![]() You never know if the next gun you pick up will have the magical RNG combination of perks and abilities you've been looking for. The quest for the Next Best Weapon is never-ending, looping you into an endless, entertaining cycle of extermination and experimentation. Your tight backpack offers endless and thrilling experimentation, forcing you to constantly scour the ground - or yank open the doors to chemical toilets (pulling back to avoid the inevitable, if inexplicable, splashback) - in search of something, anything, with a full clip. Guns feel weighty and solid, and firefights are both frantic and fabulous. I rolled off the back of Gears 5 to jump into Pandora - a fact that could've biased my entire experience, let's face it - but trust me: the shooter part of Borderlands 3's shooter-looter pedigree is sublime. I'll admit it's hard to follow anything whilst in a party of pals, but the emotionally-charged moments felt a little too contrived at times, especially when peppered either side of humdrum missions, combat sequences, and a lot of backtracking. The story is woven in between the firefights, but the game's endless quest for better guns and loot meant my grasp of what's going on was slippery as I was often distracted by looting or going through my inventory. They're gorgeous places, stuffed with colour and detail, and whilst the busy work on each planet varies little and you'll continue to complete similar fetch quests and battle the same cookie-cutter selection of bandits, mutants, grumpy wildlife, and ne'er-do-wells, you can't help but feel invigorated by the change of scenery. Whilst you'll spend a good time trudging across the beige, lawless landscape of Pandora, Borderlands 3 invites you to other places, too, such as the neon skyline of ultra-futuristic Promethea. The writing veers wildly from corny to gut-wrenching cringy, but I suppose if the plan was to make me want the nauseating duo dead: mission accomplished, Gearbox. I loathed them on sight and not once found their anarchical patter and demands for viewers to "Like, follow and obey!" amusing. The chief antagonists - Calypso Twins Troy and Tyreen - are a throbbing embarrassment of cliches and facepalm-worthy one-liners, and their "Children of the Vault" cult lackeys are no better. You play as one of four Vault Hunters in a story that takes place after the events of both Borderlands 2 and Telltale's excellent narrative adventure, Tales from the Borderlands. It's a hypnotic loop and one that's deliciously satisfying given the game's stunning presentation, fantastic soundtrack, and rock-solid gunplay. Whilst your skills and weaponry evolve as you progress, the mechanics of the game - shoot, loot, manage your inventory shoot, loot, manage your inventory - essentially remain the same whether you're ten minutes or ten hours into the campaign. That said, it deviates little from the blueprint that grew the franchise such a devoted fandom, and it's entirely up to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad one. No, it's not a particularly cerebral experience, but nor is it trying to be while stuffed with gore and violence and frankly infantile humour, Borderlands 3 is a solid shooter with a meaty 30-ish hour campaign, plentiful - if repetitive - busywork, and a colourful cast of hard-to-forget characters. This sequel wears these excesses proudly, like a Day-Glo badge of honour tattooed in shades of shocking pink. There's too much of everything here, though too many guns, too much loot, too many bandits, too much driving, banter, talking, and way too many irksome, irritating villains. It turns out my fears were unfounded, and it's to Gearbox's credit that while I'm waiting for the novelty of this sequel's balls-to-the-wall mayhem to wear off, it still hasn't. Availability: Out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC.Would I understand the plot? Will there be too many in-jokes? Borderlands 3 review ![]() It's always daunting, stepping into a well-heeled universe, especially one this loved. So, as I stepped back into Pandora for Borderlands 3 I was open-minded if a tad hesitant. Though a fervent FPS fan, Pandora's beige world of anarchy and excess just didn't click for me. ![]() I'd ventured to Pandora before, but they were little more than fleeting visits, really. The in-your-face hyper-meta edgelord humour? Nah, I'm good, ta. The eleventy gazillion gun options in its predecessor? That overwhelmed me more than it intrigued. The humour is even more annoying, the guns even more amazing and Gearbox's shooter is more divisive than it's ever been.īorderlands 3 and I don't seem particularly compatible not on paper, anyway.
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