Two remastered Borderlands games in one package, but is it enough?
I’m fairly new to the Borderlands series, I recently finished the first game and have been going through Telltale’s episodic series, but I missed out on Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel…until now, what’s great is that as a newcomer to the games I didn’t know what to expect other than the rise and fall of Handsome Jack, but is there more to this remaster than meets the eye?
Some might question why 2K/Gearbox didn’t just make a Borderlands Trilogy collection; I honestly don’t know the answer as I’d love a next-gen version of the original Borderlands. Still, its great value for money as each game will take you roughly 60+ hours to get through and that’s without getting all the trophies. The Pre-Sequel was the first of the two I dived into and was stunned by the visual upgrades, although I’m not a huge fan of the zero gravity gameplay and died numerous times because of it.
Borderlands has always been better as a co-op affair and the Handsome Collection is no different. I struggled to get through both games solo, I did…but it took a lot of dying to get there, the difficulty has stepped up a considerable notch from the first game. The formula remains the same with the series in its looting, RPG elements as well as plenty of optional side-quests and impressive main quests, I found Borderlands 2 to be a lot more enjoyable in this regard than the Pre-Sequel, but overall I found that pretty fun too.
It’s the characters you come across that are truly memorable in the series, from Handsome Jack to Mad Moxxi; each has their own unique personality that stands out from the crowd. It’s great to have both games looking as good as they do, the Pre-Sequel has some small framerate issues and texture loading ones too, but they seem to have already improved since launch and I hope they continue to improve further.
The Verdict
Overall, the Handsome Collection is a steal at its price tag of £45. There’s hundreds of hours of content between the two, it’s highly enjoyable from start to finish and while it’d be nice to see Borderlands 1 getting added to the mix, it’s still an impressive collection and a worthy remaster for any fan or newcomer.
