never manufacture elemental weapons. In Borderlands 2 they still do high damage but also fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. While the Weapon Manufacturers' differences still feel noticeable they come into their own in the later games with more pronounced quirks.
The Vault Hunters are fine but basic, Lilith can walk thru enemies, Brick can punch stuff, Roland has his trusty turret and Mordecai can Bird! While the Action Skills are fine the skill trees for the vault hunters are a bit basic, though it does work fine for the game, it can make leveling up a bit boring as most of the time it's just a minor stat increase, though I did have fun still so it's not all bad.
Healing is quite different than in the other games, you have healing packs that you can buy and take with you in your inventory. This is an interesting concept for a Borderlands game but these health packs get outclassed by skills that heal you can shields that heal you. While cool in their own right inventory health packs aren't useful for most of the game and they did get fazed out in later games.
The last thing I want to talk about in this segment is just the boring quests and the amount of them. Ok, so one thing Borderlands 1 does a few too many times is that it does this side quest dump, it just drops a butch of quests on you, and while you don't need to do them all the pure flood of quests is overwhelming. Most of these side quests are either fetch quests, kill quests, or both and outside of xp, the payouts are usually not great. And I mean flood like when you first get to new haven you can get three side quests from the bounty board, but the first quest you do in new haven is so simple you are going to do it immediately but doing so gives you three to four MORE side quest, it's just not fun to feel like I have to wade thru waist high water every time I do a main story quest.
The key thing here is that even though most of the gameplay is just ok it set the stage for Borderlands 2 to refine it all into a better game that drew people in. But what about some of the other aspects of the game well let's see.
Music and Sound Design: The gun sound effects and gun animations are nostalgic, While I didn't play this game as a kid it reminds me of some old shooters I used to play, and to extend on what I said prior while the gun animations and gun sounds aren't bad but they have dated to a point, though I do have a fondness for games of this age I can see most modern players being put off by this.
The overall sound effects are done well and are well-detailed. From the big and noticeable sounds to the small details it shows just how much passion was put into the sound design, as whenever I started to pay attention I could always find little things that I liked.
The music has a wasteland kind of grit to it, but its uniqueness of it tapers off toward the end of the game but it does retain some uniqueness thru and thru
The Voice acting is great, full of character and the script isn't half bad. You don't hear a lot of the voice acting outside of enemy and vault hunter quips but not only are both done well but whenever the game gives you some other NPC dialog it's up to the same standard as the rest of it.
Art Style and Story
The area design is somewhat boring but has some fantastic standouts that make it hard for me to write about it, on one hand, I'd say most of the game has a lot of boring areas that are just bland. They work as combat arenas but that's about it. But then you get to some areas that are so well crafted and lively that I was put into a sort of awe at how well it felt to look at things in the environment. Overall while the later games get better at keeping things lively it did take them a while to get the formula down.
The overall Art Style has aged well but is still a little boring to look at. Not that is bad per se but compared to the more vibrant colors of the later games it's more muted, Plus the colour pallet doesn't help with the muted tone but I think its part of the general style of Borderlands 1
The humor is something I call "us southern dad" funny, it never really got a laugh out of me but I did say audibly say "That was funny" a few times. It's amusing but not to the laugh-out-loud extent, really it's just ok.
The story feels like a background element instead of the driving force. Most of the story is told through mission info text boxes and this is fine but if you don't read the info boxes you don't know what's happening (which is fine, if you want to know the story then read it) but if you do read them then the story mostly boils down to "Go kill this guy cause I say so" or "Go get this stuff cause I say so". The story is really not a focus and if you go into the game knowing that then I don't think it's that much of a problem.
DLC:
This segment is going to be quick as the DLC for the most part is more of the same as the base game, however, something of note is that the DLC does try and build upon what the base game was doing, making improvements and the like. While playing the DLC something of particular interest caught my eye. The DLC feels more in the style of Borderlands 2 than Borderlands 1. This is done by having more dialog and character cutscenes that help tell the story but id say that the dialog in radio calls don't aren't as wordy in, say Borderlands 3, and aren't nearly as annoying but the DNA is still there.
Conclusion / TLDR:
Borderlands 1 was, at the time, a great game I'd reckon and still is great fun today. But it's not for everyone and is still pretty dated by today's standards. The gunplay is pretty rough even for 2009 but the art style, music, sound design, and alright gameplay, it set the foundation for Borderlands 2, and everything after that is history. Whether you're a new fan of the Borderlands games or an old fan I think there still is value to be found here as even if it's muted to some extent Borderlands 1 is still a fine Borderlands game. However, If you are looking to get into the Borderlands games I will say that you should start with either 2 or 3, and if you are unsure if you should give Borderland 1 a chance I'd say buy it on sale.