Borderlands of hope and glory

It’s been a little over a month now since one of the most anticipated games of 2012, Borderlands 2, was released, and what a month it has been. Gearbox’s latest offering has provided countless hours of mindless cartoon violence and humour of the highest calibre to literally millions of people around the globe. Whilst it doesn’t rock the gaming community to its core with a ground-breakingly realistic physics engine or a soundtrack by Hans Zimmer himself, the game is such a massive improvement upon its predecessor, with so many memorable moments, that it really didn’t need the bells and whistles.

Nobody would argue that the opening trailer is more iconic than the original Borderlands – Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked is going down as one of the best openings to any game, ever – but it does a fantastic job of introducing the squad of four playable characters to the player – that is, if they haven’t already decided to try out the new class, the Assassin. The Siren, the Soldier and the newly revamped Gunzerker all make an appearance, having been adapted with new skills for their latest outing into the land of Pandora. The soldier can now deploy double turrets, piping enemies full of lead panoramically, and the Gunzerker is a berserker that has switched fists for guns, and has gained the ability to dual-wield absolutely any weapon he can get his hands on. Unfortunately, the Siren, Maya, lacks the usefulness of her Borderlands counterpart, having switched Phasewalk for a skill known as Phaselock, which immobilises enemies, allowing to more easily facilitate traditional methods of murder. However, all is not lost; Zer0, the assassin, rounds off the group. From the off, you know this crazy sword wielder is going to be useful; his skill is to become invisible, gaining a massive increase in damage capability to boot, allowing swathes of enemies to be taken down like a knife through butter.

For the story itself, “strong” or even “coherent” aren’t words that you’d likely use to describe the original Borderlands’ plot, but for all its flaws, it was immensely enjoyable. Borderlands 2 patches those holes, introducing a genuinely powerful antagonist, Handsome Jack and his robot army, with genuine motives and a witty repartee, alongside a story with a real, logical structure. Despite this, it manages to retain, and even improve upon, the fun-loving, explosive, chaotic nature of the original. There’s deception, treachery, climactic reveals, unexpected deaths, and one-line quips at every turn, helping to turn Borderlands 2 into one of the most quotable games ever.

The internet had a veritable field day citing the lovable, rejected Hyperion robot, Claptrap, that returns from the original as spunky as ever. This time around, he has decided that he is your master, and you are his minion, which makes for comedy gold.

The game’s key forte, though, in my opinion, is the multiplayer. The ideal blend of light-hearted humour; the heavy, comic violence; the never-ending quest to find the perfect weapon amongst the remains of your fallen foes – it all fits so perfectly into a scalable architecture that you really feel as if you’re missing out when you’re not messing around with your friends. You can gather together to take down a large enemy, or split up and fend for yourselves, or just duel one another every time you get your favourite new weapon. You can act cohesively or leave one another to die, share the loot or grab what you can get – either way, the game compensates for their added strength, adding stronger and rarer weapons from tougher enemies.

Borderlands 2 is not a wild departure from the original, and indeed it could even just be considered by some to be a very, very large expansion pack. However, the exhaustive and extensive usability improvements that have been made, whilst retaining all the best features of Borderlands, is a feat nothing short than extraordinary. There’s more of what you love; better graphics, more enemies, more guns, more playtime, and more Claptrap. What else could you possibly want? This minion can’t get enough.