Why was Borderlands 1 so much better?

[Kolpo]

Come on, I can't be the only one who's upset with the series turning into a juvenile memefest and reference spam. It's not even about nostalgia either.
BL1 manages tone so much better than its successors. It's gritty and kind of dark, but not without that trademark "crazy" vibe to it.
BL2/TPS on the other hand are more like Rick and Morty aka a stream of gratuitous violence and pop-culture references for the sake of references, neither of which is good.
I really like the first game over the next installments and i hope somebody else shares that sentiment.

[Bansheebutt]

I liked that in Borderlands 1, the general Madness of the setting was mostly treated as something specific to Pandora and the search for Vaults.

BL2/TPS implies the whole universe is as insane and over the top as the typical Psycho.

[SharK]

Personally, I think it is unfair to put BL2 and TPS in the same league. I think most people can agree that TPS was poor in its writing, character design and mechanics.

BL2 took a lot of the charm that BL1 had and improved on it. Not necessarily through writing or characters but through game mechanics. BL2 is definitely more memefesty that BL1, which I personally like in an ironic sense but I could understand liking the vibe of BL1 more.

BL1 was a great start and laid some incredible foundations for the BL series but nearly every aspect apart from the "memefest" aspect had been improved on. enemy scaling, weapon variety, skill variety, quests; most importantly the bosses.

What really separates BL1 from BL2 is the way legendary/pearlescent weapons are given. BL1 all you have to do is open chests continuously and get lucky or fight Crawmerax if you want a pearl. BL2 you actually have to fight the bosses that drop the specific legendary weapon. Personally, I prefer BL2's way of giving legendaries and pearls.

BL2 definitely overuses references though. As you said, sometimes it feels like they are just doing it for the sake of it. I think it is also important to remember their target market. They are trying to appeal to pre-teens and above. Back in 2012 I think all the references would have been funnier. I dunno tho ^-^

[Vidmaster]

Originally posted by Kolpo:

Come on, I can't be the only one who's upset with the series turning into a juvenile memefest and reference spam. It's not even about nostalgia either.
BL1 manages tone so much better than its successors. It's gritty and kind of dark, but not without that trademark "crazy" vibe to it.
BL2/TPS on the other hand are more like Rick and Morty aka a stream of gratuitous violence and pop-culture references for the sake of references, neither of which is good.
I really like the first game over the next installments and i hope somebody else shares that sentiment.

Personally i prefer the first game just because the balance is marginally better. level 60+ on bl2 becomes a spamfest of using broken or op items that trivalize the game not to mention how some characters *ahem Gaige* are practically unplayable.

But I also prefer the more gritty feel and comic look of bl1 where jokes arent forced in every 15 seconds.

[★MrDragon★]

It just feels like the vending machines in bl2 does not have anything useful inside of them but in bl1 you can find weapons that are better what you been using even underlevel (I went from lvl 10 to lvl 25 before i found a better pistol)

[Astro_80 (WASH YOUR HANDS!)]

Well, it's totally subjective, ye? Some people like Borderlands, some like Borderlands 2, some like Presequel and others like all three games. I personally like all three games, but I like Borderlands the most.

[Fredrikorex]

I like the first borderlands for the guns, I like the 2nd one for the action skills.

I've played bl2 way more tbh but I still enjoy going back to this game sometimes, problem for me is the lack of friends I have that would be willing to play this compared to bl2. Also things like the fov being annoying to work with doesn't help.

[demonwyrm]

I'm currently doing a massive BL1 playthrough and there's definitely some sort of charm to it that I can't quite put my finger on. It's darker. It's grittier. It's a lot more desolate. It really feels like you're alone on a planet that's been strip mined, abandoned by the corporations and left to the people they left behind.

I do like the fact that BL2 added more story to the game and I mostly enjoy the humor, even if it's childish. Jack is a great antagonist and I think he stole the show this time around. One of my problems with the humor is that it's sometimes hard to figure out when they're trying to be serious because there's always a joke surrounding the subject matter (like what happened to Tina's mother). I also agree that they expanded a little too much with the craziness and now all of humanity seems like it's absolutely insane, especially what we saw from the corporate side of things in TPS.

Still, it's a great series. I don't really like one game more than the other, at least as far as story and atmosphere are concerned. BL1 is a little rough around the edges in gameplay, and the animations aren't as polished (the sprint animation is awful). But it's the first game and still a lot of fun to play.

[★MrDragon★]

I kinda want that the gire from first gane would come to bl3 and that wending machines can be USEFUL not like in bl2...