Borderlands 2 Review

PC game review 

General game 

It seemed hard to believe that the advertisement for this game said it had over a bazillion guns, but it soon becomes a satisfying reality when the ground is cluttered with loot after a fire fight. In case you didn't play the first Borderlands, Borderlands is an fps rpg that has a unique loot system much like that of Diablo or Torchlight. Instead of giving you a few set guns that might be upgradable, there are just a ton of different guns all with random stats for you to obtain and compare. The game starts off with you choosing one of the four vault hunters who all represent the same classes that were available in the first game but with some nice new twists.

Zero: Is a sniper assassin who specializes in either long ranged, pistol, or melee combat. His action skill is called DeceptiOn, this makes Zero invisible and creates a decoy that enemies will attack instead for a short period of time.

Maya: Maya is a Siren, which in Borderlands basically represents a magic elemental type class. She has no specialization with a certain weapon type so she can really cater to any play style. Her action skill is called Phaselock, this basically creates a bubble around your target that will lift them into the air rendering them defenseless and an easy target. Maya can be played as a support type character by using her harmony tree (healing)

Axton: Is a typical solider type character with the exception that he can make turrets! He specializes in machine gun combat with typical things you would expect on a soldier like a few more grenades  bigger ammo clicks and faster reloading. Sabre Turret is Axtons action skill, he deploys a turret to aid in battle that can get some pretty bad ass upgrades.

Salvador: This character is a duel wielding Rambo that can use any gun type but is suppose to be a fast paced don't stop shooting bad ass. He has talent tree perks that make him more of the tank for your group and he has health regen to, to keep him fighting longer. His action skill Gunzerking allows him to pull out a second gun to fight with (duel wielding) while given tons of stat boosts while in this mode.

Combat

The biggest part of this game is the non-stop action that you will be thrown into with out having time to take a breath from the last fire fight. Borderlands does a great job of making you use everything that is at your disposal when you fight, you'll find yourself spamming your action ability while gun swapping and lobbing grenades in almost every fight.

There are a lot of ways to obtain guns in Borderlands, whether you are given one as a quest reward, it dropped off an enemy or you opened a chest. The world is full of weapons that all have different damage, accuracy,  fire rates, reload speeds, clip sizes, bonus stats, elemental damages, looks, and sizes. Something other rpgs need to note from this game is how easy it is to look at loot on the ground and compare it to the weapon you are using. The game doesn't make you pick it up, find it in your inventory and swap back and forth remembering numbers to compare which is better. Borderlands makes recognizing an upgrade take literally three seconds, "oh this weapon has a ton of green up arrows, alright must be better" then back to fighting.

Once you've found that weapon that has all those bonus stats it can always be interesting testing your new toy out for the first time. There are, more then often, some new interesting features on a lot of guns. Snipers that are burst fire, pistols with scopes, shotguns with explosive rounds, weapons that you throw like a grenade when you reload them. This really keeps the game interesting not knowing how the new loot you have will handle. Unfortunately this can also lead to upgrades not always fitting your play style and just becoming vendor junk.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Borderlands has to be the greatest part of the game! You take on the campaign in a co-op mode, continuing where ever the hosting player has left off their story. The multiplayer experience in Borderlands 2 feels really smooth with almost everything you do. Even though you have more people in your game the missions or challenges don't become just simple pray and sprays.

Although you don't need to play multiplayer to get the full Borderlands experience its just plain more fun to do it all with friends, cars with guns, wacky dialogue, getting locked in an arena. It all just feels much better when there is someone else there to enjoy it with you. The classes can also play off each others strengths really well to. Siren offers a talent that can change her Action skill Phaselock into a Resurrection which wouldn't be useful unless you were playing online. Salvador can offer a very tanky build to allow someone like zero to not have to worry about getting focused when trying to line up perfect snipes.

Certain items in the game can benefit a particular character better then another, so if you play online and find yourself finding tons of sub machine guns on Axton and your friend plays Siren. You get the ability to trade with people in your party which can really help maximize your friends performance. With this being said there is a great little time sucker in the form of a slot machine, these machines can reward guns, Eridium (upgrade currency), or bombs. It can be great fun spending all your hard earned credits trying to spin for upgrades or getting your friends killed by scoring bombs with out them not noticing. This can become incredibly addicting, you've been warned!

The Little Things

A few other things worth mention would be that Borderlands is a very promising title to have replay value for everyone. Apart from the four classes that can all offer a very different play style to the game. Borderlands 2 really lets you play how you want to, whether this means that you dont want to do a zone so you might just play through the story missions there and move on. More then often you can stay in a certain zone doing the side missions that it can almost let you skip places completely. This is great if there is certain zones you just don't like. This being said the game gives you tons and tons of side missions to dive into. Upgrades and items that can change how much ammo you can hold, shield charge you have, how your grenades react or change the way your character looks are always fun features to.

Borderlands 2 is said to have multiple DLC as well to keep the story going just like the original Borderlands offered. The DLC doesn't just offer some new story and zone to play through but this means new guns! shields! grenades! and even new classes to play as.

Final Analysis
Game Score: 9.5

With Borderlands offering such an addicting experience its hard to say that its not the best game ever. There are almost no bad things to say about this game, a few glitches here and there can suck at times but that doesn't hold this game back at all. Whether its fast paced shooting, an fps rpg, a great story line, or a game with tons of loot, Borderlands has it all! The game complimenting to your play style or favorite gun type, this is defiantly a must have that any fps player can enjoy for hours on end. A highly recommend for anyone who wants a great game to dump hours into or something to have a blast co-oping with.

of course if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.