Borderlands 2 (2012)

I loved Borderlands 2 and had a great time with this amazing sequel. The humor, silly atmosphere and new features created a fresh new experience for me.

In Borderlands 2, the story continues from the first game. There is a new vault, discovered by our main villain, Handsome Jack. You start as one of the four new Vault Hunters, employed by Handsome Jack himself. Like the bastard he is, he betrays you and blows up the train you are traveling on, leaving you for dead. You are found by Claptrap, who takes you to safety. You travel to Sanctuary, a protected city with bandits, ex-Crimson Raiders and other adventures, who resist Handsome Jack's monopoly and power of the planet Pandora.

You learn that the new Vault Key is being transported via train and you, your buddies Roland, Mordecai, Brick and Lilith (from the first game) make plans to intercept and raid the train. You stop the train but instead of the Vault key, a big ass robot comes out and ambushes you. You defeat him and eventually discover that Angel (the entity that guided you through the first game) is a Siren and actually Jack’s daughter. He is using her Siren powers to charge up the Vault Key. She begs you to end her existence to stop Jack and after an successful attack on Jack’s main facility, you grant her wish, ending her life support. Handsome Jack is furious and launches a full scale assault on Sanctuary, almost destroying it. Lilith uses her bling bling witch Siren powers to teleport the whole freaking city to a different location, saving the day. Lilith is captured however, and Jack is using her instead of Angel to charge up the Vault Key.

The Vault Hunters eventually learn the location of the new vault and prepare to stop Jack, who is already close upon opening it. They fight their way there, confront Handsome Jack and defeat him. They fail to prevent the Vault from being opened and the Vault Warrior is unleashed. In this final fight, the Vault Hunters make short work of him, saving the planet. The game ends with a cliffhanger, revealing multiple other Vaults in the galaxy as shown by Lilith in the aftermath with Jack. This created the opportunity for multiple other sequels and/or prequels.

I really liked Handsome Jack. He is one of the best villains that I encountered in a videogame. His personality, voice acting, dark humor and overall presentation is just perfect. His comments, actions and threats to your characters were hilarious and I laughed more than I ever thought possible.

The graphics are upgraded from the previous game and are still in the Cell Shading format. For Borderlands games, this works perfectly and gives the game its charm. The animations and effects are a lot better compared to the first game and I think this game had some more color and depth in it.

In terms of sound, Borderlands 2 improved greatly from its predecessor. The sound effects are spot on and the new dubstep soundtracks are great. But the best improvement is the voice acting. It is funny, crystal clear and overall, I can only praise it.

The movement, controls and mechanics are improved with various GUI tweaks, better menus and improved control of inventory management. The mechanics work fluently and in terms of gunplay, I have nothing to complain. It is fast paced, accurate and overall, just great.

Borderlands 2 also introduced a million new weapons, new brands, new types of guns and a lot more variation in enemies and biomes. Classic weapons and enemies are also present like Skags and Rakks, which all have more variants now.

I still think the best part of this game is the humor. Every mission, every encounter, everything is one big joke. Names of bosses, many times, refer to pop culture icons and certain missions are just hilarious and stupid. It is just as good (if not better) than the first Borderlands game.

The only big downside with Borderlands 2, is the introduction of loot boxes, in which you need to buy Golden Keys, so you can use your hard earned, real life money to get a chance of a legendary gun, giving you an paid edge over other players in case of duels. Borderlands 2 is a product of its time, in which this “genius” idea was introduced in many games, including Shadow of Mordor, Star Wars Battlefront and many more.

Another small issue, for me at least, is the ridiculous amount of DLC that the game offers. It is almost as bad as The Sims. DLC on it’s own is not bad, and the DLC campaigns where all fun to play, but besides extra missions and campaigns, millions of skins, Upgrade pack 1, Upgrade Pack 2, soundtracks, animations, unorganized bundles of diverse skins and content (but not all), and Season Passes are added, and it is a complete mess. I never had/have the feeling that I could experience the full game because “I am always missing something”. I also completely lost the chronological order of DLC, what is playable content and what is just a soundtrack or a new skin.

Lastly, some boss encounters are ridiculously hard. So hard in fact, that you can only complete them with friends or random people. I did not like the “forced co-op” aspect of the game in which you can get stuck on your progress (mainly raid bosses) because you do not have the friends or people to complete it.

Speaking of the DLC, so far I completed the following DLC, besides the main game:

I started with the expansion Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt. In this DLC, you need to stop professor Nakayama, a former Hyperion scientist who is trying to create a clone of Handsome Jack. You fight your way to his super-secret laboratory and eventually, defeat him.

Alongside this, you receive multiple “hunting missions” from Sir Hammerlock, to test your skill and in which you need to defeat a series of bosses. There are multiple new enemies in the DLC, although many of them are just reskinned assets from the main game. Only the shaman enemies are unique (and very annoying).

I did not like this DLC that much. It was a little repetitive and blend, and features the worst and most relentlessly hard boss in history, Voracidous the Invincible.

After this, I completed Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty. In this DLC, you aid captain Scarlett, in her search for Captain Blade's Lost Treasure of the Sands. She warns you multiple times that she will betray you when you/she finds it, the very thing she eventually does. You fight her and her big ass pet, destroying it. Scarlett escapes afterwards via a Teleporter. You find the treasure and collect the precious loot, ending the DLC. This expansion also added a new vehicle, the Sandskiff.

I completed the Mister Torgue's Campaign of Carnage DLC. In this expansion, you need to become the champion of the arena by beating all the challenges and rounds against increasingly difficult enemies.

Before this however, a little campaign can be played in which you prepare for the challenges ahead. This DLC is all about completing challenges and doing them again for extra experience. You got a race against the clock, the battle arena, the “shoot down enemy aircraft in time” and the bar brawling missions.

I did like doing all the challenges, however, the constant quest that remains in your quest log because the missions can be repeated infinitly, is a little anoying.

This is also the one DLC that has capped level 50 missions in the end, so when you are playing on level 36 for example, you got some work to do.

Overall, I liked this DLC and would recommend it.

I completed the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC. In this expansion you play a game of Dungeons and Dragons in a full medieval setting.

In this campaign, you must save the Queen, while defeating the great evil sorcerer. You meet many characters on your journey, each an original character from the main game.

I loved this DLC, the humor, the story, the different enemies and environments, the extra content like a new raid boss and a new arena and much more. The best part is the constant change in scenery when Tina’s imagination created something new and put it in the game.

Apparently, I am not the only one that loved this DLC, because a whole new game has been made from it: Tiny Tina’s Wonderland.

I enjoyed every second of this DLC and would recommend it to everyone.

I completed Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary. In this expansion, set after the events of the main campaign, some plant dude is attacking Sanctuary and wants to change everyone into plant zombies by means of a special gas. You are tasked with stopping said plant dude and save sanctuary.

Personally, I did not like this DLC. It was too generic, boring and low effort. Enemies where just recycled assets with some plant matter grown out of them and the overall level design was blend. The newly added rainbow weapons were kind of cool but seeing the same design over and over made it boring real quick. The only good aspect of this DLC was the raid boss.

The story was okay-ish but nothing special. Completing this DLC felt like a chore halfway trough and I would not recommend it, especially for the insane price it asks.

I played the Headhunter DLC, called Borderlands 2: Headhunter 3: How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day. In this DLC, you need to save Mercenary day in a Christmas themed town, while fighting Hyperion and, eventually, a big ass snow man.

It is the job of the vault hunter to guide the train full of weapons to the town and bring the people want they want most: guns.

I thought this DLC was okay. The whole setting, level design and background music made it very playable. The design of the Town Mayor was totally unique, and this surprised me a little. No recycled assets for once.
I would recommend it.

I played the Headhunter DLC, called Borderlands 2: Headhunter 2: The Horrible Hunger of the Ravenous Wattle Gobbler. Here, you are on a TV Battle Royale show and need to stop the big Ravenous Wattle Gobbler from wreaking havoc.

To do this, you poison his food while fighting the cooks. Eventually, you face the Gobbler and destroy its ass.

This DLC is very short but is made longer by one simple quest/task: The tales of grandma Torgue. Good Lord this was torture. It was fully intentional to make you die of boredom, but one time, an enemy appeared out of nowhere behind me, I shot his ass and then failed the “listen to grandma quest”, forcing me to listen again from the beginning.

In the end, I thought this piece of DLC did not need to exist and I would not recommend it.

I played the Headhunter DLC, called Borderlands 2: Headhunter 1: TK Baha's Bloody Harvest. Here, you need to satisfy the needs of Zombie T.K. Baha once again, by bringing him brain candy.

To do this, you travel through different graveyards while fighting skeletons and pumpkin monster things. Eventually, you kill the Pumpkin king, bring T.K. Baha his candy and that’s it, headhunter complete.

This DLC was actually fun. It was just as short as the rest, but the whole setting, theme and enemy design made it somewhat unique.
In the end, I would recommend this one.

I also finished another headhunter mission: Mad Moxxi and the Wedding Day Massacre.

In this DLC, a man and woman from the Hodunk and Zaford clan are getting married, to settle the feud between them. Mad Moxxi is the ceremonial head for the wedding and needs to make sure that it succeeds. For this, she needs to make a love potion, just in case.

It is the job of the vault hunter to gather the ingredients for the potion, which are spread through several mission objectives.

Personally, I thought this was the most boring DLC in Borderlands 2. You are just an errand boy that needs to complete several fetch quests. The setting was boring, the atmosphere and surroundings dark and depressing and overall, I just thought that this DLC was not worth it.

Overall, I liked this expansion and its story, although the desert biome, in which it plays, was a little boring in my opinion.

The other two main DLC campaigns (and the billions of other mini stories and add-ons), I yet have to complete.

In the end, the main game was a lot of fun and my completed DLC’s so far, were enjoyable enough.

Purely based on the main game alone, I would definitely recommend this awesome game.

Great story and a wonderful villain.
This is a good example what talented team with good writers can do.

Only negative thing that i have is that you'll get more junk guns than the good ones. This is one thing that has been staple problem through out the series.

I don't know if it was a problem with my system or what but the mouse controls were so awful that it was almost unplayable. TBH I didn't like it much but I have seen that others enjoy it so I dunno. Not for me.