Borderlands? More like BORINGlands, am I right?

As Gordon Shumway would put it, “Ha! I kill me!” Sadly, though, Borderlands isn’t set on Melmac. Instead, it takes place on the lonely, bland, same-y desert-y planet Pandora, where four mercenaries are shootin’ up annoying bandits and monsters in the hopes of becoming fabulously wealthy once they find and open a legendary Vault.

Of course the Vault is a complete MacGuffin. There’s no real story here, just tons of questing and looting. There are some odd characters met along the way, like Claptrap and Dr. Zed, but they just dole out missions and make jokes. Eventually something resembling a narrative emerges towards the end of the game, but by that point I was too worn out from the frustrating combat to really give a damn.

Ok, yeah, I get it: the more I use a weapon, the better I get with it. I know I can also boost my rate-of-fire with skill points, and I also know that each character plays differently. And, yes, I am well aware of the fact this game was designed for co-operative play. Well guess what?

It’s still exasperating!

And the aiming sucks!

And I hate those rassum-frassum Skags! Those sorry excuses for boars can get bent, especially that jackass Skagzilla. Their grunts are the worst. Hell, most of the sound effects are outright obnoxious, particularly the death yells from the protagonists.

After 15 hours of fighting the same swarms of enemies, going on the same kinds of quests, using mostly the same strategies on bosses, wasting time playing with online pick-up-groups, and listening to the dull soundtrack, I gave up. No more! Done! Finito!

Borderlands is just a hackneyed first-person shooter with RPG elements tossed in to provide the illusion of depth.

Oh, what’s that? The sequel is better? Bollocks, balderdash and bullshit! Alright, fine, I’ll give it a whirl.