Borderlands 2 Review

By Matthew Johnson

Welcome back Vault Hunters to the world of Pandora where allot has changed since your last visit. In fact Borderlands 2 is remarkably better than the first outing in almost every way.

When playing for the first hour of the game you get a good since that the developers took on board negative things that people may have said about its predecessor.

Taking place five years after the original it begins with Handsome Jack being the new leader of the Hyperion Corporation which is mining the planet for a newly found mineral called Eridium. Rumours of a new and larger Vault have spread far and wide and now a new bunch of adventurers and misfits are attempting to find it. And that’s where you come in.

When you are first given control within the first ten minutes your hit with some striking visuals and these continue unabated for the rest of the game. Everything seems crisper and more refined with the same excellent level of introduction that the first game introduced giving you a great understanding of the games user interface and its controls.

The world seams vast an varied even though your being gently funnelled in the right direction by quests. The quests in this game are either given to you via a Bounty Board or by some of Pandora’s many varied and eccentric inhabitants. The people you meet and play as in this game are some of the most unique and funny characters in any game you will play. With your onboard communication device they dish out hints, story and jokes while you are either questing or just generally exploring.

A slight problem arises in levelling too fast due to the amount of quests you receive. Out-leveling a backlog of old quests is not a major headache as the dialogue and usually humorous subject matter keeps it interesting even when the actual reward is trivial. Another minor fault is due to the nature of the onboard communicator itself. All too often would a newly acquired audio log be giving you some more immersive story and lore when you would pass an invisible story mark and for it to be interrupted by more dialogue.

The one major fault with this game are its quest bugs. These are infrequent but often game-breaking ranging from enemies getting stuck in scenery or disappearing to assassination targets becoming invulnerable. Some of these are just an inconvenience but one or two need the player to commit suicide or, even worse, exit the game altogether. These sorts of bugs are very common in open-world type RPGs and will hopefully be patched in the future.

With patches also comes DLC which the first game had in droves with four major expansion packs. This one so far has only one bit of DLC but this comes in the form of a whole new class to play as. And with a very easy to use online matchmaking enabling up to three fellow Vault Hunters to join the fray and fight with you. This increases the chances of rarer loot but makes the enemies that you face harder which is a brilliant and fair system. There is even slight but notable character customisation which not only lets you change your outfits colour but also your hairstyle and face. These customisation options are also dished out rarely from enemies.

Overall Boarderlands 2 is a very solid RPG shooter with an excellent story, unique graphics, butter smooth game play and lots of replay-ability. Grab your friends and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime … just watch out for Bandits kiddos.