Just curious to hear some impressions of the Vita version of Borderlands 2. I know early reviews have been pretty poor, but the Game Revolution review indicates that a later patch (from May 13th, I believe) helped with a lot of of the game's technical issues.

I'd love to hear from anyone that's checked it out since the update. It would be great to have a game like this on the go, if it plays well enough.

Nobody's played this?? I'm really curious as to how it turned out - impressions I've heard have been all over the place.

I've put a few hours into it. Generally I'm enjoying it. As a way to play Borderlands 2 anywhere it's nice.

The controls take a little getting used to but they work. With run and melee on the rear touch I accidentally hit them constantly, and special power and grenade on front screen touch I often just don't use them.

I am finding that I am having a very hard time hitting things at all. I'm not sure what is causing that, it could just be because I've got a new character and crappy guns and I'm simply used to a high level character with much better weapons and accuracy. With a couple of different aim assist modes turned on I'm able to more reliably hit things but I don't think I'll ever have the sensitivity and control on the Vita to be a super badass sniper with quick reflexes like I can on console/pc. I've played a bunch of stuff on my old Vita but never any first person shooters, it may just take a bit more getting used to for this style of gameplay for me.

I don't know what the issue is but every time I load the game I get a message telling me I have items on my character that aren't compatible or something along those lines. I created this character on the Vita after buying the Vita/Bordlerlands 2 bundle so I have no idea why my character would have anything that isn't compatible or what it might be.

There is a bit of slowdown but not so much that it becomes unplayable and it corrects itself pretty quickly. The real downside is the load times. It is understandable that they might be a bit long cramming the game onto a Vita but when you wait a long time to even start the game, then load into the world and have to fast travel somewhere else (assuming you are in Sanctuary perhaps) you instantly have to deal with yet another load. From turning on the device to actually getting to where I want to be feels like 10 minutes (though it's probably more like 5, I've never timed it). If I'm just sitting on the couch casually watching tv while I goof around in Borderlands the load times aren't too bad but if you are doing nothing but trying to pay attention to the game it could feel a tad much to wait for the loads.

Despite the long load times which are a bit tedious it's very playable and enjoyable assuming you like Borderlands 2 to begin with (at this point I pretty much assume anyone considering buying this has already played it elsewhere). The cross save with the PS3 is nice but I played on the 360 first and then later on the PC so I don't really need the PS3 cross save. Maybe in the future I'll use it but right now it's just neat to know it is there.

I bought it when it came out and have played a few hours. I'm enjoying it overall. Once I swapped run and melee on the back touch it made things much more enjoyable for me. I don't know why but my right hand accidentally hits more than my left does, and having that as melee by default was a mess.

The only real issue I have with it is the menu lag, and the fact that the PS3 cross-save still is not functional yet.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'd love to hear more, if anyone else has given it some play.

I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Sounds like the update that will include the PS3 cross-save (on Tuesday) will also see a bump in the game's performance. Hopefully that's the case.

Now to decide which character to start with...

One strange, but cool thing I noticed with the Vita version - I have the PS3 version via PS+, but I never bought any of the DLC, including the Mechromancer pack. The Vita version comes with the two DLC classes, one of the level cap increases, and two of the DLC campaigns, but that only works on the Vita, they don't transfer back to the PS3 version.

I started a new Mechromancer, since I really like that character, and decided to try cross-saving it over to the PS3, figuring it would probably tell me I'm not allowed to play her because I don't own the Mechromancer pack there. Surprisingly, it actually did let me load my save file and keep playing her, although it reset her appearance to stock because I don't have the costume pieces unlocked, as I don't actually own her on the PS3. I can't start a new Mechromancer or Psycho on the PS3, but the PS3 is fine playing the cross-saved file from the Vita. Weird, but pretty cool.

I need to make some room so that I can download it to my Vita. I bought the bundle and have yet to try it out.

Also reminds me I need to go on my ps3 and send my save to the cloud so I can pick up on the vita.

So I bought the game about a week ago, and I'm loving it. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to get into the game when I had it on Xbox 360, but now that I can play it on my bed, with TV on in the background, I'm really digging it a lot.

I was concerned that the controls would bother me, but they haven't in the slightest, and they work fantastic for me.

The framerate is fine. Could be better, but the only thing I've really noticed is the odd hitch in movement, which hasn't happened all that often. I've heard that the framerate bothers some people, but I can only speak for myself, and it hasn't been an issue.

Load times are lengthy, but again, not a big deal to me.

Bottom line is, this is a huge game that plays great on the Vita. I totally get that it's the version that runs the poorest, but for me, just having it on the Vita bumps its appeal way, way up. I owned this game last gen and I didn't even get to Sanctuary before losing interest (no idea why). Now that it's on my Vita, I play it whenever I can spare a few minutes. I'm currently a level 11 Mechromancer, and I'm loving it.

There's a good walkthrough of the Vita version on Youtube, for anyone that's interested in seeing it in motion (this video is number 6 in the series, taken at random):

Played a couple of hours, words cannot express how badly Iron Galaxy shat the bed on this one. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive that they crammed the whole Borderlands 2 experience on the Vita, and it looks great on stillshots, and uber kudos to them for having cross saves, but the game runs horribly and plays even worse.

First of all the frame rate, expect an randomness of 5-20 FPS, sometimes it hits 30 when you stare at the ground. Seriously, the PAL version of LHX Attack Chopper on the Mega Drive has a better frame rate then this. When the frame rate has such ridiculous fluctuation how the hell are you supposed to aim properly?

Second, whose idea was it to map the grenade button and the sprint button on the back panel? This is fucking ridiculous, it's not comfortable at all to play Vita games when you cannot rest your fingers on the back of the device. Yes I know that the Vita has less buttons than the PS3/360 pad you know what would have made more sense rather that forcing players to hold the Vita like crabs? Custom mapping your controls and not having a small pool of equally worthless button presets.

And you know what? It has to be said but I'm kinda bummed out that no one from Giant Bomb said anything about the quality of this port. Are they that chummy with Iron Galaxy that they can joke around that their games are made in Flash but no mention on honest criticism about a broken ass port? And no, nobody having time or interest to cover this is not a valid excuse, this was easily one of the most anticipated titles coming out of the Vita, how can you fail to cover that in any shape or form?

Shrug. They want to do more Vita capture stuff, but Sony didn't make it easy. Why would they be hyped about a port the same way they're hyped about more Pushmo? They usually aren't, and neither is the Giant Bomb audience.

There's no official review of Divekick, Transistor, or Disney Infinity either. Tron got 3 stars and Jeff got all 1000 points. 95% of their criticism good or bad gets delivered via video format. It tends to avoid the metacritic machine, and yes, not get their friends in trouble. Jeff might be playing BL2 Vita now and maybe he'll talk about it next week, but feel free to ask on his Tumblr if you really need to know.

I can't agree with the hate. I played the game a little when it was free on PS+ and deleted it. Like I do with so many PS+ titles. But having it on the Vita is a whole other situation. I am actually enjoying it a great deal. I do dread the moment I outlevel the slag sniper rifle I found :)

Yea, the graphics aren't the best on the system and there are load times and ok so it crashed on me once so far. But hey, this is a massive massive game. And fast paced to boot. And it is very playable. The co-op works fine too. I find that impressive.

Verdict: Good game. Especially at the price.