Análises recentes de WatchYourToneBoi

Sleeping with my thesis committee members has sadly not borne fruit. My latest PhD thesis on Petersonian marketplace archetypes has yet to be approved :(

Although this is my ninth year of doing PhD (grateful to the government for a full ride so far), I feel inspired to try again. This is because I happened by happenstance to play The Plan' Thank you Krillbite Studios, you have inspired me to write another thesis!

The hysterical heuristic of The Plan is thus: we the player are a fly on the wall observing and playing as a fly. Yes this is very meta, I'm sure you Gen Zers would love that. Anyway, you are a fly on the wall playing as a fly. Martin Scorcese would no doubt opine that this is absolute cinema. I would superopine further that The Fly is absolute cinema reified using a Dzigavertovian lens into a game. Beautiful.

The doleful bzz bzz of the fly is contraposed by windy winds ("whoosh") and Mongolian wind chimes ("clink clink"). As the fly ascends, we are assaulted by heavenly orchestral music giving way to buzzy, fuzzy static. This is all according to the dev's plans. Exquisite.

The Fly is clearly an epistemological melange of Kantian ethics along with a dash of Nietzsche and a tingly panache of Plato. Although the ludonarrative locus of this game is hard to ascertain, I can see subtle nods made by the devs to Habsburg mating practices. Beautiful.

Thank you for reading my thesis based on this game. I am hopeful that it will be approved this time around. Fingers crossed!

Short and sweet game, thoughtful just like Passage (not as emotionally resonant though). Game is absolutely worth playing, look forward to more games from Krillbite Studios.

10/10

Edit: I am receiving too many personal missives (DMs as the callow youths call them these days). These messages are full of frothing bile, calling me pretentious and vain. Alas there are too many plebeian philistines on Steam these days. Long gone are those halycon days when we could discuss ludonarrative dissonance and practice goon theory over high tea.

Make no mistake plebs, I have personally forwarded your hate to Lord Gabriel of the hallowed House of Newell. He shall personally attend to my predicament as time permits.

Simi Liu recently tweeted: "A man who never eats pork bun is never a whole man." Why did Simi Liu tweet this? Turns out that he is making a movie adaptation of the game Sleeping Dogs. Huh. I check my Steam library and saw that I had 'Sleeping Dogs'. Installed the game and started playing it.

I'm midway through the game and I can see why this is a fan favorite gem. Sleeping Dogs reminds me of the old GTA games like San Andreas and Vice City. The gameplay is very sandboxy with a lot of content packed into the small map of Hong Kong. Rockstar lost that spirit with the newer GTA games. Indeed, many open world games in urban settings could be like Sleeping Dogs. Less is more and what not.


Sleeping Dogs is a great game marred by one annoying bug. You have to drive your car on the left. Argh! I can't believe developers skipped this major bug! They even forgot to patch it post-launch and in the Definitive Edition!

Some would say I am griping. But these kind of bugs have real world implications. Trust me: you dont want to hear kids in the bus screaming when you're almost driving on the left like in game. Next thing you know you're catching hell from the parents!

Another minor gripe here: it's hard to hire a taxi cab without hijacking it. The button command is the same for both functions which sucks UI wise. I eventually found a workaround for this. Go to the back/front of the taxi and then press the 'Hire Taxi' button. Makes playing the game a lot easier.

The HUD is also an annoying distraction. I wish there was a toggle HUD hotkey so I could immerse myself more in the game (you can do this in the settings but it is multiple steps each time). Same applies for the Social Hub notifications which get distracting after a while.

Sleeping Dogs makes you want to visit Hong Kong. I cannot say how authentic the game is to the actual city. But the setting in game is lively, intricate and makes for an amazing immersive experience.

If you miss the 80s/90s/the 00s, try experiencing those decades from the perspective of a different country! Trust me, nostalgia hits different when you go beyond AmerIca or the West in general. Because of Sleeping Dogs, I went into a rabbit hole watching classic action films from Hong Kong. You get the feel of an era gone by and it hits the right spot. Recommendations? You won't be disappointed by John Woo films, the Young and Dangerous series and the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Do you enjoy going to the restroom in video games? And you should be able to pee and wash your hands afterwards right? This game lets you do that. I can't remember the last time I did that in a videogame (or IRL really). Beautiful.

Fans of mental health will appreciate the little touches in Sleeping Dogs that speak to those issues. Being an informant is a tough job. There is a lot of psychological stress involved and you could die (often in a brutal way). As Wei Shen, you can really feel the stress and anxiety he is weighed down by. In between missions, you see Wei experiencing nightmares from all the violence he is exposed to. Wei gets up abruptly from these nightmares, shaking and gasping. You see him get up, still feeling jittery, telling himself to "keep it together." I would stop for a few moments just to watch Wei and process what he was going through. Very few games made me feel that way, to actually care for the mental health of my video game protagonist.

It is because of things like these that I am sad about the closure of United Front Games. Really wish they were still around to launch Sleeping Dogs 2.

(Side note: If you want to watch a film about the informant life, I'd recommend the Scorcese masterpiece 'Departed'. Also does a great job of showing the stress and strain of being an informant.)

I am a huge fan of the Second Amendment (specifically of its universal adoption across the world). As my fans (and haters) know, I advocate for open carry no matter which game you are playing.

Wei Shen lived in America. He used guns there like any true American. So why shouldn't he have free access to guns in HK? He does not sadly and that is crazy!

Guns are hard to find in Sleeping Dogs. You are forced to defend your life with fists and knives. Just like the commoners in Britain do.

This game also fails the open carry in games test sadly. Try going about with a gun on you in Sleeping Dogs. Vendors look upon your big assault rifle with suspicion. They refuse to do business with you. Civilians cower in fear (despite your reassurances) and promise to "be your slave." As if things couldn't get worse, the police will outright chase you if you are open carrying. This is sad!

This game is focused on melee combat as a core mechanic. Sleeping Dogs is inspired by martial arts films. You are able to do a variety of martial art moves, some of which are lovely to use. Everytime you do a bonebreaker or limbbreaker, it is satisfying to hear that crunch of breaking bone and the scream of your hapless victim.

I really miss the Midnight Club games. I would spend hours racing tuned up cars through densely populated night cities, pumped up on high octance trance and rap tracks. Midnight Club captured that core experience so well for me and I've been seeking it in many games.

Sleeping Dogs devs did a good job capturing some of that of Midnight Club magic. The race tracks are well designed and the rubberbanding is not too bad. The race music is mostly meh. If you're struggling with the races, I'd recommend purchasing more vehicles. That should makes the races easier.

Vehicular combat is also satisfying to play and master in this game. You learn how to ram other vehicles and wreck them. Okay cool: the mechanic gets boring after a while. But then the game introduces you to shooting while driving. Damn! High octance vehicle chases combined with gun battles on the freeway. The missions with this mechanic are pure fun. GTA games have never done driving+shooting well. Rockstar devs should take notes from Sleeping Dogs in this aspect.

Sleeping Dogs has some banger tracks. Even the main menu theme is a bop to groove to (someone should put bars to that ).

The Sleeping Dogs soundtrack features songs from many genres such as Cantopop, Canto rap, Western rap, electronic music etc. Check this guide for a full list of songs.

As I said, this game lacks polish and has some achievement breaking glitches and bugs. Sadly those issues were not fixed in the Definitive Edition.

At several points in the game, the achievements don't pop up. This was the case for collectible achievements. I checked the forums and there are others who faced the same issues. (Reloading a past save helped here.)

In the Nightmare in North Point DLC, you can lock yourself out of killing demons and getting an achievement for that.

Because of these issues, I can't recommend Sleeping Dogs for completionist gamers.

Sleeping Dogs is an underrated open world masterpiece. This game lacks polish and has glitches and bugs. Even so, it is worth playing from your backlog. I really hope the upcoming Sleeping Dogs movie is a good one that pleases longtime fans. The Sleeping Dogs franchise deserves to keep growing. Maybe the next movie or game will feature a sleeping dog, yeah?

Great game, don't have a pork bun in my hand, 9/10

Bioshock 2 is a must play for fans of the franchise. But this classic version is buggy and broken. Way too many crashes. Yes I have tried a variety of fixes. And yet the crashes still occurred. The Fontaine Futuristics level is a nightmare to play in particular.

I also faced microstutters and uneven FPS here and there.

It is too much effort to make this game work. Plus the developers/publishers are not inclined to patch what is an amazing but broken game as it stands.

Note on MP: More or less dead but there are servers and players still around. Some recommend doing solo play to 100% the MP achievements. We'll see about that.

Edit: MP achievements are a grind. Especially since the playerbase is mostly dead and getting public matches is hard. As such, I won't be recommending this game for completionist gamers.


3/10 Get the Remastered Version instead

Great game! Some players have expressed feeling sadness playing through the rollercoaster experience that is Life is Strange.

May I recommend a great movie after playing this game? Look up Requiem For A Dream. It's an old movie but it still holds up today. RFAD is also a roller coaster experience like LIS.

Trust me, Requiem For A Dream will make you relatively happier for playing Life is Strange. You're welcome!

Mad Max is an underrated masterpiece. It is an average game if I'm being honest. But there are some elements in the game that are done exceptionally well. This is why I recommend the game as worth playing from your game backlog.


Fans of Australian culture will feel disappointed with Mad Max. There is not enough Crocodile Dundee references. The wildlife is not dangerous which is ridiculous and unrealistic. The worst sin: the natives don't say '♥♥*%' at all. While playing the game, I was forced to wonder: "Is this game even set in Australia? Doesn't feel authentic!"

Mad Max is made by the same devs who made Just Cause! So fans of Just Cause will definitely love this game.

As in Just Cause, you go to parts of the map and "liberate" them. How do you,uh, liberate? Well, you blow up stuff and cause mayhem...yeah. The logical part of my brain kept screaming: "Max, STOP! Why would you blow up valuable resources and strategic locations?!" It makes no sense, especially in a post apocalyptic environment. But hey, oil camp go KABOOM! Cool explosions everywhere.

As with Just Cause, the explosions in Mad Max are gorgeous and gratifying. Whether you are blowing up a car or a large oil rig, the kaboom and carnage is satisfying to watch. It scratches that primal part of your brain that craves chaos. Someone long ago called the Just Cause games as destruction simulators. Mad Max is, in the same way, a destruction sandbox sim. We need more games of this type and the genre needs to go mainstream.

(A suggestion for game devs: destruction sims would be really great for large multiplayer games. Imagine player teams competing against each other to blow up the environment and rack up points!)

Fans of OCD are advised to perform regular cleaning rituals everytime Max:

Scoops out maggots from a rotting corpse and eats them
Stomps a rat or lizard and eats it raw
Eats dog food from an open can
Fills his water bottle out of a toilet
Picks up scrap which is full of rust and tetanus
Drives through the Dump (a garbage city basically)

No joke: this game is nightmare fuel for people with OCD. It is fortunate that the graphics are not realistic!

So director George Miller is not a fan of this game. And, to a degree, I can see why. Mad Max feels too much like an average WB action game with Just Cause style mechanics. Because of this (as well as the short game length), the Mad Max universe is not explored well. Fans seeking lore and thematic immersion will feel disappointed by this.

Even so, I think Mad Max is a decent game worth playing for fans. As I had said earlier, this game executes some elements very well. What this game captures (especially endgame) is the sheer boredom and unpredictability of being a road warrior. One moment, you are driving through miles of relentless desert landscape. There is nothing but heat and sand all around you. All you do is drive and drive. And then, out of nowhere, a convoy of enemy cars appears! You chase them or get chased, bashing car to car in deadly automobile jousts. The excitement ratchets up for a brief few moments. And then it's all gone. You are back again to the mindless driving. This is how the ending of the first Mad Max film felt like to me. And this game really nails that experience well.

Other positives: I loved the old and new school movie references in the game. They were a nice touch. Also, the game got me into the Mad Max films! I tend to avoid the post-apocalyptic genre because IRL is full of stress and suffering anyway. I am glad I took a chance with Mad Max. I remember feeling regret while playing the intro mission. Everything looked barren and lifeless and the gameplay wasn't cutting it for me. I was wondering: should I keep going or drop the game?

In hindsight, I am glad I stuck with the game. Once you get to the core missions and Just Cause style gameplay, the fun really kicks in. I spent long hours blowing up stuff and liberating regions. The main storyline was often forgotten by me. (Speaking of storyline: it is very short and okay. I recommend setting it aside and completing the side objectives first.)


Fans of Arkham style brawls will be left disappointed with Mad Max. The brawler combat is fast, brutal and exciting when it goes right. BUT it is also unpolished, glitchy and leaves you wanting more. I was unable to complete most fights without getting hit (something which I was able to do in Arkham games). I was unable to get those satisying long combos like I did with Batman. At some point, I gave up trying to do perfect brawls with Max Rocktatansky.

Faults aside, the combat in Mad Max is good when it goes right. The MK style execution finishers are really satisfying to do. The weapons are great too: you will love using the shotgun in brawls. Even better is the Thunderpoon! That melee weapon is scarcely available but gosh, when you have it in your hands, it is so good! But these fun moments are too infrequent. This is a shame.

Oh yes, this game does have light stealth mechanics! And they are quite rewarding to use.

You can go into camps Rambo style and make life difficult for yourself. Or you could be Solid Snake and play it sneaky. You can scope out a camp from afar with your binoculars, identifying defenses and weaknesses. You can gather intel for boss battles. The sniper rifle by far is my favorite stealth feature. You can use it from afar to snipe snipers, assassinate the war crier so brawls are easier or even to destroy major defenses. No joke: you can sometimes destroy half a camp with just the sniper rifle!

The minimal stealth features were a pleasant surprise and a welcome addition to Mad Max. So many times, stealth is poorly implemented in action adventure games. I am glad that wasn't the case with Mad Max.

Mad Max involves a lot of driving and car combat. So if you love driving games, modding cars and/or blowing up vehicles, this game is perfect for you! The arcade races are fun and easy to do. Modding the car with better upgrades is well paced and satisfying. The car collection is also diverse and features unique vehicles. My favorite vehicles were the blowup car and the mine dropper.

The vehicular combat may be the weakest feature for driving fans. It is fun but it becomes repetitive beyond a certain point. Platinum hunters will especially find the driving tasks to be annoying and grindy. Speaking of grind-

Yes this game has grind. But the grind is tolerable in Mad Max. You grab collectibles and blow up stuff. Do it for a while and the game is finished before you know it.

This game is perfect for achievement and completionist hunters! The length of the game is just right. The cycle of grabbing collectibles and blowing up stuff feels satisfying. If I felt bored, I would go do a main or side mission. At no point did I feel bored enough to drop the game. If only more games were 100% friendly like Mad Max!

There are some things to keep in mind while you chase that 100%. Firstly, you should look out for the scrap collection mod. This mod is essential to 100% the game. Secondly, always clear out an entire area when you enter it. Keep your eyes peeled for collectibles. With a little effort, you can easily 100% a region and you don't have to backtrack. Thirdly, you should seek to 100% the Legend section as soon as possible. The Legend tasks are hard to do in the endgame stage. This is particularly true for the Car Combat tasks. Trust me on this: clear out as many Legend tasks and you won't suffer from achievement burnout.

Decent game, pleasure to 100%, 9/10

Wow. Just wow. Borderlands 2 delivers, perfecting on Borderlands 1 in most ways. The devs polished up the bad parts of BL1 and made the good parts stellar. Borderlands 2, like The Empire Strikes Back, proves it worth as a sequel that is superior to its predecessor.

My recommendation for first time Borderlands players: don't skip Borderlands 1. Even though BL2 is better, the payoff is much more when you play 1 and then go to 2.


I came into BL2 hearing a LOT about Handsome Jack. And I'm pleased to say he lives up to his hype. Jack is an evil, cruel, egotistical and insufferable despot of Pandora. Those qualities should make him a stock two dimensional villain. But Jack is far from that. Handsome Jack is a great video game villain in ways that few make you feel.

You love to hate Jack, you rage everytime he foils you, and then you rage some more when he kills off characters you care about. Every inch you gain against Handsome Jack feels good. And, when you finally beat him in the end, you relish that sweet victory deep, deep inside you.

No joke: I killed Handsome Jack over and over in the final bossfight. I did it with every character class. Everytime I did so, it felt good. Ending Jack is more satisfying from a character perspective than a gameplay one . Very few endgame bossfights made me feel that.

A thing I realized about Jack is that I never found him funny unlike most Borderlands villains. You can hate him, you can admire his cunning but you can't laugh about Jack's villanous antics. Why is that?

Borderlands is a fun and breezy game despite being set in a violent post-apocalyptic world. Because of the art style, the wacky cast of characters, the morbid humor, you find yourself laughing along and generally not minding the dark side of Pandora. Jack yanks you out of that frame of mind. That is how great of a villain he is.

One moment you are having fun, looting and shooting bad guys. And then you come across a horrific audio log about Jack's deeds. You realize how many people's lives, including those of the characters you love, he messed up. The Borderlands writers deliver punchline after punchline to laugh about. And Jack delivers the gut punch right after, reminding you what an evil bastar d he is. On the fun and fun planet of Pandora, Jack alone holds court in embodying its ugliest and darkest parts. He alone does the heavy lifting of reminding the player how brutal a post-apocalyptic world is. And this, again, is why I believe Handsome Jack is among the greatest villains in videogame history.

Like getting lost in games that are 100+ hours long? BL2 has got your back! The full version of the game feels like it has endless content. Even just looking at the main game itself, there is so much to do. The Vault Hunter playstyles are unique and a thrill to make builds out of. Every map in BL2 has little secrets to find out or different characters to interact with. The downside to this is the grind and the monotony that eventually sets in. More on that later.

Borderlands 2 probably has the most (story) DLCs for a game I have played so far. The last DLC, Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary, was released in 2019! Think about it: that's seven years AFTER the main game was released! Oh, and even putting aside the big story DLCs, there are DLCs based on special occasions: V-Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween etc.

Most of the DLCs are meh and forgettable IMO. The ones worth playing are the Tiny Tina and Commander Lillth DLC. These two are standalone games which provide maximum fun and fan love if you are a Borderlands fan.

I'd mentioned that Borderlands 2 has a lot of stuff to do. But here's the downside to that: too many generic fetch quests. X character asks you to kill bad guys and/or retrieve items. This format goes on ad nauseam. At some point the monotony sets in doing the same thing. I had to set down the game at one point because of this.

Related point: the grind in this game is awful. There are a few reasons for this. The first, as mentioned earlier, is that the game has too many fetch quests. Secondly, this game is designed to be played with friends. That's great but the downside is balancing issues when playing solo. Enemies on the harder settings are very tanky. You are forced to slag and kill, slag and kill over and over. This is particularly true when it comes to the DLC bosses which are impossible to solo. Towards the endgame/post-game DLC stage, I found it difficult to vary my playstyle and have as much fun as I'd like to have.

The Borderlands games are amazing for co-op playing. If you want a PvE game where you chill with friends, BL1 and BL2 would be on my recommended list. As a solo player, especially those looking to 100%, I can't recommend the BL games though.

The worst aspect of this game has to be 100%ing it to get the platinum. Borderlands 1 is actually better than 2 in this aspect (and yes, I am factoring in the Underdome DLC). I've already talked about the fetch quests and enemy tankiness. On top of that, you need multiple playthroughs. And then some of the achievements are RNG based. Oh and one or more achievements are missable so you may have to start the game/DLC all over again. All of these factors combined make Borderlands 2 an awful game to 100%. It is strongly recommended to drop the game when you are getting achievement burnout.

Borderlands 2 was a better playing experience for me than BL1. I still have to play other BL games but this game felt like the peak Borderlands playing experience. In hindsight, I am glad I didn't drop Borderlands after the first game. Borderlands 2 was worth it! On to the next games on the list!

Face McShooty 8.5/10

Unpopular opinion: I like Crysis 3 the best of the Crysis trilogy. Crysis 3 returns to the jungle environs that I missed from Crysis 1. It refines upon the gameplay mechanics of Crysis 1 and 2, cutting a decent balance between the two. There are fans that wish this game was longer but I felt that the length was just fine. Where it lacks in length, Crysis 3 makes up for in terms of replay value.

Crysis 3 is slept upon among the fanbase. It deserves more love and appreciation, even if you prefer the first game more.


This game is 12 years old. And yet, I catch myself staring at the freaking grass in awe! Or I'll stop for a moment, at the top of a dilapidated building, to gaze upon the sun kissed ruins of New York skyscrapers. Crysis 3 was a graphical joy to play. What's more: I can now play this game on high settings without breaking my PC! The game's graphics have not only aged well but also look much better on modern PCs.

Sadly, the remastered version lacks a photo mode to take screenshots of the beautiful world of Crysis 3. Still, you can make do with no HUD and wider FOV through console commands.

Games today are placing less emphasis on gorgeous cutting edge graphics that roast your PC. I get that. But there is something so appealing about the beauty of Crysis games. They make you keep coming back to them!

Being a Deus Ex fan, I crave that experience of being a high powered cyborg who can stealth and shoot around in games. Crysis does a good job at scratching that itch. Granted, it is an action game where shooting and linear action takes precedence. But there are moments of emergent gameplay that can only be described as Deus-Ex like. You can sneak through areas staying cloaked or Rambo your way through enemies. Each map offers you a variety of paths to get to your objective. You can upgrade your nanosuit to suit your specific playstyle; the same applies for your arsenal of weapons.

Themes wise, Crysis 3 has a dystopian future set in a post apocalyptic New York wasteland. There is a rebel resistance fighting a tyrannical megacorp. Oh, and there is freaking aliens taking over the world! The Deus Ex parallels are hard to miss with Crysis games.

Again, we are talking of a FPS shooter here. But, as I've said before, Crysis has so much potential to be an immersive sim! The devs should atleast consider adding more RPG elements in the next Crysis game.

Maybe you're burned out from playing 100+ hour long games? Need something short and sweet then Crysis 3 is just right for you. The levels are short and fun to breeze through. And there's no grindy DLCs or annoying fetch quests to slog through. 100%ing a game always feels like a slog especially when I have finished the campaign. I am happy to say that was not the case for Crysis 3. The game levels have good replay value despite the short length.

This game is quite satisfying to 100%. Multiple playthroughs are not required which is nice. You can jump into the hardest difficulty setting which is manageable to play so long as you play smartly. The hidden achievements are also manageable to do for the most part. (Special mention goes to the one about riding a donut down the river. Wheee!)

FYI, the game only saves your progress when you reach a checkpoint. So don't die or reload the game. Just make it to the next objective and you'll be fine.

The collectibles are not hard to find except for the Nanosuit upgrade modules. For the latter, there is no level counter as with the other collectibles. This sucks since you have no idea where the upgrade modules are. I used the visor quite a bit during my playthrough so I was able to get most of the collectibles. Recommend that you do the same.

The lore of Crysis is quite thoughtful and accesible if you go through the intel items. Being a short action game, the lore isn't too deep but that's okay. Crysis 3 also has a codex database that is easily missable. The codex explains the world better and offers an enhanced experience for gamers.

Crysis 2 always left a bad taste in my mouth. I never liked playing C2 on PC. I am glad to say that wasn't the case for Crysis 3! Playing this game was a joy and it revived my interest in the Crysis franchise. I look forward now to playing the next game by Crytek!

8.5/10, Maximum Fun

Not recommended at all from a completionist gamer perspective. I've decided to give Borderlands 1 a thumbs down. I've given my decision a lot of thought. BL 1 is, in too many parts, a massive bore. It has not aged well and is NOT fun overall.

At many points, I felt like dropping the game because of how boring it gets. This game sucks to put it bluntly. BL1 is let down by its early stages as well as the DLCs. Hopefully the other games in the BL series will be more polished and better to play.

Some caveats/pointers before I proceed:

1) I have played this game twice, both the GOTY and GOTY Enhanced version. In both cases, the game became terribly boring in the same parts.

2) I am, as I said, reviewing BL1 from a primarily completionist point of view. You may not be a completionist gamer yourself but understand that you can enjoy a game from many different angles. That's the beauty of video games.

For us completionist gamers, the worst crime a game can do is to be tedious and boring. Some amount of grinding and backtracking is to be expected. But BL1, like many games of the late 2000s, takes this to absurd and tedious levels. The DLCs are particularly bad in this aspect. (Side note: BL1 is still better than GTA IV from a completionist POV. I'll give BL1 that.)

BL1 is amazing when it goes right.

♥ The dark, wicked and morbid humor! So good! I was cackling at many points listening to the Tannis ECHO logs. Borderlands devs somehow made a violent post apocalyptic wasteland "breezy" and "lighthearted." They could have gone serious and mature (like Fallout) with the tone but they didn't. This was a genius decision on their part.

♥ The characters are distinct and compelling, especially side characters like Claptrap or Moxxi. Each character in the crazy world of Pandora is unhinged (but entertaining) in some way or another.

♥ The art style is distinct and has aged quite well. Borderlands 1 is a borderline retro game at this point. Even so, you can play BL1 today and not feel put off by the older graphics. The unique art style of Borderlands is a hallmark of the series. It complements very well with the cartoonish dark humor of BL1.

♥ The loot is sweet, sweet, sweet! Enough said! Borderlands made me care about the weapons I use! Weapons in this game are awesome! My brain would perk up every time I got a rare weapon that would go on to change my playstyle.

♥ The gameplay, in conclusion, is addictive (when done right). Each character has unique action skills that supports various styles of gameplay. The challenge factor is okay but the leveling mechanism is frustrating at points. You are either too underleveled to win or too overleveled and bored.



Too hard and frustrating. Or else too easy and boring. Those were two states of mind I experienced a lot when playing BL1. Either way, I felt bored when underleveled or overleveled.


The BL1 soundtrack was okay but I wish it was better. I liked the Fyrestone map ambience but the other map soundtracks were forgettable.

The Borderlands DLCs are easily the weakest point of the game. They are either average or absolute garbage in comparison to the main game.

So so Halloween spin on Borderlands. Fun but the ambient sound is so boring! Would have appreciated some good spooky music to go along with headshotting zombies.

This is the easiest DLC when it comes to achievements. The collectibles grind is annoying as there are multiple collectible missions (50, 100, 150 and so on) in the DLC. Also, for one specific quest, the collectibles quest giver is hidden. You have to find him and get the collectibles quest from him. Only then will the game acknowledge the collectibles you are picking up.

Robot rebellion! Claptrap becomes sick of being mistreated by humans and incites a robolution! Great humor in this DLC and I enjoyed the jabs at communism made by the devs.

This DLC is probably the best one of Borderlands 1. It’s fun throughout except for the RNG collectible achievements. You have to collect a lot of items such as pizzas, panties (yeah don’t ask why), oil cans etc. And the spawn rate for these items is awful. As such, achievement hunters have to farm the MINAC boss fight for hours and hours in order to 100% the Claptrap DLC.

The second worst DLC of Borderlands 1. The Mad Moxxi DLC is super fun. You engage in round based combat with a variety of enemies. You complete 5 waves to survive one round. And you have to survive 5-20 rounds to get achievements.

Let’s do the math. 1 round is 5 waves. 5 rounds is 25 waves. There are 3 maps so that means 15 rounds which equals to 75 waves!

Those are the 5 rounder achievements. Let’s do the math for the 20 round achievements now!

1 round is 5 waves. 20 rounds is 100 waves. There are 3 maps to complete so that means 60 rounds which equals to 300 waves!!!

375 waves is A LOT! Even worse, you can’t save at any point. Once you start a map, you have to complete all the rounds and waves. The Mad Moxxi DLC is thus very exhausting. I recommend that you coop with another achievement hunter for the DLC.

(Tip: make sure that your partner is 20-30 levels above or below that of your character. Otherwise the maps are impossible to complete.)

Garbage DLC. Worst of the lot. No other way to put it.

The Knoxx DLC is sloppy, poorly made and a slog to get through. There is no fast travel in this DLC. To 100% this DLC means you have to drive through the maps over and over again. Oh and the map is not properly labelled so you never know where to go for a specific quest. (Search for ‘Borderlands General Knoxx Map’. Trust me, you’ll need it!)

If the endless driving wasn’t bad enough, you have to fight high level enemies over and over! No joke: playing this DLC will make you hate drifters. Their HP is high, hitbox is tiny, and they can easily oneshot you on foot. Even the rabid stalkers in BL2 are better enemy types to fight against.

Borderlands players will dislike me for calling General Knoxx the worst DLC of BL1. Sorry not sorry. Take your nostalgia glasses off and you realize how boring the Knoxx DLC is from a gameplay perspective. If I replay BL1, I am not touching General Knoxx.

Borderlands 1 is fun at times but too boring at so many points. I am playing Borderlands 2 now and it is way, way more fun! The devs listened to players and made BL2 so much better.

Would I recommend BL1 to new players? If you’re a Borderlands fan, then yes you should play BL1. Otherwise no, you should skip it and play BL2.

If you’re a completionist and/or achievement hunter, I’d probably say no if you’re a solo gamer. Coop gaming is necessary to 100% the game and makes it better to play.

Strip the flesh, salt the wound 6.5/10

The game is very buggy. After playing multiple levels, I realized that I wasn't unlocking any achievements. I checked the achievements list. Turns out I had already done the actions that should have unlocked specific achievements. Something was clearly wrong.

Validated files, rebooted game and tried to get achievements. This time I did get some but not others.

The one-time achievements are possible to get. But the count based achievements (e.g., kill 100 blue enemies) are awful. Because of how buggy this game is, your actions are not properly tracked. For example, if you kill blue enemies in a single level, the game sometimes registers this as ONE ENEMY that was killed. That means that you have to grind A LOT to get a single achievement!

Yes I tested all of this. I researched the problem and followed tips from other gamers. Don't restart the level, validate files, restart the game, restart your computer, only hunt achievements on completed levels etc. After a certain point, you burn out and give up. There is only so much you can as a gamer.

There are posts on Steam discussions about the broken achievements from 2016. That's nearly a decade ago! The devs did not bother to fix the game at the time. Today, I doubt that Embracer Group (the current owners) are gonna bother.

As such, this game is permanently broken. I cannot recommend it for achievement hunters/completionists.


2/10, Great puzzle game, fun and cerebral, but broken for achievement hunters/completionists

Holy freaking moly grenade goes BOOM and now all your enemies are DEAD!!!!

Not as effective outside, best used indoors.

Be careful though, if you have optional objectives, this may void those by instakilling enemies.