Borderlands 2

Five years have passed since four ‘Vault Hunters‘ opened the first vault, and killing the abomination that guarded it. But rather than containing the vast riches the vault hunters desired, opening the vault caused a valuable mineral known as Eridium to flourish across the planet of Pandora, and in turn led a man simply known as Handsome Jack, to take control of the planet!

Released in 2012, and developed by Gearbox Software; Borderlands 2 is a First Person Shooter, Looter Shooter, Role-Playing game, and the second main entry in the Borderlands series of Video Games. This entry largely follows the same format of the first game, with the player needing to choose one of four new Vault Hunters, and then set off on an epic quest to open a new vault. And much like the previous game, players can choose to either play by themselves, or play in co-op mode.

Borderlands 2 is set several years after the events of the first game (and some time to after the Pre-Sequel, which I refuse to talk about where-ever possible). This time however, things have changed. The planet of Pandora still has it’s quirks, from the insane human residents on the planet, the frequently ferocious wildlife, and of course a strange Angelic like figure telling you where to go. This time though, instead of many different key villains, the focus this time is on one sole individual.

Handsome Jack (voiced by Dameon Clarke) is the President of the Hyperion Corporation, which is largely in control of Pandora, and it’s vast amounts of Eridium. And whilst he is the main villain of the game, his narcissistic belief is that he is actually the hero of this story, and that the player/friends are the true villains of this piece. His goal is simple, to open the second vault, release the beast inside, and use it’s power to cleanse Pandora of it’s many problematic people.

Borderlands 2 sets off as it means to go on, with an epic opening intro, revealing the key villain, and also making sure that the new vault hunters have to start from square one, if they survive at all. From this, we see one of this game’s traits, that it uses to distance itself from the first game; the ever changing environments.

The first game was virtually always set in a desert like location. Everywhere you went, it was just more and more sand, with the occasional cave to explore. This time around, we start off in snow frozen wastes, and as the game develops, we explore mountainous grassy terrains, acidic underground chasms, and even a high-tec like city.

More or less, the gameplay is still largely the same, with a focus on shooting virtually anything that moves with a wide assortment of guns, looting treasure chests and anyhting else that looks like it might contain valuable loot, and all the while gain points to upgrade your character and their abilities.

The story though is very different. In the first game, you are just a vault hunter, looking to make some money, by opening the vault. There was no real sense that you were/are the hero of the story, and thus allowed you to explore a little more, and shape the story you want to play out. This time around though, from the get go, you are the chosen hero. There’s more of a focus on story, with chapters, and it more follows a straightline path, to reach the end goal. Of course, there’s still moeny to be made, and lots of guns to shoot lots of things with, as well as side quests to boost you up. But this game is more directly focussed on you being the hero of the story from the first page, rather than the accidental one, in it for your own interests in the first game. Also the story allows room for new NPC’s to appear, and some old familliar faces too.

Much like the first game, Borderlands 2 is a lot of fun to play, and completing the story does bring on a huge wave of the feeling of accomplishment, and immense satisfaction once it’s all concluded. The issue is that it’s a bit long. It’s a big game, which quite rightly wants to expand on the first game and offer more things to do. But the pacing is off from the start. It can take quite a long time for the side quests to really open up, and give you more and more things to do in whichever order you decide. Most of the first few chapters limit the number of available side quests, so therefore once they are complete, you have no choice but to continue the main story; if you want to progress. But then suddenly after a majoir chapter concludes, there’s hundreds of them, and more still to come. It just feels like they could have given some of these to you much much sooner.

Then the story reaches a big double boss battle, and then it continues. Now, give the game a rest, and some time to recuperate, and you can get back into it very easily. But after all this energy spent, you just want it to at least feel like the end is in sight, but no…it’s still some time away; and to this end, it can feel a little overkill.

Borderlands 2 is a really fun and engaging game. It does have it’s issues, from the pacing of it’s side quests, to it’s overkill stretch; but for everything that doesn’t work, it has at least a triple number of things that do. And whilst the story is long, it can still be very satisfying to look back on where you started, and see how far you’ve really come. The gun selections are as  frequently insane as most of the inhabitants, the role-playing elements allow a really cool way to improve your character as always, and it is nice to see more of Pandora than it’s hottest desert getaways. If I had to sum it up in one word, well, words lile Brilliant and Terrific, as well as others like Fun, and Satisfying come to mind, but that doesn’t really sum up the world of Borderlands. What word does indeed do that is: FANTASTIC!