P0 - Overview
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Borderlands 2 comes from humble beginnings, a sleeper hit a few years before this title released, it mixed up the RPG and FPS genre by giving a little of both, all the while proving that games can be fun, competitive and well made even if you're not facing each other and murdering the crap out of your friends. Borderlands 1 put you and up to 3 others out in the world to survive and cash in on pandora's lavish treasures. Money, Guns, Shields, Mods, all there for the taking, and along the ride were some impressive enemies, some hilarious characters and writing, a colorful cell shaded world to destroy. Now It's younger brother intends to usurp its predecessor, but can it?
For fans of the series, and for newbies alike, the answer reverberates off the walls, echoes off a distant mountain, and slashes into your brain at 6000 decibels with a resounding yes.
Before I get going, this is an in depth review, if you'd like something quick and dry, its at the bottom of this review under Summary. This review is split into 3 main parts: Gameplay, Graphics & Sound, and Story, each has underlying parts. Here is a quick Reference:
P0-1 Table of Contents
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P0 - Overview:
P0-1 - Table of Contents
P1 - Gameplay:
P1-1 - Controls
P1-2 - Technical
P1-3 - Menus
P1-4 - Equipment, Areas and Enemies
P1-5 - Save progression and Multiplayer.
P2 - Graphics & Sound
P3 - Story
P4 - Summary
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P1 - Gameplay:
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P1-1 - Controls
Borderlands controls more or less like the first, with few changes. The Xbox controls shine here, LT is Aim, RT is Fire, AXBY interact. Honestly the game does a well enough job on the tutorial, and its pretty straightforward for a shooter. You shouldn't be lost in the controls. There are a few quirks but they are easy to get used to. One mention worth noting is that getting into vehicles and out of them is a little different than the first game, aside from that though, there is little difference.
The game is smooth, the inputs aren't laggy, even on a poor connection and I don't have a major issue with the way characters move, but they are a tad floatier than I'd like, but aiming, shooting and jumping feels good. You don't need to compete with the controller to get your character to do what you want. In short, BL2 is tightly controlled, and commands do what they should.
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P1-2 - Technical
The game loses a little bit of a foothold here, but it's minor. I've run into a few minor technical issues:
I've encountered a few times when my character warps a little or gets stuck on objects a wee bit, this generally occurs on tiny objects or in tight spaces about the same size in height as your character. Sometimes minor glitches occur when moving objects like platforms become temporarily able to be passed through or the game does not keep characters from moving along with them. Some environmental hazards like the geysers on bad connections may not work as intended.
**Update
As i've played more i've encountered TONS of glitches, ones where Moxxi won't give you a gun and you can't tip her anymore, ones where you can't intersct with certain objects in the world, some where your inventory will be unable to be accessed in the "sell" menu of vendors, solid bright colored ammo chests, inability to deal damage with bullets until you zone or die. Certain weapons shooting through enemies entirely, Salvador's Gunzerk doesn't work, and some instances when enemies will exist in the world but you cannot see them. Never see ANY of these in single player. Lag's a cruel mistress.
Other than a few minor things which almost never occur, the game is very solid and smooth, no framerate issues with particle effects that I have seen, and environments and enemies do not clip through objects very often if at all, nor do you. However, enemies can and will drop Mission specific items in areas you CANNOT reach forcing you to reload or wait for respawns. However this again, is rare.
Physics and enemy movement have improved, as has AI, enemies react to fire taken, being shot and dying much more realistically in this game, expect enemies to be dodgier, more likely to react to bullets fired in their direction, for bullets to have weight and substance and really look like they're causing injury, and to see enemies react pretty realistically to taking a mouthfull of buckshot to the chest at close range (FLOORED!)
Technically, the game is stable and generally accurate.
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P1-3 - Menus
Menus are pretty much the same, but if you didn't play BL1, let me lay it out, you have 5 main screens: Map, Missions, Equipment, Skills and Bad*** points. All of these screens are pretty self explanatory, easy to use, understand, and navigate. The menus in the game are straightforward and serve their purpose, maybe without the flair of other games, but they get the job done.
The one gripe I have is the equipment screen, the new focus on the visual interface here makes it a bit harder to use than your previous Borderlands equipment menu. Previously, the menu was text based, showing the name of the gun, then when it was highlighted, you could see the gun's image. Now you need to highlight the gun's image to see its name. Considering you can spam the X button and pick up like 10 guns from the field when you're done with your genocide, this makes it just a BIT more tedious to find the awesome gun you picked up that had a cool name and awesome stats if you weren't paying attention to what it looked like. It's minor sure, but it's there, and this menu IS used a lot so it rears up a lot.
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P1-4 - Equipment, Areas and Enemies
Equipment is vastly expanded; shields, guns, mods, manufacturers, grenades, and Customization have been reworked.
Shields have been expanded to include new types, and are much easier to equip at a glance based on more stats being shown than in the previous game. Shield types really can change how you play your character, with some that will benefit characters that brawl close, and some that benefit characters that stay back. For instance, spike shields may benefit characters in the fray and add to DPS, while Turtle shields sacrifice HP for Monstrous Shields which are hard to take down and may be beneficial for characters used to keep the team alive, while even others absorb ammo and give it to you, keeping those few shots you take at the edge of the battlefield sniping down even more.
Guns, if you haven't heard are also improved, if a new weapon element, Slag, which makes every other type of damage increase when it is used wasn't enough, there's many new effects, models, designs and so many patterns the sky's pretty much the limit now. Finding the exact same gun is nigh impossible. Believe me, that's a good thing.
Manufacturers have been more fleshed out, each has abilities that while can slide into some other Manufacturer's designs, brands generally have quirks and abilities that each brand mantains and general incorporates into most of their weaponry. Tediores for instance, are quick to reload and blow up when thrown and reloaded. (Your character throws the gun at an enemy and it blows up, and reconstructs with a full clip in your hand.) Other manufacturers like Jakobs will have common traits like fire rate as fast as you can use your real trigger finger. This game's actually got brand loyalty, in spades! I actually can say that certain manufacturers make better pistols or revolvers than another based on my playstyle. That's how good the differences are. Its brilliant.
Mods: Gone are god mods that turn your characters into beasts, they're replaced by mods that give good bonuses early and gradually reach splendor later, combined with the Relics, (Read artifacts) which effect you and your teams actual stats. The possibilities can become much more deep now, these mods allow you to supplement weak points relics or guns may cause, or amplify those same things is now possible. All in all making class mods exclusive to only class specific traits like skills or weapon types was a good move, while leaving relics dealing with stats, making characters just that much more customizable.
Customization returns but better as well, with fully colored suits and a selection of heads for the characters, with the ability to unlock more as time goes on through gambling, missions and random drops, it's a lot deeper than the 3 color change options we had in BL1. I still feel we should be able to have out unique names show up in multiplayer matches if we so choose, but it is a minor gripe. The customization extends to Vehicles like it did before, but a tad deeper with the addition of unlockable skins. All in all though its more icing than anything, and I'm glad its there, but it feels a bit lacking.
Areas overall are much more varied and in general larger than Borderlands 1. The map also feels larger overall with more places to go. There are considerably more environmental hazards and this Pandora feels much more dangerous than the last one because of this. Moreover though, each area has a much more distinctive feel from each other than in the last game. I appreciate the livid, lush, colorful environments, and the sand that does return in this game is much more fun to navigate, with dunes and hills everywhere. Pandora never feels unwelcoming to the player in this game, it feels dangerous, but never like the planet is a barren dustball devoid of anything interesting, and that, Is a good thing.
Enemies have been reworked, first of all they are rendered much better. Secondly the numbers of them, and the levels they are make a lot more sense, and though more varied, their placements in the world also look more accurate. For instance Skags aren't everywhere in this game, they show up, but generally where it makes sense for their character types. So their numbers are dropped, but for the level, they're still pretty dangerous. New enemies like Bullymongs, look and interact with their respective cold and rocky environments much better than older enemies like crabworms and scythid, which didn't really look like they belonged in the environments they were in. Bullymongs are white or very dark grey, they're hairy and large, something typical for arctic types of hunters. They look in place, and most of the enemies in BL2 follow suit. In addition human enemies change outfits and strategies based on location. A large bruiser enemy's equivalent is a Nomad, but each fight differently and look very different due to heat in the area and clothes worn, though the tank role is the same.
Finally, skills have also been expanded, each respective skill tree feels more focused and is actually longer than the previous game, making for a much different character with each tree build you choose. Not only that, but some skills you can obtain by THEMSELVES completely change the way you'll play the game with a given character. BL2 features more skills than ever, and each is leaned and primed, and obviously tested to give each tree a unique feel.
Lastly in customization is the bad*** points. As you complete challenges, your rank goes up, as your rank goes up, you get points, the more points you use, the more your characters' skills go up (across all playthroughs) and its just another way to customize your guys in the skills YOU think are important.
In short, borderlands 2 made almost every aspect of the original deeper, and more fun to play with, resulting in a deeper, more immersive game.
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P1-5 - Save progression and Multiplayer.
Saving works the same as the last game, with autosave and saves automatically when you exit, but the way the game handles Multiplayer missions has really changed things up. In the first game, missions you weren't eligible for weren't doable while in a friend's game, so essentially playing together for exp was the only reason to multiplayer post ending a game with friends you intended to rejoin after they had progressed more. No longer a problem. Joining another game keeps track of ANY missions completed in other games and allows you to skip them upon returning to your game. Allowing you to progress to where you were before you joined to your friend and then with a simple push of the button pick up where you left off.
Multiplayer, if I'm not mistaken is host handled differently than last time, I see very little lag even on poor connections, and is vastly improved as far as lag shots were concerned from BL1 (shooting where an enemy actually was instead of where he was on your screen)
Overll, Multiplayer is much better with these improvements.
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P2 - Graphics & Sound
Graphics are marginally better on the 360 version than the previous game on 360, but shading seems vastly improved. The game does have some texture pop in (thanks Unreal Engine 3) but it's not too bad. The game offers more textures and a better day night cycle feature resulting in a much prettier environment, and that's only good. Voice talent and the snappy writing make a return, combined with excellent sound effects make for an immersive, but cartoony appearance and experience.
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P3 - Story
The story here takes much more precedence than the last game, there is a clear cut villain, (who is quite villainous indeed) and the size of the story keeps the game running almost twice as long as the original. With plenty of sidequests that are provoking, funny, sad, and satisfying. The game's story is cliched (what with a mad guy taking over the world) but it works, and it works well, with much more story than your average 6 hour campaign on a typical FPS. Total play time is I'd say 20-30 hours in length with the ability to go through again for a more challenging experience with all of your stuff.
The story is long, satisfying and well written with plenty of sidequesting breaks with their own stories, this time around, Pandora feels more lively, which again, increases immersiveness and fleshes out characters more, which is a nice touch.
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P4 - Summary
Borderlands 2 is a must play on any system, its good writing, decent graphics and physics, combined with infinite replay ability, diverse environments, excellent sound and voice work make it one of the best games of this year. Its rare to see a polished game like this. It really does seem like Borderlands 2 was made with lots of love and lots of testing and tweaking to get it just right. The infinite customization of your character through guns, brand loyalty, other equipment, bad*** rank, color schemes and changeable skins make this game not only fun to play with, but fun to show off too. With a long campaign, a better mission system, a more fleshed out set of characters and villains, Borderlands 2 is a must play for your library, and a recommended purchase.
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... the game itself is very confusing and not very fun. That is just my opinion and I'm probably ...
Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2015
Order came very quickly but…In my opinion the game itself is very confusing and not very fun. That is just my opinion and I'm probably playing it wrong. If you have played the game before and disagree then go for it. On the other hand the price is AMAZING!
Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2015
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