Genre: First Person Shooter
Year: 2012
Developed by: Gearbox Software
Published by: 2K
Platforms: Almost all of them (we played on XBOX 360)
#97
Feeling Like: Two’s a party
This is how you do a sequel.
Gearbox took their time, learned their lessons from Borderlands and improved upon it in every fashion. Aside from the novelty of the premise and graphics, the original has nothing on the sequel. The locales are far more varied and colorful. There’s greater enemy variety. The performance is better, there’s a more expanded skill tree, there are more guns, more bosses, more secrets and a far better villain. If you ask Borderlands fans which is the best one, it’s unquestionably Borderlands 2.
I don’t need any additional reasons for liking it, but playing through the campaign entirely alongside with Kyla launched into Top 100 territory. We’d been dating for about a year and this game was responsible for a lot of laughs, a continuous variable in our relationship that’s ever-present. I was Maya the Siren, Kyla played Zer0 the Assassin. This suited our playstyles perfectly, I would go in with unearned courage and die. I always thought launching an enemy up into a magic bubble was a good plan, what I failed to account for were the scores of enemies right beside them. Kyla would then run in, revive me, and go back to her sniping position. It was a very good system.
I suppose your enjoyment will depend on how much you can deal with the Borderlands sense of humor. At the time, referencing internet culture was nowhere near as saturated. Nonsense sayings and random, quippy humor were still finding an audience and so I think that’s why it works here, better than it does in future Borderlands games. I accepted the style – to be honest, I’d rather be mildly annoyed with something than mildly bored. At least the developer is trying, and as much as the internet likes to lament “lazy writing” (I still don’t know what that means, and I think it’s an overused critique), Gearbox has dozens of original characters with professional voice acting and high production values. Granted, they’re not motion captured or the most realistic, but the whole game is intended to look like a cel-shaded comic book anyway, so who cares?
I’ll understand anybody’s annoyance with Claptrap, however. He’s not at his worst here, but just because a character is intentionally yappy doesn’t justify the developer shoving the little yellow terror in your face ad nauseum. If anybody can make Claptrap work, it’s Jack Black in the upcoming Borderlands film which may never come out.
Save us, oh Tenacious one.
I couldn’t get enough of the badass ranks. These tiny progression bars would give you points to spend in a variety of stats once you satisfied certain conditions. The beauty of is it that you could earn these ranks using techniques and guns that you otherwise would never touch. I typically never even try out shotguns or rocket launchers, not my style. BUT if I get a certain number of kills with them, then I can permanently increase my attack speed by 0.4%. Now that’s the kind of miniscule progression I’m here for.
Handsome Jack may be an embodiment of his time, but he’s still a terrific antagonist. He’s precisely the kind of guy you want to root against in a Borderlands game; he’s brash, he’s witty, he’s charming, he’s completely unsympathetic to other’s sufferings. He’s rich and powerful, the easiest archetype to fight against. Despite all his wealth and power, the new substance scattered across Pandora is enough to make Handsome Jack go to any lengths to secure it. You don’t need much explaining to understand the Vault Hunter’s motivations to stop Jack, but I appreciated how much Gearbox elevated the ambition of the story compared to Borderlands.
Even the menus and vending machines have personality. Various merchants and NPCs will constantly spew amusing sale pitches at you. Sanctuary, your home base, has intriguing corners of all kind. Alleys that contain new ways to spend your various currencies. A bartender that may give a side quest. All the good RPG stuff that makes you want to visit a town and explore it, rather than it just be a gas station for your inventory.
The environments are beautiful and are far more detailed than Borderlands’ almost exclusive desert setting. You start out in a snow field, but there are areas green with lush and water. The standard factories or derelict bases have more colors than just your standard browns and greys. Alien locations come into play, naturally. It goes a long way into making every fight feel more unique. The world of Pandora and the characters inhabiting it make it feel like a breathing world that’s filled to the brim with exciting things to do. There wasn’t a single area I dreaded venturing to.
While the gameplay isn’t as refined as in Borderlands 3, it still kicks so much ass. There’s a selection for everybody and depending on the arms dealer, the specific types of guns will feel entirely different. Some focus on power, others on fire rate. Others involve transforming your gun into an explosive when you reload. Some never run out of bullets, or make funny noises, or have an amazing scope. The sky’s the limit for weapon types and in a game that could be boiled down to “Diablo with guns”, Gearbox absolutely got the guns right. If you’re not having fun with Borderlands 2, I’m convinced you don’t like shooting things in video games. Which is totally fine, but that isn’t Borderlands 2‘s fault.
We also got the introduction of many franchise mainstays, such as Sir Hammerlock and Tiny Tina – my favorite Borderlands character. She is so close to being untenable, but voice actor Ashly Burch makes the most of the material and I wanted to do everything Tina told us to do. She’s the right kind of energetic and her backstory is interweaved surprisingly well with a few somber lines interspersed with her manic gabble. She eventually got her own spin-off – I loved that one too. Burch is a dream casting choice.
It’s not often a game gets it all right. The variety of powers ensure you can play this over and over again and never get bored. The leveling system is addicting. The challenge is fair. The scope is enormous. My co-op experience with Kyla could not have gone better. Borderlands 2 is the real deal.
The 500 