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| Also available on PS3 |
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There were a lot of things that made
Borderlands
such a great game when it came out three years ago: the hardscrabble
planet, the oddball characters, the hostile creatures, the diverse
missions, the abundant loot, the powerful skill trees, and the novelty
of all these things combined in a cooperative first-person shooter. In
Borderlands 2, the novelty is gone, but all of the other elements are
back and better than ever. This sequel doubles down on the successes of
the original and shores up its shortcomings, improving the familiar
formula and delivering dozens and dozens of hours of immensely
entertaining gameplay.
Perhaps the most notable difference is that Pandora now feels like a
vibrant, living place. What once was a lonely frontier planet populated
primarily by savage men and feral beasts is, well, still a planet
populated primarily by savage men and feral beasts. But it isn't so
lonely anymore, thanks to an expanded cast of diverse and entertaining
characters. Many familiar faces return, including the delusional robot,
Claptrap; the hayseed mechanic, Scooter; and the bawdy vixen, Moxxi. The
four playable characters from the first game are back as well, and they
each play a robust role in the story (and have way more spoken lines
than ever before). There are some delightful new additions too, such as
the arrogant antagonist, Handsome Jack, and the teenage demolitionist,
Tiny Tina. Random townsfolk also have a few things to say, no longer
content with mute or monosyllabic responses, and even the bandits you
fight have a broader range of context-sensitive taunts.
The huge amount of high-quality voice acting required to bring this
world to life is fueled by excellent writing, which provides some
genuinely nasty tirades and surprisingly tender moments amid the
avalanche of laugh-out-loud funny lines. The breadth of personalities
invigorates your adventure and makes Pandora a lively, engrossing place,
the kind of place it fell short of being in the first game. The only
drawback to the sheer volume of communication is that sometimes
conversations are cut off by other incoming messages before you can hear
them through. This doesn't pose any barrier to progression, but with
dialogue this good, you don't want to miss a word.
If you apply this same philosophy to exploration, Borderlands 2 will
keep you busy for a very, very long time. The environments of Pandora
are more vibrant and diverse this time around, and the eye-catching
artistic aesthetic is enlivened with a richer color palette and more
clever details. Textures sometimes load sluggishly when you're entering
new areas and occasionally look rough upon close inspection, but this is
still a visually appealing world. Diligent explorers will find both
lovely vistas and amusing sights--the humor of the writing extends into
the environmental design as well.
There are tons of areas to visit during the course of your adventure,
some of which you won't even see if you don't stray far from the main
story missions. The mission system is one area in which small tweaks
have a noticeable impact. The onscreen checklist updates you of any
mission progress caused by your current actions, even if said progress
isn't for your currently selected mission. You can also choose to ignore
missions in the menu so that you don't have to constantly scroll past
old leftovers to get to the ones you want. It's not necessary to pursue
every last mission en route to the final boss, but to stay at a
competitive level with your enemies, plan on doing a fair number of side
missions. These endeavors are another great source of creativity and
humor, including a logic puzzle to decide which of four thieves cheated
the others, and the ludicrously simple task titled "Shoot This Guy in
the Face."
In addition to missions, there is an expanded array of challenges. These
goals are automatically tracked and reward you for actions like offing a
certain number of skags or getting a lot of incendiary kills. New
location-specific challenges give you further incentive to find hidden
secrets in each area, and this extra layer of reward makes idle
exploration more appealing. Every challenge completed increases your
badass rank, which in turn gives you small bonuses to various attributes
(such as gun damage, fire rate, and shield recharge delay) that apply
to any character you create, not just your current one. Tweaking
challenges and introducing cross-character bonuses aren't big additions
to the game, but they serve as a nice acknowledgement of the fact that
many players want to play as multiple characters. This overarching
reward system is one of the many small improvements that make
Borderlands 2 a more player-friendly experience than its predecessor.
