Borderlands 2 Review

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Borderlands 2 was one of the games that I was looking forward to the most in 2012. I was determined not to play though it solo the way I did in the original, so three friends and I pre-ordered the four pack and vowed to play through it together. Unfortunately it's really hard to coordinate schedules with four people in four different cities. +Ian Decker and I have been slowly plodding along, but in the last two weeks we have really picked it up and have now finished with the main story.

Let's get right down to it: Borderlands 2 is one of the best games I have played, especially in recent history. There is very little to dislike about it: it has a great soundtrack, the cel shading art style is still gorgeous, it has the best sense of humor of any game (besides The Stanley Parable), the balance is really tight, a variety of playable characters to match any playstyle. and all of the loot and skill trees an RPG fan will love. Throw in co-op with friends, and I can't think of a better recipe for a good time. It's really a modern take on the Diablo series.

Not a sophisticated sense of humor, but still hilarious!

One of the biggest complaints people had about the original Borderlands was that the story was nothing to write home about, and the end was a big disappointment. Gearbox very clearly went to great lengths to rectify this in Borderlands 2; they had a clear antagonist right from the beginning, and they did everything they could to make us hate his guts. I think they may have focused a little too much on this however, because there wasn't a whole lot else going on. The end boss was also really easy; it had a lot of health, but it dealt so little damage, I don't think my shields ever got depleted.

Thankfully those are really the only complaints that I have about the game. Everything else was a big improvement over the original: more enemy variety, more interesting characters (the characters you played as in the original take center stage and get a lot more development than I was expecting). Even if I hadn't had my best friend to play with, I would have had a great time with Borderlands 2. I'd say that a reasonable price to pay is $40, but it's been around for so long you will most certainly pay less than that. We will soon be diving into the DLCs, so you'll be hearing about those soon enough.