Come Get Some!
| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Xbox 360 | 10.00 |
| Overall | 10.00 |
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A labor of love and an incredibly fitting end to this generation of shooters, Borderlands 2 takes everything good about the FPS and Loot genres and mashes them together into one incredibly satisfying masterpiece! Gearbox Software is obviously a development house that listens. Listens to criticisms, listens to its fans, listens to what gamers want in general. They took everything that was "wrong" with the original Borderlands and fixed it (and then some!) for the sequel. The Arid Wasteland setting is barely there anymore, being replaced by Snowy Landscapes, Neon Caustic Caverns, Fiery Bandit Camps, Floating Cities and Industrial Waste zones to name just a few of the many, many environments. There's an actual STORY now, with some of the BEST written dialogue you've seen in a game yet! Beyond the quips your Vault Hunter speaks, there's actually a script expertly voice-acted for the cast of characters and returning heroes from the last game! They are part of the Crimson Raiders now, rebels trying to free Pandora from the grips of the President of the Hyperion Corporation, Handsome Jack. (We'll get back to Jack!) They are joined by Dr. Zed, Scooter, Moxxxy, Marcus and, of course, Claptrap, along with a whole bunch of new supporting characters, and they are ALL fantastically written and acted! A special tribute must be paid to Handsome Jack, though. Never before and likely never again will there be a villain in a game you will LOVE to HATE as much as Jack! He's a Fantastically (Nouveau) Rich & Snobby, Catch-phrase spewing, Corporate Blow-Hard, Douchey Dude-Bro; He's as Charismatic as He's a Dick. He plays with your emotions as he Toys with you at the same time. The writer of this game, Anthony Burch, formerly of Destructoid, JUST with his handling of Jack's character alone, has proven himself SUCH a skilled and witty writer, I cannot wait to see what he does next! Without a doubt there'll be a Borderlands 3, but can they top Handsome Jack? Hard to believe, but we'll see! Story aside, the meat of the game has always been the near limitless variety of weaponry. Yes, you have your Pistols, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Machine and Sub-Machine Guns, and Launchers. The 'Loot' part of the game comes into play in the way these weapons are handled. Randomly generated to match your level, you'll greedily pursue each and every drop by an enemy just to see what you'll get next! A machine gun that fires Rockets that split into three and sets your foe on fire? Tame by Borderlands standards, but it can happen! A pistol that machine guns Slag bullets and makes your enemies easier to kill? In there and ESSENTIAL! A sniper rifle that hits bandits from across the battlefield three times in one shot, covering them in acid and melting away their shields? You get the idea! The combinations get crazy, and as you level higher and higher towards the 50 cap, you'll be amazed at the power you will wield! Speaking of which, how would you like to Dual Wield a Rocket Launcher and a Magnum? The Gunzerker can! He is one of FIVE character classes you can choose from in the game! There's him, the Auto-Turret deploying Commando, the Phase-Locking, Phoenix-like Siren, a Stealthy and quite Deadly Assassin, and a Bad-Ass-Robot-Commanding, Punk-Girl Mechromancer! They all have 3 Skill Trees apiece, with so many useful skills throughout, I guarantee you'll Spec and Re-Spec your characters a few times just to suit your personal style perfectly, cause in this game you can! Alone, you'll become a force to be reckoned with, but the Borderlands REALLY come alive when you're part of a team! There's a drop in, drop out system that is implemented so well, that is so seamless and flawless that Co-Op games from here on out really need to take notes from the way this works and make it an Industry Standard from now on! The Enemies scale and Loot Drops in relation to your team's levels and the area you are in. Money, ammo and Eridium found are all shared amongst all the players regardless of who picks it up. Rewards for completed Quests are automatically added to individual's inventories; it's only the Weapons dropped on the Battlefield that are not shared. Whomever picks it up, it's theirs! For the most part, you'll find there are weapons you like and don't like, so it's not really that big a deal. Should an argument arise though, Gearbox gave you the option to Trade and/or Duel in the game to settle who gets what! What else can be said about this game? Lots really! Diverse Story Missions are complemented by a TON of Side-Missions! Achievement and Trophies aside, there's a Bad-Ass Ranking system that tracks various Actions you take throughout the game (Picking up Loot, Getting Critical Hits with a Sniper Rifle, Causing Damage with a Status Effect like Fire) and Awards Tokens based on completing Milestones. These tokens can be Redeemed for a set of Randomly Chosen attributes, giving Bonuses to skills (Less Gun Recoil, Faster Reloading, Max Health) that are applied to ALL of the characters you play, NOT just the one you complete the objectives with! Utterly addictive! There's Hordes of Horde Mode arenas. TONS of references to Popular Culture and other Games, as well! Don't be surprised by a few 'Creepy' Cameos or downright HILARIOUS parodies! Gearbox made Borderlands a Gamer's Game, filling it with so much content, it's a world you'll not want to leave, with something to do, something to see, objectives to complete and discoveries to be made in playthru after playthru after playthru! The main game has enough content for hundreds of hours; add in the fact that there's SUBSTANTIAL DLC planned through June of 2013, What else do you need really? This is one of those games that could easily become your 'One' game! I started this review by stating just how much Gearbox Software listens to their critics and, especially, their fans. No review would be complete without mentioning a tribute they paid to a gamer by the name of Michael Mamaril. He and his friends played Borderlands 1 cooperatively for days and days on end, every day until tragedy struck. At the age of 22, Michael succumbed to Cancer and passed away at way too young an age. One of his buddies wrote to Gearbox asking them to pay tribute to his friend by having Claptrap's voice actor Eulogize him. Not only did they agree to this by producing an incredibly touching and heart-wrenching speech, they went the ultimate extra mile and gave this fallen gamer a gift ANY gamer would treasure for life! Michael Mamaril has been effectively immortalized in the game as a fellow Vault Hunter, appearing in the city of Sanctuary and handing out Rare Loot weapons to players that are lucky enough to encounter him! The amount of class and care Gearbox displayed in reaction to this one fan alone is absolutely indicative of how they handled the entirety of this game as a whole! Graphically, it's beautiful. Technically, it's sound. Game-play wise, it's so much fun and so content-rich, it's as close to perfection and so far beyond almost any other shooter this generation, it deserves the distinction of a perfect score! A gamer's game in every sense of the word whether played alone or with up to three others, never before has there been such a complete package and not likely ever again in this generation, at the very least! A new standard has been set! Now, why haven't YOU played it yet? |
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Posted by phantom_leo Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:21:48
Recently Spotted:
Foolz (4m)
He saved my ass more than a few times in the game, and I had the privilege of being with him and his character from the start of his game through the final boss!
Here's to True Vault Hunter mode and some KICK-ASS DLC! Woo!
If your video card can handle it, you'll be ASTOUNDED as liquid flows, sparks fly, wind blows and chunks of bandits and robots alike FLY in SUCH a realistic fashion, your jaw WILL hit the floor!
I hope to see Edge's impressions here, once he gets into the game himself!
Jack was a total asshole, but oddly enough I envied him. He was the Dudebro! There are story twists I never saw coming, much less expected in a Borderlands game.
Plus, if you're a fan of Horde modes, fight for your life arena type matches, this is the game for you! Forget Gears, this game outGears Gears with the Horde mode. This game even has two different arenas (three if you preorder) that will test your skills to the max.
I'm sitting here thinking why I dont enjoy many FPS and its because of Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Everything else just seems so generic and bland. Why can't they all have tons of crazy side missions? Why can't they have such weapon variety? Why can't exploration in those games be more than just an afterthought?
Gearbox, you are my heroes.
Every image. Every preview. Every pre-release hands-on. Every movie. Every-THING about this one started showing so much promise from the outset and proved to me that they had really, earnestly corrected all of their past "mistakes" to the point where I KNEW it was going to be THIS good!