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Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: 2K Games
Genre: FPS/aRPG Hybrid
Platforms: Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Released: September 2012 (NA/EU/AU), October 2012 (JPN), November (OS X)
Version Used In Review: Windows, version 1.3.1


Introduction

Borderlands 2 is a hybrid of FPS and Action RPG, with main focus on killing enemies and looting items. While there are many games that combine two or three of those features, not many actually have all four present. In fact, the only game I can think of right away is Hellgate: London, and even that was a failure. I think it's sufficient to say that there are hardly any, if at all, games that take the basic idea of Diablo, puts it in the FPS clothes and actually does it well.

If I wanted to cover every topic of Borderlands 2 properly, I would have to write a book about it. In fact, my first iteration of this review was about six posts long, and not everything was covered yet. Because of that I'm not using my regular reviewing style. It's also worth to note that I haven't played the first game yet. It doesn't really affect the rating, though some opinions I have may be a bit flawed since I'm not comparing Borderlands 1 and 2 to each other.

This review is divided to five sections; Neutral, Positive, Negative, Everything Else and Examples. Positive and Negative sections are for things that are either good or bad things in Borderlands 2. Neutral section is about things that are highly variable based on the player and, even if I count them as positive or negative, can be considered to be opposite as well. Everything Else covers things that won't actually affect the score but are good to know. Examples is the only section which will contain spoilers. This section is completely optional to read, though could explain what I mean better. I try to avoid major spoilers in there as well.


Neutral Features

First, and most important, thing to cover is the humor. It's brilliant, witty and well written. But it's not for everybody, not by a long shot. A rule of thumb is, if you get easily offended, you WILL get offended by Borderlands 2. No topic is considered as taboo in this game; religion, slavery, censorship, nationality, even mental disorders are fair targets for jokes. Even the player and, surprisingly, the game itself gets mocked. Usually, when any game tries this kind of approach, the failure is promised. What separates Borderlands 2 from rest of the games is the way the joking is done. First of all, everything is joked about. It's more difficult to get offended when you realize you, or your ideology, is just a tiny portion of all the things that is made fun of. Secondly, most of the time the jokes are so exaggerated that you can't take it too serious anymore. The mistake most of the games do is that they try to be funny about certain things but, perhaps because of respect and fear of audience, they don't dare to complete what was started. This usually results bad jokes and people actually getting offended. Borderlands 2 dares to go to the end and won't even stop there. Finally, the humor is very well written. It can be subtle, consisting only few words or one image you see somewhere. It can be slapped to your face when you least expected. The rule is, anything can happen at anytime. And sometimes you realize only afterwards you should have been able to see that coming, but you didn't.

I will give some examples of the humor in last section. To summarize it, the humor is everywhere in the game and you can't avoid it. Also, you either love it or you hate it, the very reason it's in the Neutral section. It's clear that the developers were given the freedom of doing anything they liked and, if it was interesting, cool or funny, it was added. Finally, though this may be clear already, the humor is quite dark and twisted. If I had to describe it with one sentence, I would say the following: "The developers were making Borderlands 2 with the "tongue-in-cheek" mentality, except that the tongue was ripped from the mouth of reviewer who thought the previous games was too immoral."

Second thing that falls into "Neutral" ground is the graphic. If you are looking one of those "ultra-realistic" or "photo-realistic" games, you can return to latest version of Black Ops or Modern Warfare. You won't find what you are looking for from Borderlands 2. Also, if the only thing that matters to you is the graphic, follow the previous advice.

Borderlands 2 is beautiful in its own way; colorful world with lots of small details, though not too much. It almost feels like the old cartoons had suddenly come to live, through the explosion of colors. In some way I could say that, if games like Black Ops is in one end of "realistic graphics", Borderlands 2 is on the opposite end. And it still looks so beautiful. Of course, it may bother a bit at the beginning, but after an hour or so you don't actually realize the difference anymore.

Third, and last, feature in this section is the multiplayer. Borderlands 2 was basically made to be played with others, up to four players in one game at a time. Some features, like vehicles, actually require at least to reach the full potential. The question is, and this is practically the most important question, do you have good friends to play with or do you have to settle for random people? With friends, who you know at least somewhat, the multiplayer is wonderful experience, something one should not miss. And this comes from a person who prefers playing alone in almost every case. But if you don't have any, or the ones you have aren't playing regularly, the only option is to go with random people. And, to tell the truth, I will never again play Borderlands 2 with random people. It's either solo play or with my friends.

The problem with random people is that you can't actually regulate who can join your game if you make it open. The only thing you can do is to kick all the unwanted players out from your game. Since, based on my personal experience, about 40% random players just wants to duel all the time or wants me to help them in duping items, and 55% just don't care I'm the one who is hosting the game and do as they want, most of the time I spent playing with random players was just about kicking them out and not actually playing.

The second problem with random people comes from the quest system. If anybody taking part in the session accepts a quest, everybody else must accept it as well without choice. If one player changes the active quest, everybody else does so as well. The problem is annoying during first time you play the game with that character, but when you are doing the second run in True Vault Hunter Mode (difficulty level opened when you finish the game first time), the problem becomes serious, almost breaking the game. The problem is that, when you start second run in True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM in future), every quest resets and is leveled to become more challenging. When you complete the game second time, none of the optional missions (side quests) you have either done or accepted is going to reset, while every other quest is leveled to level 50, which is current level cap for one character. Since the rewards of the quests are based on the level of the quest, the only way to get the best variations of unique items is to complete the second run without even accepting those optional missions. A thing which is completely impossible to do with random people. Ten times I had a situation when a random player just appeared and accepted one of the optional missions even when I tried to tell them not to do. Tenth time happened with a quest I really wanted to save because of the reward. And, once the mission is accepted, the only way to go back is to create a new character and start from a scratch. Eventually that was what I did. And with my second character I decided to only play solo or with my friends, no more random people.

Final problem, which has only happened with random people, is the loot collecting. When a creature (or object) drops an item, anybody can pick it up. The saying "First come, first served" summarizes the the system completely. I can't even count the times when I saw a item, that would probably have been an improvement to my current ones, being dropped by a boss, only to realize some random player rushes to it, picks it up and leaves the session. When I played with friends situations like this never happened; if more than one player wanted to have the item, the host had the right to claim it before anybody else. In other cases we either discussed about it until everybody agreed or we just used a dice to determine the winner. The dice was always tossed by the host in real life, so nobody else actually saw the tossing. But it was fair and something we all agreed with.

With friends Borderlands 2 offers one of the best multiplayer experience I have ever had through internet connection. The only problem is random players. With those the experience may become the worst you ever had. Of course, I have to confess that all of the friends I'm currently playing with all came from random players. This confirms that there actually are decent and good players out there as well, you just need to find them. And when you do, stick with them as much as you can.

Positive Things

The list of things that makes Borderlands 2 a good game is long one. Graphics, humor and multiplayer (with friends) were already covered above, but good things don't end there. First of all, the audio is very, very good. The music has been composed with care and fits the game very well. Few times I even just stopped and listened the music, something that happens very rarely. The voice acting follows the same path as well; each NPC have a clear personality and the voice completely reflects the current mood or mental status of the character. When combined to the fact that every NPC is completely voiced and there has been no reusing of voice in case of named NPCs, I can't but congratulate the developers of doing something more or less no other AAA developer is currently capable of, or even interested of, doing. And we aren't talking about 5 or 6 NPCs here, my current estimation is more like 20 NPCs or entities who don't belong to normal enemies or random characters.

The last interesting fact regarding audio, which is very nifty idea and enhances the game, is that when there is a dialogue, it's played in one of the two modes; on site or through communication system. On site means that, if you want to hear it, you must stand relatively close to the NPC. The farther away you are from the NPC, or if there are things between you and the NPC blocking the way, the quieter the dialogue. If the dialogue is played through the communication system, it doesn't matter where you are, you will always hear without problems. All the random dialogues, and taunts of enemies, are using the "on site" mode. All the dialogues linked to quests can use either system; if you are too far away it's played through communication system, otherwise on site. The nifty feature is that, if you move far away enough, the dialogue will move from "on site" to communication system. It works the other way around as well, the dialogue stops using the communication system if you get close enough the NPC. This system means that you will never miss out a piece of dialogue as long as it's linked to quest and no other dialogue is initiated after the first one began. This is something every RPG should learn from.

Next comes writing and story of Borderlands 2. So, we have a game that combines FPS and Action FPS, focused in loot, killing and multiplayer. The game has been advertised with those things, which immediately made me question the quality of writing. When combined to the fact that the game actually looks beautiful, there is no way such game could also contain writing of even decent quality, right? Wrong! The writers of Borderlands 2 have clearly earned their salary, even a huge bonus if you ask me. While the game relies heavily on the events of the first game, I never felt I had missed something important since I didn't play the first game. Sure, few times I learned only afterwards what certain dialogue was actually referring to or why certain NPCs acted the way they did, but it never actually distracted me. Besides, the story of the game is very good and interesting, with no sign of rushing things out. Yes, the main story is linear and there is only one ending. But eventually, the end didn't matter as much as the journey to reach it. And in case of Borderlands 2, the journey was really interesting.

Besides of the main story, the whole world of Pandora, or at least the parts used in the game, is full of history and small stories. These stories are revealed by doing optional missions or by finding specific ECHO devices, items that are like journal notes in other games. At first all these pieces and bits seem to be separated, things that are randomly invented by developers to fill up the story. Slowly, as the game progress, nearly all the stories, events and characters become more and more linked to each other. In the end you don't have dozens of separated stories but one big story of Pandora and how it became what it is now.

Now, since the stories are told through dialogues, the quality of dialogues in terms of writing is very important aspect. And this is another thing Borderlands 2 shines in; the dialogues are intelligent, colorful and funny. This even applies to random conversations of two NPCs, though not in same extend as story related dialogues. Not many games offer random dialogues between two or more NPCs that I actually feel the urge to stop and listen it to the end. When combined to the humor of the game, the result is pure gold to the very end.

Looting items is one of the major aspects of Borderlands 2. What makes this so special then? The answer comes in the sheer variety the game offers; there are millions of different items, and that only counts the weapons. Now, I know that some may come and say "That's a lie! There are only 200 to 400 different guns!". Yes, in one way that's also true. If we count all the different basic types of each gun category and combine the result with the amount of unique weapons, the number is small, even if we multiply the result with the number of elemental damages a gun may have (no elemental. explosion and four others), we get only about one thousand to two thousands different weapons. Now, let's assume we have two weapons, bot using the same basic type of assault riffle and both causing same additional elemental damage. Gun A fires single bullet every time you pull the trigger and as quickly as you can do it, has a scope and fires small burst when in aiming mode. Gun B is reloaded by actually throwing the empty gun away, which basically turns it to a grenade, and drawing a new weapon from unlimited supply of similar weapons. Gun B can also be fired by holding down the mouse button, just like normal assault riffles. Finally, Gun B reduces two bullets from magazine instead of one, though damage is not affected. The question is, are these two weapons really one and same? No, I say those are completely different. The high number of different weapons actually comes from the high variety of each gun in terms of behavior.

The actual system behind the weapons and how all the small details are determined is actually somewhat complicated. The system considers the basic type of the gun, for example there are several different types of pistols. Next the game chooses one manufacturer, which gives the gun a special feature. One manufacturer will only have guns that do explosive damage, other has huge magazine size and so on. In next stage the gun gets a random group of additional features. These features affect the behavior of the weapon, like how the bullet behaves (moves like rocket or like normal bullet), the number of bullets each shot requires and so on. The sheer number of possible features is big, though some parts can only have certain other parts in same gun. For example, each manufacturer can use only certain base types of each gun and not every additional features are available for every base type. Some manufacturers even automatically include certain feature, which may cause other features to become impossible. The important thing is, as long as the rules are followed, every item is generated randomly, even the unique ones. The unique weapons do behave a bit differently, though; the base item is always the same and certain additional features always present. There is also one feature which is applied to that gun only, a feature that makes it (usually) completely different from other weapons. Rest of the weapon is determined randomly, following the rules of course.

While linked to variety of weapons, what makes the item system so good is actually a combination of several things. First of all, the weapons are so different in terms of behavior that the player can't just look at the hard statistics, like damage or reload time, to determine the best weapon. Even the rarity and level of the weapon is not everything, a worse item in terms of numbers may actually be better. For example, there was a pistol that didn't do as much damage as other pistols I found. In fact, most of the other pistols were able to deal even two times as much damage per shot as the one I was using. What made the pistol stand out was the fact that it actually got more accurate every shot, I was able to shoot it by keeping my mouse button down and it was able to deal 400% more damage each time critical hit was made. Secondly, the guns don't follow any rules of real life, instead the rule of "awesomeness" is used. Can you imagine a real life piston which shoot three rocket at a time, has huge scope and blade to increase your melee damage? No, but in Borderlands 2 such pistol is just as normal as anything else.

Finally, there is no "best" weapon in Borderlands 2. Sure, some weapons may be more powerful in terms of damage than others, but you can't say that you have The Best weapon of the entire game. Part of this is because every weapon is at least partially random, other part comes from the behavior of weapon. Yes, one gun may do more DPS than other one, but the second gun may have properties that suit your playing style better.

All of the above things are implemented to other wearable items as well, though with a bit more limited. Grenades have good array of options in behavior, really forcing you to choose which one to use. Shield have less variety, though still some. Class modifications and Relics are usually things you don't change often and, in case you do, the old one gets sold immediately.

Character development is also something that is done very well in Borderlands 2. There are four (five if you have specific DLC) different classes, each behaving differently from the others. Commando is more or less like tank in MMO system, Siren is the healer, Gunzerk is the DPS dealer and Assassin is the sneaking scout/thief. The important thing is, all of the four classes are fully playable in solo and capable of dealing huge amount of damage. There is even no restriction in weapon usage, each character can use every weapon in the game. The difference comes with the "Activation Skill", a skill that must be activated by player. Each class only one such skill, no more. The character and activation skill can be improved by using skill points in one of the three skill trees, each class having different skill trees.

What makes the system so good is the balance; each skill is different from others and no skill becomes useless during the game. It's all about playing style; should my commando's turret cause small nuclear explosion or should I be able to have two turrets deployed simultaneously? It's all about playing style and trying things out, which especially easy since you can reset the skill trees just by visiting certain machine, which you can find quite early in the game.

In general, Borderlands two is very well balanced. You always had at least one mission optimal for your level and it was there was practically no way to get too powerful in terms of character levels. The only way I was actually able to achieve such thing was by completing two DLCs when I reached level 15 and by accepting all the possible missions before doing so. Since all the optional missions were scaled somewhat to character's level, only the optional missions I took before starting the DLCs were affected. The main story is using specific levels, though eventually it was more or less balanced again; I actually had problems with the final boss even when I was five levels above the quest level.

Even if I was way more powerful compared the enemies, it was never burden or even boring to run through those missions. Yes, I was able to kill almost anything with one shot, even the minor bosses went down with one rocket shot by the unique rocket launcher I got way before I was supposed to due my level. But it didn't mean I was completely immortal though; one mistake or wrong assumption and I was dead. For example, I was standing in the middle of bandit base. What I didn't realize was that I was standing right next to two explosive barrels and one slag barrel. I also didn't realize there were three bandits rushing towards me, each one carrying a armed grenade and ready to explode themselves with me. First I realized the explosion, next I realized I was in the "Last Stand" mode and after few seconds I was already standing elsewhere, respawned and listening the taunting of respawn station. Besides, the humor and writing of the game is so good I didn't actually worry about being too powerful, all I wanted was to follow the story. As for the enemies itself, they are very varied and interesting. Sure, the basic types are recycled somewhat, but again there are some variatons between them; some variations may be using different weapons, some have resistances or are able to deal elemental damage, some even have special powers which they use fairly intelligently.

Last thing I want to mention as positive thing is the length and replay value. My first character took about 65 hours to complete the first difficulty level, not counting the time it took to finish all three DLCs. My second character took about 60 hours to do the same, which is partially explained by the fact I already knew some tricks I didn't know with first character. Second run with my second character took about 25 hours, during which I only did main story missions and certain optional missions. After that, it took additional 40 hours to complete all the remaining optional missions. This means, it took about 125 hours to finish the game with one character completely, and I didn't even do any grinding. If we multiply this with four, each character class being so different that replaying the whole game with each one is recommendable, we get something like 500 hours in total. And even after that there will be challenges, exploration and grinding to do for each character, things you won't be able to complete if you "rush" through the missions. And, at least so far, the game hasn't become boring in any point. And, on top of that, there are DLCs to increase the replay value, though I didn't actually consider those in this calculation. How many game can achieve such amount of hours while still being interesting?


Negative Things

So, are there anything I want to complain in Borderlands 2? Yes, there are. The biggest issue I had was with the inventory system. It was all good and solid until I wanted to interact with my backpack. The first problem is the model of character at the right side of the screen; while it (supposedly) is meant to act as the preview of equipment, it overlaps with 1/3 of the backpack screen when you try to equip new items by selecting a item you already have equipped. There is no way to remove this model or even move it to somewhere else. Very irritating.

Second problem is actually the controls used in backpack; you can scroll the list by moving the cursor over the item, mouse wheel or arrow keys. The problem is, all three are used at the same time. The mix of controls practically confuses the game, which means the scrolling doesn't work properly most of the times. Sometimes it just jumps between random items, sometimes it scrolls but the visible list isn't scrolling. Sometimes it even considers one item to be highlighted while the screen shows otherwise. The only relatively sure way to get it to work is to close the inventory and open it up again. Doing so fixes the problem about every third time. You can also try to change the sorting of inventory, though that doesn't help as often as closing the inventory does.

Third problem is the comparing of items. It works in paper but reality not in reality. First of all, the comparison of highlighted item, in inventory or in ground, is done to currently equipped item. In case of weapons, as you can equip up to four of them, the one which is wielded is used. You can compare any two items in your inventory by selecting one and then highlighting the second one, though clicking again swaps the items if one of them is equipped. When all of this is combined to backpack scrolling problem and to the fact that ESC key doesn't work properly (tested in two different computer, four different keyboards in total), trying to compare several items become quite irritating task.

Secondly, the comparison card is too vague at times. It only shows how the stats of highlighted item compares to the ones of equipped/selected item. It also compares only the numbers and only those numbers which are present in both items. For example, it doesn't compare the elemental damage of fire and acid, while it does compare elemental damage of fire and fire. Also, any special characteristic of the weapon, like damage type or behavior, which is expressed as a text is not compared nor shown in any way. This means you must manually go back and forth between the two items to compare these. I usually just keep all the weapons of similar type in my inventory until I return to certain place which allows me to do the testing with live target which is unable to fight back. Faster and less annoying to do it that way.

Finally, the comparison card is sometimes giving out inaccurate or even false information. This is especially true with grenades. For example, let's say we have three grenades. Grenade A does regular damage of 1000 points, grenade B divides to eight smaller grenade during the first explosion, each one dealing 200 points of damage. Grenade C starts shooting small projectiles in every direction after initial explosion, each one dealing only 50 points of damage. How the game compares is that only the "basic" damage is calculated. A does 1000 points of damage, which is more than 200 points of damage, which is higher than 50 points of damage. What the game fails to understand is that grenade A does 1000 points of damage, Grenade B has potential of 200*8+200=1800 points of damage and Grenade C can deal even more than that as long as enough projectiles actually hit the target.

There are also some minor bugs in Borderlands 2, though nothing that actually breaks the game; texture problems and floating objects/enemies are the most common problems I had. Sometimes certain scripted event fails to happen. Every problem I experienced were fixed by either waiting few minutes or leaving and entering the map again. Most of the time, especially the problems with different bosses, were fixed by waiting few minutes. Not once I had to actually restart the game nor I faced a bug that made something impossible to do or achieve.

Anything Else?

Borderlands 2 also introduces vehicles you can drive with, just like in the first game (as I have heard). The idea is decent and work in theory, though you really need to have friends with you to get everything out of those. While you can drive and shoot at the same time, the vehicle shoots to the direction of you are facing, which is the same where the vehicle will try to move. This means you have to completely stop if you want to fire other directions as well. If you have at least one friend, one of you can drive and the other one uses the gun, which makes the experience quite entertaining. Some vehicles even offer the possibility of two other players to ride on the back of the vehicle and they can use their own guns to shoot enemies. Surprisingly, there are only two different vehicles in the vanilla games, both of them have two options for main weapon. This means there are four different vehicles in total. This is surprising especially since everything else in Borderlands 2 have lots of variety and details. It almost feels like it never was completely finished feature. A decent feature if you play alone and good feature with friends, but still a feature which could have been even better.

Respawn rate of enemies is another thing that must be mentioned here. I'm not really sure the exact rate, though I believe it's something like every 15 to 30 minutes. It could be related to day and night cycle, I'm not really sure. The thing is, especially with longer quests, the enemies in the beginning of the map usually have respawned before you have reached the end. In case you have to return to the start of the map, like to sell items from inventory, you must fight the same creatures again if haven't been fast enough. Also, every time you restart the game, even going to main menu and reloading the character is enough, every map is completely repopulated. While this may sound annoying, especially during quests, you don't really have to worry about finding new targets to kill. This is especially a good thing in quests which require you to kill several creatures of certain type. So, while respawn rate is annoying at times, it also allows the game to progress more fluently, especially since the location of each creature is predetermined. Since there are no "random" encounters, having a high respawn rate is a solid way to keep the game going without a need to quit and reload just to repopulate certain locations again.


Examples - SPOILER WANRING!

If you want to avoid any kind of spoilers, skip this part! I won't give out any major ones in here but minor ones I do. These are only to show out what I have meant by certain things I have said already.

First example of the humor, more specifically how the game succeeds in mocking the player without being too obvious immediately. So, in one point of the game I reached to a passage which was covered by energy field. One of the NPCs, a certain annoying robot you both love and hate, suggested that I try to run through the field. I tried and received some damage. The robot says I didn't run fast enough and to try again. I did, same result. This continued several times before another NPC interrupts and suggests that I shoot the fuse box instead. I shoot the box and the energy field disappears. At this point I felt like an idiot; how come I missed something so obvious and instead tried something that obviously wouldn't work?

Second example is about the enemies and humor. There is one enemy type called Nomad Torturer, which is basically a giant human holding a shield and human midget chained to the shield. You can free the midget if you shoot the chain, in which case the midget may or may not attack the Torturer. There is also a mini boss based on this enemy type, though instead of one there are three midgets chained to the shield. And the boss is called as "Bad Maw and his merry midgets".

Third example of the humor is the group of dialogues you hear during certain optional mission. At first the NPC called Claptrap tells a joke about related to word "freeze" (your task is to blow up all the boilers inside the camp). When your character is not laughing Claptrap gets angry, shouting something like "Why the **** are you not laughing?!". After a few moments the NPC comes to conclusion that you don't know actually knows what the humor is and ends up trying to teach you about it and why what he said earlier was supposed to be funny. While the first joke was only mildly fun, the resulting lecture was actually entertaining.


Final Score

If you can't stand the humor or graphical representation of Borderlands 2, the final score I give doesn't matter. This game is not for you. Instead, if I managed to wake your interest, read forward.

Borderlands 2 is very good game. You can practically feel the passion of the developers in it, especially since nothing was left out due moral trends or pressure of the audience. They are even ready to defend the decisions in public, which has already occured because of certain NPC, even claiming that they won't change that character just because somebody doesn't like her or gets offended. Very rare attitude in AAA game industry.

I wanted to give Borderlands the full score, I really did. It has actually become one of my most favourite games. It should have even been awarded as Best Writing of 2012, just because of the story and humor. But perhaps it's too controversial to receive such award. It had the best story and writing of all the games I played from year 2012, there is no question about that.

The only reason I'm not giving the highest possible score to Borderlands 2 is due the problems of inventory management. If that part had been fixed before I finished this review, there would be no question of the score. But with such a big problem, it just isn't fair to give full score.

My Score System: 9,5/10
GameBanshee Score System: 4,5/5

Now excuse me, I have meeting with the world of Pandora waiting. See you in 300 hours or so...