Borderlands 2 Review

[Halcyon.]

Borderlands 2 reminds me of the Wild West. The one in the John Wayne movies, cigar in the corner of the scornful mouth, bearded unwashed men and many duels. With or without Indians, but with mutant dogs, oversized bats, weird hairy things that get to be hat ornaments or crazy suicidal people rigged with explosives.
But our wilderness is Pandora and it has a new bad boy, Handsome Jack (he’s not really handsome, but nicknames do have a purpose) that continues digging in the name of the Hyperion corporation for a new bigger, better and richer Vault than the one in the first Borderlands.

The story goes in the same style as its predecessor, many ironies, sexual (or not) jokes, good and especially bad jokes involving huge shotguns. Also, the single-player part continues to feel like a training to get used to the new guns, abilities and the redrawn skill tree.
That’s actually the only news in the game, gameplay changes that improve already existing features but don’t really deliver innovations. In a way, Borderlands 2 doesn’t really need them, but on the other hand I have a deja-vu and the things I couldn’t stand in the first game continue to bother me. A matter of taste, of course, that doesn’t make the monster chaos a less pleasant fight to the death.

I have my gun, I’m a Gunzerker
The 4 characters (or 5 if you have the Mechromancer DLC) make a comeback and the multiplayer cooperatively uses them just as well and even better now, that Steam is used instead of the bizarre weird GameSpy platform. Like before, each hero (Siren and Mechromancer being females) has a dedicated ability and 3 skill trees organized around it. One can’t obviously maximize everything until getting to the 50 level cap, but you can try the True Vault Hunter mode, a new game with fresh kills, scaled to your powers.
The Assassin traded abilities and took the Phasewalker from the Siren, becoming a hologram ghost while killing from behind. The Commando can get to creating 2 turrets and throws grenades in critical moments; the Siren now has Phaselock which allows her to catch enemies and ease their kill, then heals at the same time and reprograms foes to kill each other. The Gunzerker is again the nut one, using 2 guns for a short time and comboing weapons for a rain of critical hits, while the Mechromancer can call for Deathtrap’s help.

Each character had its perks and something to offer to each type of player, but the gameplay is clearly organized for multiplayer. Abilities work much better together with three friends: you can use it all better and a new player levels up fast thanks to the shared experience and the Badass system, a leaderboard system that ties to the person, not to the character class when offering bonuses.
Since there are no armors or other accessories like in the medieval inspired RPGs, Borderlands 2 concentrates 100% on weapons, with a huge variety and all sorts of combos to facilitate a clean a bloody kill.
It’s now easier to differ 2 pistols, the stats are visually clearer and the skills take to improving them in general (accuracy, charger, efficiency etc.) or on specific areas, depending on your preference for pistols, shotguns, snipers or other repetition guns. Another big plus is that you are always tempted to look for something else and the special damage guns are even more attractive now, with electricity, fire or toxins to drain the monsters’ life. Careful though on the cooperative side, the loot is common and the fastest players get the better items, which can turn ugly in random online games.

Shoot you in the head or in the chest?
No matter what, the main or secondary missions always end up with shootings. Even if you aren’t in the mood to do them all, you’d better at least accept them because the difficulty level is no walk in the park; one doesn’t want to get to the end and not be leveled enough to hit the boss, plus all the objectives are fun, not just “kill X and get me his heart on a China plate”.
You also get challenges now, independent objectives automatically updated as you kill something using a certain weapon or else in a certain area, for example. Each completed challenge gives you Badass points to improve some attributes that apply to any character you have, not just to the current one. It might be a small thing, but it matters for those that want to experiment with different classes and combos without restarting all the time.

Enemies are a little smarter too, even if the AI is still low – no need for advanced tactics, just a decent weapon combo. True, the behavior is different, from monsters with suicidal tendencies to humans that roll and cover, going through exploding baddies and callers for reinforcements or users of drones that repair them on the battlefield.
The hordes of monsters quickly transform the fights into a tense chaos and one must be careful not to get critical, at which time one can save himself from a load screen by killing an enemy. Prioritizing targets is most important, especially when there’s a boss around, an action simpler to do when cooperating with three other friends.

A desert of frozen lava
Pandora has changed a lot, even if the graphics still have the cel-shading (black edges). Po[CENSORED]ted by mad people and monsters, the planet is also home to some cute characters – Claptrap, the megalomaniac robot is back, then Scooter the mechanic, Moxxi, Tiny Rina or even Handsome Jack. Dialogues are very juicy even if they get mixed up sometimes and each NPC comes with a personality and at least 2-3 lines to say.
There many areas to visit and admire at the higher than consoles resolution, from the frozen areas in the beginning to the fiery volcanos in the end. The vehicles are back, even if they are still difficult to handle and need to be used to get faster to your destination. The names of the areas also remind of that wild trigger happy West and the secrets in them make you go through every corner of the maps.

Borderlands 2 isn’t too much of a novelty for the FPS genre or the first game in the series. But it does it better and nicer even if it will be very familiar to the veterans. It has a better story, monstrous enemies (in a good way), better rewards and the same crazy sense of humor that will brighten your day.