Borderlands 2 Review

We all remember the grind of Borderlands 1, it was a never ending stream of new loot to compare and switch between, skill points and strength to look forward to with each level, and a large sprawling new world complete with hilarious psychotics, cannibals, shotgun midgets, and of course skags. Somewhere along the lines though, we got tired of having no new missions to complete and once we were fully leveled and had found that one gun that could kill any enemy with a single shot if felt as though there was no reason to play Borderlands and it drifted off as we would sell it back to Gamestop in order to get money for our next big adventure. However, it would not be long before we began to miss the colors, the humor, the overly engaging blend of rpg and fps that no other game had ever dare attempted and now its back.
Yes thankfully we can now return to Pandora and its 85 gazillion guns are at our fingertips. Borderlands 2 features 4 all new vault hunters and a brand new story that actually takes off of the train wreck that was the story of the first game. The opening of the first vault spread eridium throughout Pandora and it quickly became a hot commodity. A man named Handsome Jack saw this as a great opportunity for the Hyperion corporation, one of the major gun manufacturers from the original game, to swoop in and bring order to the lawless planet in order to mine the eridium and gain power and wealth. Now Jack has become the new president of Hyperion and he has found a second vault on Pandora and he invites vault hunters to come help him open it so he can just kill them as soon as they get there ensuring that he has no competition. If you cannot tell already, the story is much, much better in the sequel. I was honestly impressed with it this time around. Not only were they able to salvage the gigantic, mind-numbingly bland story of the first game, but they expanded on it bringing back all of the characters from the original game, including all 4 original vault hunters, and crafted a story of revenge, heroism, tragedy, love, loss, and reflection over good and evil. Of course all the gore, crude humor, and murder remain perfectly intact so do not fret.
The 4 classes have been completely revamped with new abilities and vastly different skill trees that cater to a myriad of play styles and skill levels. There is Salvador the gunzerker who can activate his gunzerking skill in order to duel wield any two guns in the game while he regenerates health and ammo and screams bloody murder much like Brick did when activating his berzerker skill. Salvador is very much a tank/dps class, that is how I utilized his skills anyway. His three skill trees focus on tanking, shrugging off damage and regenerating health. Switching weapons, giving bonuses for constantly using different weapons and weapon types, and continuous fire. A gunzerker needs to never stop firing and if at all possible never stop gunzerking you will probably get the most dps out of this skill tree but not you will essentially be a glass cannon. The commando, Axton, is a lot like Roland in that he is entirely dps and his action skill deploys a sabre turret that I am happy to say is much more useful than Roland's was. All of Axton's skill trees are incredibly useful focusing on powering up the turret for support, powering up Axton's overall damage and magazine size, or strengthening Axton's survivability and being able to get out two sabre turrets equipped with shields. Now I have yet to try the other two characters but Maya and Zero both seem to be ranged support. Zero's action skill makes a decoy of himself that aggros enemies and Maya can grab an enemy in a stasis bubble that does continuous damage and often offers buffs to the team.
The classes and story are not the only things that have been revamped. The multiplayer has been given some upgrades as well. You can still do the classic four player co op and work through the story as a team however the enemy level scale will depend on the level of the host character but having more people in your party makes the game more difficult and rare loot drops more often. Story points can be skipped or re done for more advanced players who do not wish to replay them or for those who do. Weapon and skill menus have a sleeker and more interesting layout that does not take up the whole screen during co op and allowing all players to check their menus or compare weapons at the same time. There is now a full system for trading money and equipment instead of just dropping things on the ground and hoping you do not lose them before the person you are trading with has a chance to pick them up. You can even bet a bunch of money or equipment on the outcome of a duel between you and another player however the arenas have been removed to put more focus on co op play. I am still looking for a good team to take down the gigantic and imposing raid boss Terramorphous if anyone would be interested.
Of course being that this is Borderlands, there needs to be tons and tons of different guns and enemy types and Gearbox did not disappoint. If you can believe it there are actually more guns and enemy types in this game than there were in the first and that is really saying something. I think the first game actually had a around 17 million different guns and it won the Guinness world record for most guns in a video game ever. The guns. grenades and enemies are much more interesting this time around. Each manufacturer adds a new and unique effect to their guns such as gaining accuracy with hyperion weapons and throwing the gun like a grenade to reload it with tediore weapons. The differing abilities between weapons and their elemental effects are much more prevalent and no two weapons are even slightly alike. You can even inspect the millions of impressive 3d gun models in full detail now which as an animator, I found was a very nice feature.
All in all, Borderlands 2 has completely brought back the chaos and the comedy in an even bigger way and I loved every second of it. I cannot wait to start my second play through as the gunzerker and I know that this time around I will be playing through as every character because they are all just way too interesting to ignore. If you like shooters, rpgs, pretty and unique graphical styles, or completely hilarious and over the top experiences that are increasingly hard to come by, you cannot afford to miss Borderlands 2.
9/10