Borderlands 2 Review!

The easiest way to describe the Borderlands franchise to the uninitiated is “First-person shooter Diablo 2” but even that doesn’t truly do it justice. Yes, you choose a character out of 4 choices and level them up as you please. Yes, enemies drop random loot with a wide variety of often-ridiculously fun effects. The real strongpoint of the series, however, is in its undeniable charm and sense of humor. With a very minimal amount of storytelling, the game manages to make you care about the world of Pandora. You will never shed a tear (except maybe through laughter) and you won’t get swept up in an epic story, but you will still love all of your time interacting with the colorful cast and you will be sad when it all ends. Luckily for you, it takes a very long time to reach that conclusion, and there are more than enough guns and other goodies to find to easily justify multiple playthroughs.

Story:

To say that Borderlands 1 was a bit lacking in the story department is an understatement. You were a vault-hunter, and your only concern was finding a mythical hidden vault on the planet Pandora which supposedly held untold riches. There were some interesting characters along the way and plenty of laughs, but the story itself was never all that important. You were there for loot and little else.

Borderlands 2 steps up its storytelling in a big way and does so without taking itself too seriously. The plot mainly revolves around the antagonist, Handsome Jack. Jack found the vault from the previous game after the original vault-hunters cleared it out and discovered a new substance inside called Eridium. This finding allowed him to become incredibly wealthy and take over the Hyperion Corporation effectively making him the ruler of Pandora. You play as 1 of 4 new vault-hunters, lured to the planet by the promise of a new vault and ambushed by Handsome Jack, kick starting your personal quest for revenge and the salvation of Pandora. Also loot.

Like the original game, your character and fellow players are mostly faceless killing machines. You’ll only hear yourself speak in the form of commentary when you find loot, get a critical hit, deploy special abilities, and other triggers. However, the original vault-hunters from the first game return and actually show some character development. In addition, many of the original, lovable characters from the first game make a return for this sequel along with new ones. Fan favorites like Dr. Zed and Scooter fulfill their original roles, while new NPCs like Tiny Tina and Sir Hammerlock provide their own unique brands of absurdity. While few are hugely plot-relevant, they all provide laughs on a regular basis.

The real star of the show is Handsome Jack. You rarely see him in person, but he will always take time out of his busy day to verbally berate you, brag to you, and be an all-around jerk through ECHO calls, which is where the character’s portrait shows up in the corner of your screen as they talk to you. As the story progresses he even goes through a gradual shift in how he regards you, beginning with indifference, like killing you is on his to-do list and little else, to hot-blooded hatred as you get closer and closer to ruining him. In a way, Handsome Jack is the story, as he’s with you from beginning to end and giving you the motivation to push on, aside from the gazillion guns you’re always finding. Many of fiction’s greatest villains make you love to hate them, but Jack is unique in that you can’t help but look forward hearing more from him despite all of the terrible things he does.

Gameplay:

To those new to Borderlands, it is a combination of first-person shooter and RPG elements. The actual gameplay and control scheme is straight forward FPS; you point at enemy, pull the trigger, they die, rinse and repeat. However the real meat of the game comes from the RPG side of the equation. After every hit, a number will pop up above your enemy that signifies how much damage was dealt after factoring in where you hit, how much damage your current weapon does, and any weaknesses that you might have exploited with elemental weapons. Furthermore, every enemy drops randomized loot with all kinds of different effects. You’ll find your usual variety of shotguns, assault rifles, etc, but the real fun comes from finding weapons with interesting attributes. You’ll start with finding weapons that might do elemental damage, but later on you’ll find guns that explode like grenades whenever they run out of ammo and even weapons with f lat-out ridiculous effects, like a rifle that shoots 9 bullets at a time in a spread shaped like a bird, complete with flapping wings. In fact, the only weakness in gameplay comes from how many weapons you’ll find while only having room in your inventory for 25 items. I quickly filled my inventory with a wide variety of weapons that I loved without any room for new additions. This is still an improvement over the first game, however, as is the interface. New players may not notice, but veterans of the first game will remember the terribly clunky menus from before and will be pleased to know that they have been drastically improved.

Further expanding on the RPG element is the fact that every enemy gives experience which you use to level up and improve your character. Nearly all of these bonuses are passive effects such as an increase in assault rifle damage to faster reload speeds, but the most interesting ones improve your character’s special ability. Each of the 4 playable classes has a special skill that is unique. Paxton, the commando, can deploy a turret every so often that automatically fires at nearby enemies for a limited time. Certain upgrades in his skill tree allow additional guns on the turret, a shield that protects him and allies, and even a nuclear detonation upon deployment. These abilities are what make each class unique and fun to play individually or with a group, even when playing through your 2nd or 3rd playthrough. Speaking of which, you’ll likely find yourself around level 30 or so when you complete the game, but doing so simply unlocks a more challenging difficulty wi th better loot and scaling enemy levels, giving you plenty of playability as you work towards that level 50 cap. This coupled with 4 promised DLC packs makes this not only the longest shooter out there but an incredibly lengthy adventure compared to any genre.

Graphics:

Borderlands 2 uses the same cel-shaded style of its predecessor but with a lot of improvements and tweaks. The first thing you’ll notice when you first start the game is the greater draw distance, allowing for more expansive environments without the blurry filter used by the first game. Second, all of the textures have been improved and colors have been added, making the comic-book look more detailed and preventing the eye-sores caused by close inspection of elements from the first game. The biggest addition, however, is the improved variety of locales present on Pandora this time around. The first game took place mostly in a desert setting, but Borderlands 2 breaks that tradition from the very beginning. You begin on a glacier and will later find yourself in volcanoes, caverns filled with acidic muck, and a futuristic city that serves as Handsome Jack’s utopia for beautiful people. There are deserts of course, but by the time you come across one you’ll have seen so many other environments that you’ll hardly feel like its repetitive.

If you have a PhysX-capable computer and graphics card, I highly recommend you play this game on PC as there are some truly fantastic additional visual treats if your rig can handle them. For example, killing an enemy with an acid weapon causes them to melt into a green goo, but with PhysX enabled you’ll see more activity in the resulting mess, such as dripping down and between steps or splattering on walls. Explosions are also livelier and enemies are much more fluid, especially in their rag-doll deaths. Additional elements will also be added to the game, such as tarps hanging from boxes that behave realistically in the breeze and pipes with dripping liquid that react to outside forces, such as grenades that pull things towards them before exploring. These are just a few examples; if you have the time there are plenty of video and screen capture comparisons highlighting the differences. The game still looks great and runs incredibly on just about any set-up or either console, but if you have a system that can handle the improved graphics then it’s a no-brainer.

Sound:

The most notable sound elements in this game are the voices and the music. Every character is voice acted well, from Handsome Jack to the weakest psychopath, and each one will induce a laugh in their own way. After having played one character through to the end of my first play-through and 2 others halfway through, I still crack a smile every time I kill a midget psychopath and he screams, “Ahaha, Ahhhhh Here lies Midgemidge, mmmmmm!” The varied one-liners and jokes are easily one of the most charming aspects of Borderlands, and the sequel adds more of them and with better quality.
The music, on the other hand, is arguably a boon or a detriment. The normal music played during exploration has a very western feel to it, a theme that the game is quite eager to push. Combat, on the other hand, is often met with a heavy dubstep tracklist. It sometimes doesn’t pick up until your shields go down, so if you’re a fan of this genre you’ll find yourself slightly hoping you’ll take some damage so that you can enjoy the unique music. It may be dubstep, but it is certainly high-quality dubset. If, however, you find such music grating and irritating, you’re out of luck as it is the main theme of combat. I found it appropriately chaotic and a bit goofy, but I fully expect some people to be turned off by this particular artistic choice.

Verdict:

The first Borderlands was a groundbreaking game in its own right. It was one of the best co-op games available and won plenty of game of the year awards, deservedly so. However, Borderlands 2 renders the first game obsolete. It took everything good about its predecessor and improved upon it substantially while taking everything bad and either erased it completely or revamped it into something great. It gave the story some teeth while still making it comical, it kept the same addictive loot-based killing spree gameplay while cleaning up the previously sluggish interface, and it maintained the unique art-style while finding subtle ways to improve it to a near-perfect finish. There have been a lot of good games this year, but Borderlands 2 is the only game to offer such an incredible amount of content in such a crisp, beautiful package. It’s also the only games to offer over a gazillion guns, so there’s that too.