Video Game Review - Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

So because of my stance with first person shooters, I initially gave this series of video games a miss. But when I realised how popular it was around hardcore gamers like myself (and nerds too), I decided to give it a try. As far as I know, the first game of the series just sets up the foundation and world of Borderlands and the games in this compilation, make up the story. If my experience of the game and this review say that its a good game, then I may consider looking at the first game and anything else that the franchise has to offer. But for now, let's look at this very "Handsome" collection of games:

The compilation contains 2 games which are The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2, both of which set up the story for the franchise as a whole. In The Pre-Sequel, a few people who are described as Vault Hunters, meet with a guy called Jack (who would later become the infamous Handsome Jack, voiced by Dameon Clarke) and are tasked with helping him prevent Pandora's Moon from being destroyed by what I can only describe as a group of mercenaries led by some mad lady. They are sent onto the moon itself to deal with the situation at hand. While in Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack has gone from good guy to bad guy and tasks himself to unleashing some kind of evil onto the wide world of Pandora and its up to a new team of Vault Hunters to stop him at all costs. So both games have a sandbox and open world setting with Pre-Sequel giving you all of Pandora's Moon to explore and 2 giving you Pandora. Both are very similar in gameplay which follows a generic sort of first person shooter with a variety of weapons to choose from and plenty of upgrades and other things to help you in the game. Like most games like this, there are side quests as well as plenty of collectibles to find. But what really makes these games great is the great sense of humour that it has which I like a lot as it makes any game a more enjoyable experience rather than a very dull one (*ahem* Call of Duty, Order 1886 and others) and its also one of a handful of triple A titles that can do local multiplayer as well as online and the compilation is especially good at this as it's capable of 4 player co-op unlike when the games originally came out and it is exactly what you'd expect for a game that is ported onto PS4 and Xbox One with it having great visuals and running at 60 frames per second.

I think after having spent and still spending time on the game, I enjoyed it a lot. It is quite hard to begin with, especially with getting used to the controls which have a sort of Halo feel to it and I like that the game not only stands on its own ground, but also manages to pay homage and parody a lot of things in nerd culture like Minecraft, Dark Souls, Batman, hell even the viral video that was the double rainbow. There is a lot to like here, but I will say that it feels like playing Firefly if the show was a video game as these games just have that feel to it (especially in 2) which is a good thing even if the show was only 1 season. 9/10