A significantly improved experience
Who would have thought a shooter advertised around a small, chatty robot quick to anger would do so well? Borderlands was a shooter that took me by surprise because, well, it wasn't so much a shooter as it was an MMO-style role playing game with a heavy emphasis on loot and a great sense of humor. For me, Borderlands' biggest failing was its lack of a meaningful narrative and throw away characters. It was easy for me to just run up to a quest giver, accept the mission and run off before they had a chance to explain themselves. And as for the main story, it was pretty much a dud with a poor ending. However, post-game content managed to ease the disappointment and made the overall experience an enjoyable one. So enjoyable, that the idea of there not being a Borderlands 2 was somewhat ridiculous. It'd be like Halo never getting its trilogies.
Like Halo, Gearbox finds itself in an unpainted corner: they can't change the experience too drastically nor can they simply offer up more of the same. In the end, they took the middle road: Borderlands 2 utilizes the same quest-based gameplay structure of the first game and includes much needed changes and tweaks. While the new cast of Vault Hunters suffers from the same emptiness of the original crew, the narrative treatment given to the 2009 cast really sells the game for me. Although you're playing as one of the new bloods, Borderlands 2 is very much a story about the previous Vault Hunters and the interaction between the four of them is what the first game sorely needed.
Set a number of years after the original Pandora crew opened up the Vault and fought the evil alien lurking within, the call to adventure has once again been made. This time, a new gang of adventurers steps up to search for riches and glory but are ultimately waylaid by Handsome Jack, the president of the Hyperion Corporation who claims that he was the one responsible for defeating the monster in the Vault. The game opens after Jack's unsuccessful attempt to kill you. Claptrap claims you as his minion and sets you on a path of revenge that turns into a quest to save Pandora from Jack's nefarious plans.
Anyone who played Borderlands will be instantly familiar with the formula. Completing quests and killing enemies rewards the player with cash, experience points and all sorts of weapon-based loot. Although each character class has their own unique abilities, none of them are excluded from using any of the guns the game has to offer. That said, each character possess three unique skill trees that offer substantial bonuses to specific weapon types. Again, the game is not all that different from before so I don't feel like I have to espouse so greatly on how the game plays. But what I will do is talk about one of the new features, the Badass Rank. By completing a number of repetitive actions (opening loot boxes, getting headshots, killing people with elemental attacks), you'll earn a points to be spent on boosting certain abilities such as decreasing the shield recharge delay, reload speed and critical shot chances.
When you look past all of the new content in the sequel, you'll find that a number of familiar criticisms exist: quests can get monotonous, acquired loot tends to not offer many advantages over the guns you've been using for hours, and backtracking gets to be a bit much. Timed missions rear their ugly head and after failing one, I vowed never to take them on again. There were also a few moments when I felt completely overwhelmed by enemies. It was almost as bad as Dead Island when I found myself getting spawned at a New-U checkpoint near a large grouping of enemies. This really sucked when going through the Caustic Caverns and dealing with those god damned threshers.
Although I find the gameplay to be solid, competent and - most importantly - fun, Borderlands 2's biggest success is the treatment of the narrative in regards to the 2009 cast. The problem was that the characters didn't have much of a personality outside of a few quips and humorous one liners nor were they developed in any significant way. WithBorderlands 2, we finally see Roland, Lilith, Mordechai and Brick shine brightly in the spotlight. The relationship between the four vault hunters is deep and meaningful, especially when a tragedy befalls a trusted winged ally in an incident that has the power to affect those who spent hours with a certain character. Borderlands 2 isn't so much a story about Zero, Maya, Axton and Salvador who are little more than tweaked carbon copies of the original heroes. That said, Gearbox did try to flesh out the new cast by featuring ECHOs that give a brief glimpse into their pre-Pandora lives. Ultimately, these mini back stories aren't necessary nor are they particularly interesting. If the larger story in Borderlands 2 has a failing, is that it overly dramaticizes the death of significant characters. I won't say much, but its hard to get on the crying bandwagon over someone who died after spending a significant portion of the game respawning at New-U stations.
While I firmly believe that Roland and crew are stars of this show, something has to be said for the game's ancillary characters. Familiar faces, Scooter, Dr. Ned, Tannis (I love her so much) and Claptrap, are once again along for the ride and have some of the best dialog in the game. New characters like Tiny Tina and Ellie (Scooter's sister) have their own unique brand of charm. The award for Best NPC Character In The History of Video Games, however, goes to Face McShooty, a deranged bandit in Thousand Cuts who offers you a very simple mission. Make sure you listen to what he has to say before completing the objective. I was left crying with laughter.
Borderlands 2 offers "more of the same" gameplay that retains the same thrill and "one more quest" style madness the first game was known for. The added tweaks to enemy AI make battles feel more challenging and dynamic as creatures now have the audacity to dodge gun fire. Several issues from the last game weigh the experience down and there were more than a fair share of deaths by being completely overwhelemd, but never did I think, "Holy fuck I hate this damn game." I find that the game's story is noticeably better this time around and I really enjoyed watching the original crew bicker and banter with one another. The main game is substantial (I've locked in 41 hours on one character) and like before, Gearbox has promised new content from now until June of next year making return trips to Pandora a regular activity.
