Borderlands 3 Review (XBOX One Edition) [Review] B+
So I am a HUGE Borderlands fan. Loved BL1, BL2... Was kinda so-so on BL Pre Sequel (I actually haven't played it all the way through... Watched my son do it many many times... But wasn't really too thrilled with BL-PS.) So I was cautiously optimistic and hopeful for Borderlands 3.
It was released and I saw they had four playable characters and a decent set of customization via skill trees and abilities, as well as OVER A BILLION GUNS... Seriously. They claim and it has been verified that there are over a billion variations of guns and loot. FUCK ME!
Characters:
As I mentioned there are four playable characters.
Amara is the new playable Siren, and Vault Hunter, in Borderlands 3. She has three skill trees for you to explore - Brawl, Mystical Assault and Fist of the Elements. In Borderlands 3, Amara joins the ranks of the Siren class, alongside Lilith and Maya.
My wife is currently playing this character and I'm glad because she is my least favorite of the four.
FL4K is a pet-based Beastmaster class. Many of their abilities augment FL4K and FL4K's pet as well. FL4K also has a custom spot for their pet, so players can choose the companion that works best for them. FL4K can also customize their Action Skill with two augments at once.
This is the second character I've been playing. This is the character I play when my wife and I do co-op. He is FUCKING FUN!!!! I like to run with MONKEY! No monkey no... Put bandit's head back on body... BOOOOOOM!
Moze is a battle-hardened former Vladof army soldier who specializes in mechanized combat. She uses an action skill to digistruct and climb into her bipedal tank, Iron Bear, which has hardpoints suitable for mixing, matching, and mounting high-velocity Railguns, rapid-firing Miniguns, semi-automatic Grenade Launchers, flamethrowers, pneumatic fists, and homing rocket launchers.
I haven't had a chance to play her yet, but my son has and he has been having a blast with her. (Is that PC for me to say?)
Zane the Operative is Borderlands 3's resident tech expert, with an ingenious gadget at the ready for any life-or-death situation. Zane can equip two Action Skills at once, though choosing to do so will replace his ability to toss grenades.
This badass mother fucker is my main and I have been having a grand oh time blowing shit up and killin with him. I like to run the digi-clone and make shite go boooooom.
OK, so now that we have the playable characters out of the way let's discuss the good the bad and the ugly.
Good:
- END GAME is fucking amazing...
- Combat is fast and fun
- Lots of Bosses and mini bosses
- Lots and lots of loot
- Lots of side quests, crew missions, etc... to satisfy the completist out there...
- Redemption for Lilith. (I actually was getting to hate her after the stuff in BL-PS)
- Two-Player scaling of low level player with higher level is balanced brilliantly.
- HUGE player locations
- REPLAYABILITY!!!!
- FREE additional content... Take for example the free Bloody Harvest
- DLCs (There's much more coming for Borderlands 3!)
- Celebrity guest appearances in the game made me laugh and was awesome.
- Humor and pop culture references are here as usual and I love it.
- The villains in the game are truly worthy of being slaughtered over and over and over again. I could not wait to fucking kill them. Good job on creating character we could hate. Make no mistake they aren't Handsome Jack. And his humor is sorely missed. But they are their own characters and helped fuel the game forward.
Bad:
- Bosses can be frustratingly hard! I mean like "throw your controller at the screen and yell" hard.
- Some of the early game doesn't 'feel' fresh and exciting... In fact, it's not really until part 4 that I really got into the game
- I don't like the voice actor for Claptrap
Ugly:
- Holy shit!!! Frame rates SUCK hard, there's times when me and the wife are playing and one of us opens the menu and the game literally stutters and freezes and then slow renders
- Graphics on XBOX compared to PC SUCKS ASS!!!! Looks horrible on certain details
- Two-Player CoOp is a fucking pain in the ass, when you want to set one player on top of the screen and the other on the bottom...
- Non-Skippable cut-scenes? WTF?!!!!! This hurts bad when you want to roll another character and have to sit through a shit-ton of vid you've already seen.
- AIM assist seems really fucking broken.
- Audio issues, there were a few spots where audio just completely cut out for dialog. Fortunately I had the subtitles on so I didn't miss it. But it was for the Ice-T bear missions and I was a little bummed out.
On the plus side, they are working their ass off and patching like crazy. So far I have been thoroughly impressed enough that I give this bitch a B+ where any other game which suffered from all the ugly would've gotten a D+. The gameplay and content saved their asses. If they keep on improving, then I imagine by the time Christmas rolls around some of this will be resolved. If you're on the PC the good news for you is many of the issues listed in the Ugly section don't exist. So yay PC users.
Summary? For me, this is easily Game of the Year and I can't approve it enough. If you love Borderlands, this is the same formula with a LOT more added to it. :)
