Borderlands 2 Review

The overall premise of Borderlands 2 is simple, stick the player in an environment where nearly everything wants to kill you, give said player power ups that can in many cases be way overpowered and give him/her enough firepower to destroy the planet several times over...essentially it's like the Legend of Zelda...with guns...Full Review after the break..



Bordelands 2 takes place on Pandora once again but is set a few years after the first game. The Hyperion Corporation has taken over the planet in a huge way, robots patrol various areas, the Pandoran moon now houses a massive Hyperion satellite, there are massive cityscapes and prison camps. Hyperion is led by the the very charismatic Handsome Jack who throughout the game will piss off the player in a hundred different ways.

The overall arching storyline in Borderlands 2 is a good one but it's far from great. There is your standard tyrannical overseer who is backed by a massive entity in the form of Handsome Jack and the Hyperion Corporation and then there is your ragtag resistance group in the form of the Crimson Raiders led by Roland who was one of the playable characters in the first game. Throughout the story Handsome Jack wants to unlock an entity simply unimaginatively  known as The Warrior which will give him infinite power to rule over Pandora. So the story overall has been done before but it remains strong throughout because of the absolutely brilliant voice acting by all the characters.

The standout act is definitely the antagonist Handsome Jack. Handsome Jack is more than your evil CEO he is the guy you would love to punch in the face, throughout the game he will chastise the player in a thousand different ways. However despite the humorous prods that Jack will spew at the player a deeper analysis of his character shows Jack to be a massive psychopath. Most games will show their villain as dark or cold which is fine but Handsome Jack goes beyond the cliché "Im wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses indoors so I must be bad" villain to something far deeper. Jack is the kind of villain who thinks that what he's doing is the right thing so much so that he regards the player as a bandit and it is mentality that makes Jack a superior villain.Throughout the story we see Jack as this disciplined villain who will kill with a smile on his face but after a certain point in the game we see this discipline rub off somewhat and Jack's transmissions to the player will change from humorous jabs to pure and unbridled rage. It is this visible devolution of Jack as a villain that makes him a brilliant character, the shift in his character just shows that Jack under his mask lies a very mentally disturbed but brilliant individual. Handsome Jack is taken further with the brilliant voice acting done by Dameon Clarke.

Other standout acts include David Eddings as the lovable/annoying mascot Claptrap, Ashley Burch as the insane 13 year old demolitions expert Tiny Tina and J Michael Tatum as the refined gentleman Sir Hammerlock.

Even in the midst of battle our heroes strike a pose.Also...the Gunzerker is short, don't tell him I said that though.

The gameplay in Borderlands 2 can be summed up in one word...fantastic. There are four classes in the game each with their own special powers that can turn the tide of the battle. Axton the Commando has his turret which can rain down a hail of lead on a bunch of enemies, Salvador the Gunzerker can dual wield any two weapons in his hands, Zer0 the...um...Cyber Ninja can cloak and release a holo decoy to confuse his enemies and Maya the Siren can contain and damage enemies with her Phaselock. All these special abilities can be modified to make them even more deadly for example, Axton's turret can be modified to have rocket launchers in addition to the main gun and Maya's Phaselock can have additional elemental damage attached to it. The characters powers differ so radically that each character just begs to be played at least once.

The game to the uninitiated is like a cross between an RPG and a FPS. The player will follow a levelling system much like an RPG, every time the player levels up he/she will receive a skill point that can be used to modify the attributes of the player this can range from giving the character more shields or increasing the potency of their special skill. The enemies in the game scale according as the player progresses as well.

The gunplay in the game is fun as well, the game boasts about 888 Gajillionbillion Guns...or something around those lines. It is not just the quantity of guns that matter here but it's the variety of weapons that you can pick up. There are your standard weapons that deal raw physical damage but there are others that deal elemental bonuses as well. There are your caustic guns that cover your enemies in burning acid (great for armoured enemies), explosive rounds make your bullets go boom , your fire and shock weapons that...um...set fire and shock your enemies respectively and slag rounds which cover your enemies in purple goo which weaken your enemies greatly for that final shot from another weapon. In addition to the guns the grenades play a more varied role as well, like the guns there are grenades that burn, shock and cover enemies with acid but there are also grenades that explode into more tiny grenades and grenades that suck enemies in with a wormhole...and then explodes.

Rifles that go boom is the best kind of rifle.

Another thing that's just as varied are the enemy types, you won't just face off against the generic bandit but massive goliaths who will turn into raging monsters when you shoot their masks off, there are massive robots that will shoot you into the next star system and giant insects that will cover you in acid.


The missions in the game are varied, there are missions which simply are "kill this guy roaming over here on the map and come on back to get your reward" style missions to the dreaded fetch quests. But the thing is that the game attempts to make each of these otherwise dry quests fresh, for example one quest had me kill a bunch of people at a certain area but the thing is that my targets were in a sewer and they like pizza...top points for anyone who can figure out that cultural reference.

That is another thing that has to be commended about the game, Borderlands 2 treats its fans right, the spewing of pop culture reference is numerous but not overused and just hunting for these references are a delight in its own right.

There is a saying in my culture about this sort of thing....SHIT MAN!! RUN FOR YO LIVES ! 

In addition to the standard missions we also have arena battles much like the Horde Mode found in Gears of War. Waves of enemies of various types will attack the player with reckless abandon, these fights are nothing special but do add to the variety of the game.


The skirmishes in Borderlands 2 are tense, enemies of all types will converge on you and will attack the player with great determination. The enemy AI in the game is both a hit and a miss,  enemies will take cover and try to dodge your shots. Other times they will just stand there and walk past by the player just begging to be shot at, other times they snap out of cover and stand there. Plenty of times I saw enemies taking cover on the wrong side giving me a clear shot of their head. A few times during the game I saw the human enemies just point their hands to the air and walk about as if they were having a seizure.

All the enemies whether it be robot, human or animal have one great strength...sheer numbers. One enemy will be shooting at you from a distance with a rifle while another will try and attack you close up with a submachine gun. At times the enemies will show great cunning, for example when it came to me fighting the robotic enemies just as I was about to finish one robot off his friend raised a bubble shield around the two of them resulting in the enemy I weakened a chance to regenerate his own personal shield.

Alright man you distract the enemy...and I will run home

There are the vehicle sections which feels really tacked on and brings no change from the first game. Essentially all you do is drive to your next objective and a few enemy vehicles will come out to try take you down which will never happen because the enemies are braindead when it comes to driving ground vehicles. However when it comes to the aerial enemies be it a bandit in a aerial vehicle or flying insect or a  robot drone they will drive the player off the rails. They will zip around mountain ranges as if they were ace pilots fighting for their lives, the lives of their family and their nation, they fly as if it were the only purpose in life..which it is essentially. Trying to shoot just one aerial enemy is a chore but the game will throw at least 3 at any given time.

The game does have its fair share of glitches which is not surprising for a game of this scale. I have experienced being sunk into the map, enemies who would go invisible and I am well aware that there are enemies who can cloak but these were your standard grunts who not only pulled off a Houdini but had the gall to keep shooting at me. There are a few frame rate issues here and there but all in all I never had a single freeze throughout the game which is a huge boast considering the game's size. (I'm looking at you Fallout New Vegas)

The environments in this game also has to be mentioned. In the first Borderlands there was sand, sand, more sand and a smidgen more sand. Borderlands 2 on the other hand takes you on one mother a roadtrip. Some of the environments include the city of Opportunity, the marshlands of Thousand Cuts, the prison camp known as Friendship Gulag and my personal favourite the acid covered Caustic Caverns. All in all I never felt bored when I was killing my way throughout Pandora.

This place was selected as "Best Place to Vacation"  by Lonely Planet back in 2009. 

Of all the great strengths I mentioned previously I left the best for last. Cooperative gameplay in Borderlands 2 is huge fun. The enemies scale brilliantly according to the number of people playing at the same time, I had huge fun playing with my friends taking on the evil of Pandora has to offer. Players will work together to fight enemies who become stronger. The thing I loved about the coop is that it forces you to work as one, any player that charges head on will be killed faster than a low level skag taking a swim in a pool of acid. The game can be played locally by two players on splitscreen and this splitscreen can be take online, so essentially this game was built with working as a team in mind from the very beginning. Players can choose to initiate  a duel amongst themselves to prove who has the better loadout (answer: I do...my sentry turrets are awesome). Players can attempt all the story and side missions as well as the arena missions but be forewarned the more players there are the more powerful the enemies become.

Borderlands 2 is one of those games that is hard to put down, you just want to play it again and again with different characters and find all those hidden secrets Gearbox has hidden. Yes the story is unimaginative, the AI can be downright moronic at times, the missions if stripped down to its core can be seen as boring but the game's strengths just outweigh all the gripes I have against it. I love the guns and the rest of the loot, the varied environments and enemies keep the game fresh,the coop is spectacular fun and just adds to a strong single player campaign, the game's 4 distinct classes are all strong and each one demands to be played at least once and the fact that this game has dedication written all over it simply means that you have to buy this game.

I want to take this time to commend Gearbox for adding Michael Mamaril to the game. Michael passed away at the age of 22 and was considered a huge Borderlands fan. His untimely death was eulogized by Gearbox some time ago and now he's immortalized in one of the best games I reviewed this year. Respect to Gearbox for taking care of its audience.

Michael is a fellow vault hunter who if asked will give the player a random blue, orange or purple loot and he can be found roaming around random parts of Sanctuary.

Borderlands 2 
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360 and PS3
Platform Used for Review : PS3 
My Purchase Date of the Game: September 26th 2012