WeView: Borderlands 2

In this week’s WeView we return to Pandora to take a look at Borderlands 2. This sequel has quite a mountain to climb, with its predecessor getting a landslide Buy It verdict when it cropped up for WeView. However, when you compare the reviews of the games it looks like Borderlands 2 should come out ahead, with a score of 9/10 compared to Borderlands’ 8/10, but the question, as always, is whether the community will agree.

With a score of 9/10 there’s obviously a lot to like in the game, and Peter started complimented it right off the bat. He began his review by saying that:

Every once in a while, a game comes along that reminds you of exactly why you love videogames. Borderlands 2 is one of those games.

That’s some very high praise for the game, but it really does seem that the game overall does live up to it. From the introductory cutscene which Peter calls “the best I can recall since the first Borderlands intro sequence”, to the enemy AI that’s “gotten a little smarter” since the original, high points abound in the game’s design and systems.

Unfortunately it can’t all be good, and Peter complained that “Vehicles remain an unfortunate low point for the game, with driving controls slightly awkward and uneven surfaces often throwing your vehicle out of control for a brief moment when you were least expecting it.” He felt that in general they “aren’t particularly well utilised” and once you’ve got the fast travel system set up they can be largely put to the side.

He also found some issues with texture pop-in and difficulty spikes but, in general, the positives more than outweigh the negatives, with Peter finding time to highlight the game’s variety of guns, the “seamless co-op” and the writing. In fact he praised the game for having “some of the most intelligently written, self-aware and funny scripting in the medium,” and enjoyed the little touches like “Enemies complaining about losing their equipment as they die”.

While there are some minor niggles with the game, Peter was more than satisfied overall. Ultimately he had this to say about the game:

Borderlands 2 is a joyful experience, full of humour and character. It manages to walk the fine line between silly base humour and a more intelligent wit too, which is something almost unique in videogames. With a narrative that expands on the original storyline in every conceivable way and so many ways to play, different characters to build and so much cooperative fun to be had, it’s hard to see a downside. While there are occasional issues with enemies clipping into scenery and there is some quite noticeable texture fade-in as you enter new areas, it’s nothing that can’t easily be forgiven in a game of this magnitude. Borderlands 2 is one of the unmissable videogame experiences of the year.

And now it’s time to ask you what you thought of the game. Did you find as much to love as Peter, or did you feel that it fell short in more areas than he did? Did it live up to the high bar that the original game set, or could it never reach that same level?

Wherever your feelings on the game fall, you can share them by dropping a comment below. If you want to take part in Monday’s verdict article though you’ll need to have your comment in by Sunday afternoon, and you’ll also need to include a rating for the game from the Buy It, Bargain Bin It, Rent It, Avoid It scale.

18 Comments

  1. I loved Borderlands 1 and thought I’d love the second outing just as much but there is just something about it that puts me off.

    The game seems near on identical, with the good points from 1 being present in 2, such as the addictive random loot spawning, the variety in enemy types and tactics, the weird characters and big open world. However almost all the negative points are still present too, with nasty vehicle controls, lack of focus towards the story, too many pointless ‘go to’ and ‘kill x enemy’ quests and to me what feels like too big of a world (a lot of the time the world feels pretty empty). I’ve also had quite a lot of texture loading issues, though that happened in the first game too.

    I’ve noticed that the times when I have had the most fun playing a Borderlands game have been when playing co-op but half the fun stems from my friends and I talking about completely different subjects, rather than relating to the game itself.

    If I had to pick a rating for the game, I’d still pick ‘Buy It’ as it’s too big of a game to just rent and the good points alone make it worth a purchase but I can’t help but feel that the game could have been a lot better.

  2. Ee-e-e-um-um-a-weh
    Ee-e-e-um-um-a-weh

    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh

    In the Pandora, the mighty Pandora
    The Spiderants sleeps tonight
    In the Pandora, the quiet Pandora
    The Spiderants sleeps tonight

    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh

    Near the Santuary, the peaceful Satntuary
    The Bandits and Skags sleeps tonight
    Near the village, the quiet village
    The Bullywongs eats Claptrap tonight

    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh

    Hush my darling, don’t fear my darling
    The Skags sleeps tonight
    Hush my darling, don’t fear my darling
    The Spiderants sleeps tonight

    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
    Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh

    Ee-e-e-um-um-a-weh
    Ee-e-e-um-um-a-weh

    (?)
    On a more serious note, I had so much fun with BL2, the characters and world is rather great and the enemies (specially the Midgets are soooooo funny.) As with the first BL it truly shines when your playing with friends.

    Its easily a buy it for one of the best games of 2012.

  3. Well so far my opinion differs from many here. I thought Borderlands 2 improved on the (still amazing) original in every way. My big issues with the first game were a mediocre shooting mechanic and monotony in environments. The shooting feels far tighter and environmentally it’s much more diverse so…score.

    The comedy is good and the standout by far is Handsome Jack. Possibly the most entertaining bad guy I’ve ever seen in a game. Every time he said something I chuckled at the least and occassionally had to pause to game to wipe tears of hilarity away but the introduction of many of the bad guys was not so great. Who can forget the first time they saw Nine Toes intro card and squirted milk from their nose (or something) when it announce “also, he has three balls”? Of course comedy is subjective so nobody’s opinion on what is or isn’t funny isn’t wrong for them. I personally found Claptraps dialogue hilarious but I know many people who grit their teeth in anger everytime he opens his non existent mouth.

    The skill trees make a huge difference this time around too and I felt that as I changed my point distribution I had a totally different character on my hands. It’s almost like each class is three very different classes so you could argue that there are 12 roles to play rather that the 4 advertised (Mechromancer notwithstanding).

    I’ve been through the game a half dozen times now and am still enjoying it with friends because co-op is the meat and potatoes of the game. Seamless drop in/drop out play is amazing and I’ve never once had any connection or communication issues.

    My official opinion for the sake of this atricle is Buy It but if you don’t at least rent it you’re doing yourself a disservice.

  4. I was gonna get it just after xmas but it was a toss up between that and a new hdd for my old 40gb fatty.Needless to say that i ended buying the hdd.This time my mrs was stood watching over me while i bought it,unlike last time when i spent the money on games.

  5. How anyone could not like this game is beyond me. Improved on 1 in every way. Tiny tina just plain hilarious and when you get simple intricacies like the “shoot this guy in the face” mission followed by completion text of “you shot him in the face” and his little thankyou or the teenage mutant ninja turtle relevance mission or even the lotr easter egg mission, you realise how much thought and research was put into making the player laugh and chuckle their way to a heightened badass rank.

    It has it all and in such huge quantity. Easily the best game i played last year and the strongest/easiest vote of buy it i am ever likely to give.

  6. Well i think i might be the only one out here to say it’s one of the most boring games i played last year. and of course the mighty annoying claptrap in the game didn’t help. i do have to say i didn’t play a lot of games last year but this was one i finished the story and when i did i put the game back in the closet and haven’t touched it ever since. just didn’t want to continue. if i didn’t got this from my friends as a birthday present then i probably wouldn’t have bought it right away. i had high hopes of the game but in the end i had almost the same feeling as i had with the first one. i don’t like both of them, think they are both boring, repeating, and hugely annoying thanks to claptrap

  7. Despite the “girlfriend mode” controversy the preceded it putting me off somewhat (damn my latent feminism!), I still gave Borderlands 2 a try after buying it for my husband, because he has raved for ages about the original, and told me the sequel was even better.

    Although I’m not a fan of the FPS genre in general, and didn’t find the single player to be overly immersive, we have now spent many, MANY hours playing the co-op game. Although we occasionally have friends join in online, it has been a really fun way for us to game together as a couple, and the hours we have spent on Pandora just fly by. Sometimes a bit too easily. Helpful hint folks, don’t start playing at 8pm on a Friday night when you need to be at work at 10am on a Saturday, just in case you forget to go to bed until 6am…

    I generally tend towards more puzzle games and RPGs, and the only games I have fully completed on the Playstation3 prior to this were Dragon Age 1 & 2. Despite that, I now have my gunzerker up to level 40, have completed the basic storyline with him, and now have an assassin and a commando on their first play-throughs. The ‘true vault hunter mode’ adds a nice touch to the game, as it means replaying doesn’t get boring, what with the additional difficulty and double-hard badass enemies adding to the challenge.

    Anyway, without a doubt I would say buy it, we’re about to pick up a second copy so that we can use both our PS3s at the same time when friends come over, and have a top quality 4 way session. The humour, in-jokes, music and cultural references just add another level of depth to the game, and I don’t see either of us getting tired of playing it any time soon. Plus I want my first platinum trophy!

Comments are now closed for this post.