Borderlands 2 Previews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on April 8th, 2012

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Now, though, with the addition of flying drones that heal other enemies, enemies that call in reinforcements, and enemies that wriggle under the ground like nasty little Bugs Bunnies and then burst out beneath your team-mates, you'll really need to prioritise targets a lot more often. Borderlands 2 keeps that same panicky feeling as you round a corner into a courtyard filled with space slugs and clanking droids, but it layers on a little order, too, in other words, and the whole thing feels enhanced because of it.

On top of that, you can now target limbs, meaning you can shoot a killer robot's gun arms off if you don't have the time to blow it to pieces completely, and I'm sure that I briefly saw some of the new Hyperion enemies laying into some of the new organic nasties. There's a brilliant new thing called a Needle Stalker that looks like a dinky Cloverfield monster and flings poison at you from a spore in its tail, suggesting that there may be tactical advantages lurking within pitting foe against foe in certain circumstances. Or it may just be a bug, of course.

Handsome Jack, the game's antagonist, can be heard taunting our efforts over the radio, but we wonder just how much of Borderlands 2's narrative will be conveyed in this manner.

Slant Six recently ran into the same co-op focused story problems with Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and it fell flat on its face, presenting a game that failed to satisfy lone players or those with friends.

Gearbox's original hit a sweet spot between the two, but we're already witnessing the sequels inability to have players do anything other than shoot. Not that we're complaining, as a slice of action it's difficult to find fault with the tweaks and improvements that have been implemented here.

When I started out I was the Gunzerker class, a slight change from the class in the first game that focuses on heavy weapons. As I started playing through they started me out with some new and unique weapons to try. I immediately noticed the addition of mini-guns, and a special skill of my class that allowed me to dual wield for a brief time.

You would think that this skill would allow me to mow through even the strongest of foes, but Gearbox also added new and even deadlier enemies. Some of the enemies I faced had specific weaknesses that went past using a certain weapon type. For example, one group of four legged monsters came out of a hazardous lake and had crystallized knees that you had to destroy in order to deal damage. This, combined with what I can only describe as giant mosquitoes, gave me more trouble than I had anticipated.

The way you acquire loot was the first change from the previous game I experienced during the demo. Now when you defeat an enemy who leaves gold and ammo, you can simply walk near them to accumulate, similar to LEGO games. Also, instead of cold hard cash, the currency appears to be chunks of gold. The currency Borderlands 2 uses doesn't affect me, but the fact that I won't have to spam the buttons to pick it all up does.

Those spider enemies were the main foe for the demo. There were a few other seemingly mutated insects to fight off, but they were secondary. My assumption is these creatures are a result of the toxic acid surrounding the level. All of the baddies born of the acid were strong against corrosive elemental damage, so best stick with fire.

Upon loading into the Caverns, the game's visual upgrades should be pretty noticeable to anyone who played the original game. Everything looks sharper and cleaner, texture pop-in has been greatly reduced, the framerate is fast and smooth, and the lighting is significantly more impressive.

Animations have been improved as well, and no where was this made more apparent than in the enemies I fought. New enemies include the insectoid Varkyd, which begin in ground-based larval form, but form cocoons to transform into winged adults. Then there's the Crystalisk, a three legged monstrosity with patches of crystals growing on each leg. Destroying said crystals reveals a weak point which causes critical damage when fired upon. Finally, Threshers are subterranean worms that can pop up and slash you in the face.

In the hope that Gearbox tried to do something noticeably new this time around -- and that maybe I just hadn't stumbled across it when playing the demo -- I asked if there would be melee weapons in Borderlands 2. Unfortunately, Kester said that while each of the characters have a unique melee attack (Maya uses a sort of force push, Zero has a sword, Axton has an axe, and Salvador has brass knuckles), players can't find melee weapons out in the field. Players can, however, find blade attachments for their weapons, which will change their melee attack. But ultimately, said Kester, (We decided to keep the focus on the guns.)

And there's certainly no shortage of guns, with the game adopting the same system as its predecessor by having a decent variety of gun types (including sniper rifles, pistols, SMGs, shotguns, etc.), a robust selection of base models for each type, and then various modifiers placed on top of each of the base models to create countless possible combinations. Granted, there aren't quite (a gajillion guns) available for use, as Gearbox advertises, and many variants have the same physical appearance on the screen (save for perhaps a different color skin), even if their stats differ. But there's no denying that Borderlands takes the concept of loot seriously.

Creative Director Paul Helquist likened making Borderlands 2 to living in crazy town, but he cautioned that some some ideas were even too crazy for the Borderlands 2 team.

One of the zaniest? A bearded lady bandit with a turret in her beard.

...

"We covered an entire wall that was white board with anything that anyone said," Helquist told us. "So we had 'barber,' we had 'combat mortician.' Anything that we could dream of, we put up there.

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