(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)
Good morning climbers and divers, welcome to Day 10 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Might be a shorter one today as I have just come back from shopping at Asda to get supplies before a massive heatwave today and tomorrow. Plenty of drinks, snacks, and ice cream to get through a rough time – did involve walking up a very steep hill in quite humid weather all the same.
Despite the heat though, I have been managing to keep busy domestically. It was a tough struggle but yesterday I managed to finally give the master bedroom a deep clean, picking up the floordrobe that had developed and giving the carpet a well deserved vacuuming. Being able to see the floor again and not have to walk around on eggshells is such a relieving feeling.
I reconnected with an old friend yesterday as well. In the past we had helped each other get the multiplayer achievements on Borderlands 2 and he messaged me a few days back asking if I wanted help getting the ones on the original game as well (not the “Enhanced Edition” – quotation marks used quite literally there). He is in a similar situation to myself in terms of jobs so it was nice to shoot the shit for a bit about life.
The job search continues, albeit very slowly right now. Got an official rejection from Jagex for the producer role I had applied for, which whilst it sucks to be rejected, I do appreciate them sending a proper rejection email. It says something that actually receiving one is a rare courtesy these days.
Still waiting to hear back from Poncle, which is definitely the main cause of my waiting room syndrome right now. I think getting an answer one way or another from them would help me move on to applying at a great speed.
If you want to help me out in the interim, I am available for writing work as always. Doing these redundancy reviews have really helped me out in staying in the routine and always thinking how to improve my own work, being able to tell my story no matter what also helps. I have always liked to think of myself as a storyteller above all else and maintaining a public journal of sorts helps me feel like I am making myself a better one.
So, initially I was going to cop out today and review one of my favourite Magic: the Gathering cards for today, but me emphasising the quotation marks on the Borderlands “Enhanced Edition” makes me want to cover that, especially with playing the original yesterday.
Borderlands is a first-person looter shooter initially released in 2009, with the Enhanced Edition coming out in…
…well that does not link up. Wikipedia is telling me the Enhanced Edition released in 2019 whilst the Steam Store page is saying 2023…
Oh well, moving on.
For my thoughts on Borderlands across both versions, I can summarise it simply as “very successful tech demo”. Borderlands was the first game to bring the looter shooter genre into the public spotlight, previous attempts had been made but this game made it mainstream. That said, outside of the loot system I do not think the original has much going for it in today’s market.
Especially when compared against the vastly superior Borderlands 2 released in 2012, which I personally think is where the franchise peaked and has been struggling to live up to it ever since, but that is a different story.
The driving mechanics are passable, but feels more like a way to get from point A to point B quicker than anything else – especially prevalent in the third DLC which puts a heavy emphasis on needing to drive everywhere.
Whilst there are some funny moments with characters in the base game a lot of the humour is told in flavour text rather than character dialogue. This is rectified in the DLC, where the comedy and writing style of the sequel starts to take shape with each passing addition.
In terms of thoughts on the Enhanced Edition… I do not want to be kind to it. The graphical improvements and expansion of graphical options is a very needed addition, as the original game does not have VSync or a Field-Of-View slider – noticeable omissions especially when playing that version at 4K
But outside of that I have encountered a lot of issues in my playtime, including numerous crashes and issues with the minimap being retroactively added into the game. Its inclusion does help with navigating the world better compared to the pure compass system of the original, but in multiplayer I have seen several issues with waypoints not working for me as the joining player.
When looking at texture quality as well, I think the visuals of the original look better. Both games have the cel-shaded look but the original has sharper lines, a more defined style, one that especially shines considering the era of brown modern military shooters it came out in. The lighting in the enhanced edition is better on a technical standpoint, but I feel it loses some of the edge the original had.
I will end on a positive note, and highlight one thing that always brings a smile to my face whenever I have revisited the original: Mordecai.
Mordecai is the “Hunter” class of the game, with skill trees focusing on his pet Bloodwing, the usage of pistols, and my preferred tree of choice: Sniping. Whilst the trees are much smaller compared to later entries; Mordecai’s sniping tree is beautifully simple in its execution, boosting damage, ammo capacity, and ending off on a capstone of bypassing shields once fully levelled up.
Trespass is a hilariously broken skill in this game, especially considering the endgame Eridian Guardian enemies are all shields and no health. What is supposed to be a tough enemy to break through their defenses while they bombard you with attacks becomes trivial fodder that dies to a single headshot, only rarely needing a follow up shot to finish the job.
Playing as Mordy was so fun that my initial playthrough of Borderlands 2 was done using Zer0 and trying to do a similar thing, but he could just not reach the expectations I had – though this was not a bad thing, as I then switched to Salvador who is stupid amounts of fun to play as.
But rambling about the sequel needs to be another day, especially as I uh…
…liked that game a lot more.
That does it for today, what I initially thought was going to be a shorter review turned into an over three page rant. Thank you for reading if you made it this far, please stay cool wherever you are and remember to hydrate regularly throughout the day.
To purchase both Borderlands and Borderlands Enhanced, visit the Steam Store here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/729040/Borderlands_Game_of_the_Year_Enhanced/
Rosalia Rambles 