10 Reasons We're Still Playing Borderlands

Ahead of this week's release of Borderlands 2, we celebrate the original.

It's coming up to three years since the release of Gearbox's post-apocalyptic shootfest Borderlands and it still feels as fresh as ever. This game not only fuelled my need to pick up and play something - anything - in between 18 hour shifts locked in my room during a particularly hectic final undergraduate year, but it kept me entertained the following summer with old friends who had just picked it up and even the summer after that, when I finally decided to mop up the achievements. Despite it's old age (videogames age in something like triple dog years), myself and many other fans of the game are still picking it up for more runthroughs even to this day. Here are a few reasons why you should think of doing the same.

10. Agoraphobia & Misanthropism

If you're anything like me, by 2009 I was not only getting pretty tired of World of Warcraft but also the day-to-day grind of having to deal with some of the frustrating idiots who populated it. Corpse camping, spamming, hassling, begging or just general trolling are some of the things that make an MMO what it is - and that can be a great thing - but after several years it starts to wear thin. Then Borderlands came along. It was, of course, never any kind of direct competitor to the MMO market, but it did say 'hey, you know all that stuff you love about MMOs; all the awesome coloured loot and exploration? I do that, too, but without all the people getting in the way. Try me out'. I did, and it was the perfect prescription to third-person MMO ennui.
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Contributor

Obsessive gamer trying to win at Achievements between working in film and new media.