Borderlands 2 (2012)

I loved Borderlands 2 and had a great time with this amazing sequel. The humor, silly atmosphere and new features created a fresh new experience for me.

In Borderlands 2, the story continues from the first game. There is a new vault, discovered by our main villain, Handsome Jack. You start as one of the four new Vault Hunters, employed by Handsome Jack himself. Like the bastard he is, he betrays you and blows up the train you are traveling on, leaving you for dead. You are found by Claptrap, who takes you to safety. You travel to Sanctuary, a protected city with bandits, ex-Crimson Raiders and other adventures, who resist Handsome Jack's monopoly and power of the planet Pandora.

You learn that the new Vault Key is being transported via train and you, your buddies Roland, Mordecai, Brick and Lilith (from the first game) make plans to intercept and raid the train. You stop the train but instead of the Vault key, a big ass robot comes out and ambushes you. You defeat him and eventually discover that Angel (the entity that guided you through the first game) is a Siren and actually Jack’s daughter. He is using her Siren powers to charge up the Vault Key. She begs you to end her existence to stop Jack and after an successful attack on Jack’s main facility, you grant her wish, ending her life support. Handsome Jack is furious and launches a full scale assault on Sanctuary, almost destroying it. Lilith uses her bling bling witch Siren powers to teleport the whole freaking city to a different location, saving the day. Lilith is captured however, and Jack is using her instead of Angel to charge up the Vault Key.

The Vault Hunters eventually learn the location of the new vault and prepare to stop Jack, who is already close upon opening it. They fight their way there, confront Handsome Jack and defeat him. They fail to prevent the Vault from being opened and the Vault Warrior is unleashed. In this final fight, the Vault Hunters make short work of him, saving the planet. The game ends with a cliffhanger, revealing multiple other Vaults in the galaxy as shown by Lilith in the aftermath with Jack. This created the opportunity for multiple other sequels and/or prequels.

I really liked Handsome Jack. He is one of the best villains that I encountered in a videogame. His personality, voice acting, dark humor and overall presentation is just perfect. His comments, actions and threats to your characters were hilarious and I laughed more than I ever thought possible.

The graphics are upgraded from the previous game and are still in the Cell Shading format. For Borderlands games, this works perfectly and gives the game its charm. The animations and effects are a lot better compared to the first game and I think this game had some more color and depth in it.

In terms of sound, Borderlands 2 improved greatly from its predecessor. The sound effects are spot on and the new dubstep soundtracks are great. But the best improvement is the voice acting. It is funny, crystal clear and overall, I can only praise it.

The movement, controls and mechanics are improved with various GUI tweaks, better menus and improved control of inventory management. The mechanics work fluently and in terms of gunplay, I have nothing to complain. It is fast paced, accurate and overall, just great.

Borderlands 2 also introduced a million new weapons, new brands, new types of guns and a lot more variation in enemies and biomes. Classic weapons and enemies are also present like Skags and Rakks, which all have more variants now.

I still think the best part of this game is the humor. Every mission, every encounter, everything is one big joke. Names of bosses, many times, refer to pop culture icons and certain missions are just hilarious and stupid. It is just as good (if not better) than the first Borderlands game.

The only big downside with Borderlands 2, is the introduction of loot boxes, in which you need to buy Golden Keys, so you can use your hard earned, real life money to get a chance of a legendary gun, giving you an paid edge over other players in case of duels. Borderlands 2 is a product of its time, in which this “genius” idea was introduced in many games, including Shadow of Mordor, Star Wars Battlefront and many more.

Another small issue, for me at least, is the ridiculous amount of DLC that the game offers. It is almost as bad as The Sims. DLC on it’s own is not bad, and the DLC campaigns where all fun to play, but besides extra missions and campaigns, millions of skins, Upgrade pack 1, Upgrade Pack 2, soundtracks, animations, unorganized bundles of diverse skins and content (but not all), and Season Passes are added, and it is a complete mess. I never had/have the feeling that I could experience the full game because “I am always missing something”. I also completely lost the chronological order of DLC, what is playable content and what is just a soundtrack or a new skin.

Lastly, some boss encounters are ridiculously hard. So hard in fact, that you can only complete them with friends or random people. I did not like the “forced co-op” aspect of the game in which you can get stuck on your progress (mainly raid bosses) because you do not have the friends or people to complete it.

Speaking of the DLC, so far I completed the following DLC, besides the main game:

I started with the expansion Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt. In this DLC, you need to stop professor Nakayama, a former Hyperion scientist who is trying to create a clone of Handsome Jack. You fight your way to his super-secret laboratory and eventually, defeat him.

Alongside this, you receive multiple “hunting missions” from Sir Hammerlock, to test your skill and in which you need to defeat a series of bosses. There are multiple new enemies in the DLC, although many of them are just reskinned assets from the main game. Only the shaman enemies are unique (and very annoying).

I did not like this DLC that much. It was a little repetitive and blend, and features the worst and most relentlessly hard boss in history, Voracidous the Invincible.

After this, I completed Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty. In this DLC, you aid captain Scarlett, in her search for Captain Blade's Lost Treasure of the Sands. She warns you multiple times that she will betray you when you/she finds it, the very thing she eventually does. You fight her and her big ass pet, destroying it. Scarlett escapes afterwards via a Teleporter. You find the treasure and collect the precious loot, ending the DLC. This expansion also added a new vehicle, the Sandskiff.

I also finished a headhunter mission: Mad Moxxi and the Wedding Day Massacre.

In this DLC, a man and woman from the Hodunk and Zaford clan are getting married, to settle the feud between them. Mad Moxxi is the ceremonial head for the wedding and needs to make sure that it succeeds. For this, she needs to make a love potion, just in case.

It is the job of the vault hunter to gather the ingredients for the potion, which are spread through several mission objectives.

Personally, I thought this was the most boring DLC in Borderlands 2. You are just an errand boy that needs to complete several fetch quests. The setting was boring, the atmosphere and surroundings dark and depressing and overall, I just thought that this DLC was not worth it.

Overall, I liked this expansion and its story, although the desert biome, in which it plays, was a little boring in my opinion.

The other two main DLC campaigns (and the billions of other mini stories and add-ons), I yet have to complete.

In the end, the main game was a lot of fun and my completed DLC’s so far, were enjoyable enough.

Purely based on the main game alone, I would definitely recommend this awesome game.

I don't know if it was a problem with my system or what but the mouse controls were so awful that it was almost unplayable. TBH I didn't like it much but I have seen that others enjoy it so I dunno. Not for me.