Something went wrong. Try again later
    Follow

    Borderlands 2

    Game » consists of 33 releases. Released Sep 18, 2012

    Return to Pandora as part of a new group of ragtag Vault Hunters in this sequel to the 2009 first-person "role-playing shooter" Borderlands, now with new crazy enemies, new crazy character classes, and even crazier weapons.

    chancefurlong's Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360) review

    Avatar image for chancefurlong

    Pandemonium on Pandora

    I did not enjoy Borderlands. I thought the intro was great, and found the concept intriguing, but the whole experience felt empty and tiresome. I got about 4 hours in before putting it down for good.

    Fast forward to Borderlands 2, and you have something quite different. The core elements of the gameplay are the same; it's a Diablo/Torchlight-esque procedurally-generated-loot fest, but first person and with guns instead of swords. You pick up quests from people with exclamation marks over their heads. You complete them. You hand them in to someone sporting a question mark. Familiar territory.

    But it's the feel of this game that has improved immeasurably. The world feels vibrant, alive. There is (some may say too much...) dialogue, there are jokes,and there's a sense that there's a struggle going on that's bigger than you. Some of those familiar quests, particularly the side quests, can be a bit dull, but some are a real breath of fresh air. There are a couple of missions given to you by the game's villain, Handsome Jack, including one called, "Kill Yourself". The objectives are, "Do it" or "Don't do it". Curiosity got the better of me... but I wont spoil it.

    The mechanics of the games shooting and classes work well for the most part. The first person shooting feels fairly tight, and all of the classes have action abilities that help make things more interesting, along with the standard grenades and melee. The classes have World of Warcraft-esque skill trees, three per class. I went with Gaige the Mechromancer, a DLC class that can summon her companion robot who won third place at the science fair... Deathtrap. Her first skill tree allows you to keep Deathtrap out more often and survive longer, her second makes her a god of electrical damage, and her third allows her to generate and use 'Anarchy', which is manipulated by the timing of your reloads... and makes her do insane damage at the cost of accuracy (we're talking up to 400-700% damage increase and accuracy reduction, depending on how you spec...) Add to that a skill from her first tree that lets your missed shots ricochet and hit enemies for reduced damage even if you miss... you hopefully get some idea of the extent to which the skill trees can influence your experience of the game, and how crazy they can get.

    The characters are surprisingly well written for what essentially is a very dumb game that tries very hard to be dumb. I would have appreciated it if the characters had spent less time telling me that a thing was/would be "awesome" or "badass" and let me make up my own mind. That aside, they did a very good job taking the metaphorically 2D characters of the first game and turning them into NPCs that you can develop a genuine attachment to.

    I came to the Borderlands 2 party late, so played the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep straight after finishing the main story. I can't speak to counterfactuals, but I get the impression that this is probably the optimal way to experience the game from a story perspective. By the end of that DLC, I'd developed a real attachment to some of those characters. Not only is it a great extension of the gameplay, but it probably has some of the funniest moments of the game, as well as dealing with some pretty serious issues with surprising poignancy and aplomb, often through the glimpses of fragility behind the psychotic laughter of the eponymous Tina. They even tackle nerd culture's bizarre obsession with "fake girl geeks" in a pretty heavy handed but satisfying way that raised a few smiles. Very little about the DLC or the game as a whole is subtle, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have things to say from time to time.

    The main weaknesses of the game are the same that plague all games of the loot-em-and-leave-em genre. If you're a level or two too low for an area, you'll be emptying 5 clips into anything to kill it. So you go away, level on some side missions... you're now a level or two too high and enemies you shoot falls to pieces like wet cardboard. Add to that the fact that the DLCs and main missions (now) have new game, True Vault Hunter Mode, Playthrough 2.5, Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, and esoteric and poorly explained criteria for enemy and loot scaling in each, and you'll need to bury your head in wikis for a week just to be able to access the DLCs at a level that's even vaguely appropriate for your character. Admittedly, this might all be less of an issue for people who've been with the game since the start, but these are still potential problems nonetheless.

    There's also the loot issue, which seems to divide a lot of people. Let's say you find an amazing, purple (that means it's probably powerful for its level) gun that has exactly the right scope, the right magazine size, the right firing action... you love that gun. The problem is, you level so fast, that within 30 minutes you'll probably have to dump it for something else that has a weird firing action, a stupid non-scope that gets in the way, and you all round hate... but you more or less have to use it because it does more damage and it'll take those 5 clips to kill basic enemies with your old gun. The feeling of impermanence behind every weapon makes finding amazing loot, one of the core selling points of the game, seem kind of bittersweet and ultimately unsatisfying. I can learn to roll with it, but finding a great gun in BL2 never feels the same as, say, finding an amazing sword in Dark Souls that I know I can 'level up' with me and use or not use at my own discretion based on satisfying qualities like its moveset, rather than the have my hand forced by leveling higher and higher and having to constantly find a new thing with bigger (damage) numbers.

    Which brings us on to the 'end game'. You can eventually cap your level out and take on end game content, similar to MMOs. However, much like MMOs, the path to the end-game seems like it's going to get very grindy, so I probably wont pursue it that far. I did the whole, "grind the same story over and over" with Diablo III, and kind of wish I could get those hours back. It does seem like the game provides a fair amount of high end loot, raid bosses and the like for people who are interested, and if that's your bag, go for it - but be warned that you'll be repeating the same content over and over to get there.

    On the whole, a fun game, with some great writing in places. At times it almost tries too hard to not take itself seriously, but in the end, it pulls it off.

    Other reviews for Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360)

      Shoot and Loot, what a HOOT! 0

      So I've been playing this game called Borderlands 2...and IT’S AWESOME’, is what I'm inclined to say and I'm going to try and reign myself in here. This way I can try and articulate a piece of writing, that doesn't show me to be some rabid fan-boy.The fact of the matter is this; I’m not a fan-boy. I didn’t highly anticipate the game until very close to its release. I’d always been intrigued by the first Borderlands but something about it scared me off. I think that stems from the fact that in t...

      1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

    This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:

    Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.

    Comment and Save

    Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.