Gearbox returns to Pandora with a game that is funny, stupid, awesome and just plain fun.
Blasting virtual people with guns has always been fun. The sheer number of First Person shooters on the market are certainly testament to that fact, and each is fun in its own way, to many different people. Call of Duty rewards skill and practise, Bioshock is evocative with unique enemies and settings, and Borderlands 2? Well that's just plain fun.
Set on the planet of Pandora, Borderlands 2 follows your character, the Vault Hunter, as he/she (depending on class) works their way from mission to mission, hooking up with Characters from the first game while fighting all manner of bandits, native creatures and the titles big bad, Handsome Jack of Hyperion. An FPS with RPG elements, it is addictive and fun to just run around, shoot and level up, unlocking some very cool powers.
Those powers are determined by your class, with options of Commando, Assassin, Siren, Gunzerker and Mechromancer. Each has its own unique abilities and special powers, however every single one can use every single type of weapon. This allows for one of the unique selling points of the franchise - randomly generated guns - to really shine though, though there are so many combinations that seeing them all is impossible, even if you play through the 60+ hour campaign multiple times with multiple characters.
I played using the Commando, also known as Axton. His special ability is the Sabre turret, a deployable autocannon that tracks enemies and each kill it racks up adds to your xp, which is nice. The Sabre turret can be upgraded so that it fires bursts of rockets as well as the cannon and effective use of special powers are the key to success as the game throws many enemies at you at once, especially during boss fights.
Each class has a unique power, so your choice will be determined by play style and which you think looks the coolest. I just wanted to play stuff up, so went with Axton, but stealth, tank and other styles are catered for too. The XP you earn through kills, completing missions and generally doing stuff in the world level you up, and each level grants a skill point which can be spent on the characters skill tree', of which there are three per class.
How you choose to spend said points is pretty much up to you. For example, my Commando had a very accurate Sabre Turret that also fired rockets, a kill skill that allowed an increase in fire rate and reload speed when killing enemies and increased health and shields. I wasn't even half way down the list of skills at that point either, so you can sink hundreds of hours into the game if you want to get every skill on all three trees.
A secondary way to customize your character is with badass tokens. These tokens are earned by completing challenges such as 'Kill 30 Skags' or 'Loot 10,000 dollars'. You are randomly given five options for what you want to spend the token on, such as gun damage, melee damage, shield capacity, maximum health etc. Spend a token and get a very small increase in that attribute, and when I say small, I mean 0.1%. So get so many over the course of the game though, that the small increases soon add up.
Borderlands isn't about skills though, its about guns. Lots of guns. They are pretty awesome, with some unique characteristics and designs for each one. To be fair, to say there is a 'bizillion' guns as the game implies more often refers to stats rather than looks. Each gun is different in appearance, but some designs do repeat. It's not a huge thing and your mostly concerned with the weapons abilities rather than its looks, but it can be noticeable.
Despite this small short coming, the weapons themselves are just plain fun to use. The bigger assault rifles and sniper rifles feel weighty were appropriate and have all the features you would expect. Launchers are low on ammo but very powerful and pistols and SMG's feel light weight and agile.
Knowing how to use the unique properties of you guns you own is key to fighting enemies, and that knowledge combined with effective use of special powers such as the Sabre Turret will allow you to rip through enemies at a great pace. Boss's require a little more thought and patience but are never impossible.
The game has a almost cell shaded art style, though it isn't quite that cartoony, and looks awesome. Draw distance is good and every looks very sci-fi where it needs to be. The big downside to the graphics come when you load into an area. Texture pop in is quite bad when this happens, and everything looks very muddy and out of focus until the correct texture appears a few seconds later. It is not a massive issue as the game still plays great while loading said features, but it is bad enough to be noticeable and worthy of comment.
Borderlands 2 is a funny game, several laugh out loud moments will occur during your time with it and some of the characters, especially Claptrap, provide constant comic relief. It definitely doesn't take it's self too seriously, which all adds to the fun and even loading screen hits can be hilarious. One states what the Gunzerker skill 'Sexual Tyrannosaurus' does, then says 'but hopefully, you just saw the name and said 'I want that'. I found it funny every time, but maybe that says more about my sense of humour than anything else.
Excellent Voice acting adds to this humour and helps bring the game together cohesively. Missions are a lot of fun as well, though to be perfectly honest, you probably wont care a single lick about the story. I am into game stories more than most, but even I found myself just doing the missions to have fun blasting stuff, not to see where the twists and turns of the story take me. There are no twists and turns really, but again it provides some good humour and enough context for what you doing to be worthwhile.
I played mostly by myself, and I had an absolute blast, but I can definitely see that playing with up to four friends in co-op would be even better. The enemies would be tougher and loot better, the game would naturally generate good banter between players and generally be a ton of fun.
The only other downside to Borderlands 2 is the golden key system. In one of the games towns there is a golden chest that can only be opened via said shiny device. You can only get them through Gearbox, the games developers, via codes or when you start the game. The chest contains some of the best loot in the game, keyed to your characters level. However, only recently has a patch been applied that explicitly states the chest will use a golden key, before then it just opens and uses your first key.
If the game told what you were going to do you could save the key until later in the game to get better loot. Again, its a small thing, but it is very annoying all the same. On the plus side, Gearbox are giving golden key codes away every week, so you can get around it.
Borderlands 2 is an excellent, fun game. The story may not be up to much and some texture pop in muddles what would otherwise be a great looking game, but those are minor foibles in an great title. Blasting enemies is as enjoyable as it can be and the heart of the game, exactly as it should be. Here is looking forward to Borderlands 3!