Borderlands 2
Borderlands 2 is the sequel to the RPG-like FPS Borderlands developed by Gearbox Software. It is out currently for the PC, Xbox 360, and the PS3.
I purchased Borderlands 2 earlier today and I played a fair amount of it today getting all the way up to Chapter 7. I was expecting one of these generic FPS games that we see currently, like Call of Duty and Battlefield 3. What I found however, was kind of worse. A big lack of originality.
Let me start with the classes first. You are starting off as one of four classes/characters with one unique and special ability. Axton the commando, is your standard run-and-gun soldier. He has the speciality of summoning a turret to the battlefield to tank and give damage. Zer0 the assassin, has the special ability that he can turn invisible and send a decoy out to distract enemies. While stealthed you land critical hits more easily. Lilith, the siren, has the special ability is that she can bring enemies into the air and stop them from fighting. Lastly, Salvador is the gunzerker. The gunzerker can let you wield two weapons at once, of any type which can include a rocket launcher and a sniper rifle for a limited time.
When you first start the game, you're shown a cutscene of the beginning parts of the game. A narrator tells you about the planet Pandora and a Vault that held monsters as prisoners and how the great mineral Eridium has affected the planet. When a huge mining company found out about the mineral, they rushed to find it and then try to civilize the Borderlands. Warriors have also traveled in search of this Eridium to seek out it's power.
You see a dog-like monster in the desert with a billboard. This reminded me of the Fallout series right here. All of a sudden you see the dog-like monster get dragged off from a vehicle of the main human-like enemies you face. Next you see them acting funny and then BAM, hit with a train! Cue epic music! They go flying and the Borderlands 2 logo appears with the train rolling off. You are introduced with the characters and them killing the enemies as they attempt to board the train. When all the enemies are dead, the four warriors kick open a door to reveal the puppet of the antagonist, Handsome Jack. And then BAM again! The train then explodes sending you into the winter wonderland which is Pandora.
You are pretty much called the "Vault-Hunter". I find this to sound too much like Fallout. A desert-like setting in the beginning, billboards and now vaults? Let's look at all the other things I've found that are also found in other FPS games today: Iron sights: You hold down the left trigger and you get into the more-advanced version of first-person making it easier to aim and shoot. Challenges: You do a certain task like kill an X amount of one type of enemy or do certain tasks like pick up items or destroy some of the environment and you get challenge points for doing the tasks. The use of this is kind of original: you can spend those points on a number of small upgrades, like health, damage, shield recharge rate, etc, etc.
Next. Quests: You take on quests and you do the required things shown and you get XP and maybe a few items from it. XP: You get XP from monsters and quests and bosses. What XP does is let you use it on one of the three skill tree's of your class. But seriously, where hasn't this been done before? Like the Darksiders series, Mass Effect series or even the newest sandbox, Sleeping Dogs. It's starting to get overdone, at least I think so anyway. Sure it lets you play the game differently but with Borderlands 2, it's more of a late game availability. You get your special ability at level 5 anyway!
Next. These vending machine things: There are three types of vending machines scoured throughout Pandora. One contains health recharge and different types of shields, the next contains ammo and grenades, and the last one contains different types of guns. Although there is this one thing: Item of the day. Whenever a new day happens on Pandora, there is one cool item that appears there, although expensive, probably useful. The problem I have with the vending machine idea is: The Bioshock series used it! Even if it was different on how the Bioshock ones acted, it's pretty much the same concept.
Next. The jokes, the references: Alright, I'm sure if you've already started to play the game already you've seen some of them or heard about some of them. Some of the challenge names really got me though: "You (No)Mad, Bro?" and "I Just Want To Set The World On Fire" obviously meme reference's. I didn't really like the humor that much in the game either. Claptrap in the beginning of the game told a "Your Mom" joke and it just really offset the mood for me. I heard these annoying whining voices as the "Psycho's" ran towards me that VERY MUCH reminded me of the Grunts in the Halo series.
Okay. Let me talk about these graphics. You have these alright graphics but it's covered in this awful cell-shaded black-bordered outline. Since all of it is cell-shaded it's hard to tell what items can be used and opened throughout the environment.
With that said, I don't like the art style at all. It's too "kiddy" for a game that's rated M and doesn't even have under it "crude humor". I can see this as a T game for 13-15 year old kids with the way the graphics are going but it's not that way. It tries too hard, and with the reasons of it's rating as can probably suggest, to be like this open-world sandbox like Grand Theft Auto or Sleeping Dogs. It just doesn't work.
What some of the quests are like: It seems pretty linear. You follow this one huge path to achieve one goal. Sure, you get this vehicle and drive around to some places later on, but those places have enemies that you aren't even close enough of a level to fight. So either grind on quests or just go through this whole linear plot path. The boss fights are some-what fun though. They have huge bosses that have some cool mechanics like fire coming through vents on top of a ship all while there are hordes on enemies chasing at you, barely giving you any room to breathe. If you die, you respawn at a nearby checkpoint that you hit and they take away some of your money and then most of the enemies you already killed respawn back if you try to run back to the start.
This kind of concludes my rants and problems I see with this game. The reason the title says "The Filler FPS" is because I'm sure it offers barely any replayability as goes for the story mode except the three other classes and plus with the release of Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in two months, this game would be shot down into a Brink-like oblivion if it wasn't for the multiplayer that's there. You can add up to four players to your story mode and it can be full of fun!
Hope you guys liked this or hated it. If you have any game you want me to review, contact me at MotionM@hotmail.com or tweet me on Twitter @MotionMatt
or something.
