Borderlands 2, well that’s something I didn't see coming until it was announced however long ago it was, anyway its here now so buckle up, grab your friends and lock & load to face the madness once again.
Borderlands 2 sends you back to the hostile plains of Pandora in search of a newly found vault, however this time you have competition. After the Atlas company tried and succeeded to open the original vault without knowing what was inside the Hyperion company led by the ruthless Handsome Jack decides to search the rest of Pandora for another vault, low and behold they found one. You are attacked by Jack and left for dead in the frozen tundras of Pandora, after gaining access to the city Sanctuary you find that one of the original vault hunters, Roland has formed the Crimson Resistance (sounds oddly familiar to those Crimson Lance fellows) to fight Jack and the Hyperion company joined by the other 3 ex-vault hunters and now your new team. And so begins your 40+ hour adventure on a bigger and better Pandora.
Story came second to gameplay in the original Borderlands, Gearbox have tried to make up for this by making Borderlands 2 very story heavy, of course quests are still option to read the outlines of but everything is explained as to why you are doing it and not just doing it for the sake of doing so. This makes Bordelrands 2 much deeper then its predecessor, it allows for much more to happen in the game from the moment you begin to the moment you end. Side characters have actual stories to them now such as Moxxi's family and the fantastic cyborg character Sir Hammerlock, even Claptrap has a back story now! The old vault hunters return and inform you of what has happened between games such as Roland forming the resistance and Lillith & Brick becoming leaders of bandit gangs and Mordecai becoming a drunk, nothing has been left without a story in Borderlands 2.
Though some of you hardcore Borderlands 1 veterans may shy away from this, the story never takes over. It can be completely overlooked if you so want it to be, bar the odd cutscene and unskippable conversation Borderlands 2 can be as story deficient as its predecessor. The game plays just like the first game, so don't expect much innovation. Its still get quest of so and so, run to quest marker, get objective, run back and shoot the millions of enemies standing in the middle of it all but BL2 makes it so much more satisfying with its refined manufacturer system, new character skills, better levelling system and a new sub skill system called Badass rank. Your badass rank gives you a skill point to put onto one of a set of random attributes that will be shown when you select to spend the point, this could be better accuracy, more health or faster reload speed. You gain the points by completing the challenges in your echo device such as get X number of headshots or collect X amount of cash. This makes your character even more suited to your play style than just the normal skill tree.
Guns are as important as they have always been, if not even more important. Now guns are defined not buy weapon type such as assault rifle or rocket launcher, but by manufacturer. Yes there were manufacturers in BL1 but now each manufacturer has a distinct style and feel to their weapons, such as Bandit have small magazines, high recoil, high damage and look like they have been assembled out of scrap metal; compare that to a Tediore weapon which have a high fire rate and are sleek and sophisticated in look. The inventory system has had a complete overhaul and now looks like something from the future, The new layout is much easier on the eyes and has better categorisation options than the first's, this applies to stores and customisation stations too. That's right customisation stations, as you play enemies and loot chests will have a possibility of having character/vehicle customisations including helmets, skins and paint jobs making your character and car personal to you in a way the original Borderlands cannot compete with. Along with all of this the HUD has also been slightly redesigned to include a minimap instead of having a compass, I'm being really picky here but I much preferred the compass as the minimap is just too small to have all the information on at one time.
Enough of the gameplay, lets get onto the thing that makes Borderlands so unique from everything else, the art and sound. Borderlands 1 was filled with muddy browns, greys and dark greens. Borderlands 2 has been given more than a splash of colour to include nearly every colour in the spectrum, hell even the browns look better than they did three years ago, not bad for the same game engine. Yellows, blue's, greens and reds now populate Pandora instead of variations of brown breathing much more life into the game that you would think from just a change of colour palette. The sound has been overhauled making explosions more explody and chests more squeaky etc, but youll never notice if your not listening out for it, the voice acting is now much better than it was and some of the heavy hitting guns pack a real punch with their audio which is very nice.
Borderlands 2 is a far too big to review it all. It doesn’t feel like a sequel though, rather a really damn big expansion pack to the original Borderlands. Yes it has new environments, guns, characters and well...pretty much everything, Gearbox knew what they were doing with BL1 so much that they knew nothing really needed to change for its sequel, I would go so far as saying the changes were for the worst even if most of them were purely for aesthetic value. Borderlands 2 is a must own for Borderlands fans, its a must own for FPS fans, its a must own for RPG fans. I'm going out on a limb and saying that Borderlands 2 is a GOTY contender and is alongside Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead as one of 2012's best games.
Borderlands 2 – 10/10
+Epic Story
+Hilarious Gameplay
+Awesome Length
+Great Visual Standard
