Borderlands 2
Producer: 2K Games
Release Date: September 18, 2012
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: FPS/RPG
One For The Vault
Written by Josh Schilling
I played the hell out of the first Borderlands and all of its downloadable content, so I was cautiously eager to get my hands on this game. Eager in that I enjoyed the first game, but cautious in that I was worried the experience would slip into just another cookie-cutter sequel, and spending my time running around in yet another substandard FPS is definitely not on my bucket list. The funny thing is that while playing Borderlands 2, I kept feeling how monotonously similar it was to the first one. Lots of guns, lots of loot, lots of killing and lots of humor, but then I realized that I had been playing for four hours and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.
You choose from four characters with very different abilities that can be leveled-up RPG style, and this is where this game really shines. You get to decide what the character looks like, what kind of guns to use, and how to utilize and power-up their special abilities. Then it is off to the killing fields to (ahem) execute your decisions. You make your way through the main storyline that branches off into plenty of side missions which gives you plenty of opportunities to try out and master all of your death-dealing skills. I did discover that when you wipe out the baddies in an area, you better get through it fast because in this game, they re-spawn awfully fast, and that there were times when I would back out of a hairy situation only to see the enemies quickly revert to “patrol mode” like they had just completely forgotten that I had blown the heads off of five of their compatriots not ten seconds before. That was certainly not conducive to a logical progression of game play, but definitely helpful when confronting a particularly difficult set of foes.
There are two other things that help this series stand out among other games: the first is its distinctive brand of humor. Every character, it seems, has an extra one-liner in the chamber ready to fire off at a moment’s notice. The main characters each get their own brief introduction that always includes a line that aims for a laugh, and while funny, it never seemed to hit the bulls-eye. The second standout that the Borderlands series contains is its cooperative multiplayer gameplay. Friends or strangers are able to join in whenever you let them, and Borderlands 2explodes into a chaotic bloody mess of joy when you get four buddies joining together to rain wonderful death in every direction.
This game felt like I had played it before, but fresh at the same time. The enemy AI was weird, but welcome. The comedy was slightly disappointing but severely funny at times. I felt the dichotomy of all of these things while I played, but the one aspect that underlined my whole impression of the game is that I really want to play it more. I want to explore the world and find all of those damn Vault logos, I want to experience every boss, I want to wreak havoc with my friends, and I want to level up my character to make him as good as he can be…because the DLC will be coming soon, and I am apathetically excited for it to arrive.