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To understand what makes Borderlands 2 a unique and enjoyable game, you need to know a bit about the first Borderlands.
Back in 2009, when Gearbox Software and 2K Games released Borderlands, it was an amazing game for a wealth of reasons. The sketchy cell-shaded graphics made the art memorable and immediately recognizable, and the morbid but quirky humor actually elicited a few good laughs. The game’s cooperative elements were well balanced, with none of the four playable characters holding unfair advantages over the others.
But none of these qualities were what made Borderlands so interesting. No, Borderlands was captivating because Gearbox did something few others had successfully done before—they combined the two most popular game genres into a novel blend of quest-driven storyline, cooperative gameplay and thousands of different guns, all from a first person perspective.
Borderlands’ immediate success created high expectations for the sequel and Gearbox delivered. Borderlands 2 is an improvement over every aspect in the first edition, from creating a new and actually memorable story filled with humor, to the smaller details, like fixing the previously awkward user interface and renovating the inventory system.
Borderlands 2’s storyline is driven by quests, similar to Skyrim, where a long chain of objectives and sidequests direct the players through the game. This is a classic role-playing game (RPG) mechanic, but there is a twist—the RPG content is played from a first person shooter (FPS) perspective, just like the Call of Duty or Battlefield series, which are very unlike the third person camera almost exclusively used in other RPGs. Even better, Borderlands 2 employs a unique weapon creation system, which randomly generates the stats for weapons, meaning that the “87 bazillion guns” that Gearbox advertized the game to contain is an accurate measure.
Never finding the same gun twice makes looting dead enemies incredibly addictive, and the shooter characteristics of the game are infinitely improved.
The biggest improvement is in the story, though. Pandora’s violent revolution is a vibrant struggle to overthrow the planet’s tyrannical dictator filled with new mysteries to explore, and a number of highly memorable characters to meet.
Further, Pandora itself has changed from an empty, desolate land to an alive and thriving planet. For example, where small, unpopulated settlements once stood, a massive city with dozens of inhabitants now stands.
Unfortunately, the game continues to employ a free-for-all loot system which, although it is fun when you’re the looter, the system can unfairly distribute the good stuff when one player grabs it all. In an attempt to solve this issue, players can now trade items and challenge one another to duels over weapons. This fix, however, doesn’t address the underlying issue of unfairness.
Overall, Borderlands 2’s action and humor-packed cooperative gameplay coupled with impressive replay value earns it a well-desevered place among this year’s best games.
By Matt Morton
