Borderlands 2 review

Great game just as good as the first plus a better story even better when you play with friends

I only got the chance to play borderlands 2 for an hour or two last night and I am already thuroghly impressed with the guns. Not only by the looks but the effects as well. Yesturday I found a gun that was tossed and exploded like a grenade upon each reload. It makes me more than excited to see some of the other guns as the story progresses. Also, I love that there is now choices within your missions. I've only come across one but it feels more interactive that you are inclinced to make a decision based upon your preferences while also not having to worry about altering the story line in some significant way with the possibility of obtaining the "bad" ending.

I love your reviews, GR, but I think this one fell flat. Not in the writing, no, but in its analysis. Pick out the little things, like how the pause menu is pretty neat, how there's no more proficiencies, and touch up a little more on the guns. I mean, hell, other than the "gray" items, no two guns look (insanely) alike. Personally, my only complaint is the floaty AI. Granted, I feel like most games have AI like this, especially one relying to heavily on a DPS-based system. Not to mention they took out the gore of the first game, meaning no more exploding head sockets and no more face-melting electric shocks. It's a bummer, for sure, but the solid gameplay and enemy variety half-way make up for the gore-loss. Or maybe my sniper simply doesn't do enough damage, who knows. Overall, I think it's better than its predecessor in nearly every way--if not every freakin' way. I wouldn't scored it higher than an 4/5, but that's just me.

My first impression: Awesome game. The first one had no real story, but this one is really cool. The little jokes that were pretty rare in the first game, are now there every step of the way (so far). I'm really enjoying myself with it.

Not a bad review. I am a little confused though. Other reviews stated that if you play a coop game where the host is further along in the story than you, you can skip whatever missions you complete in that coop session when you reach them in your game. This review says that you can only occasionally skip such missions. Which side is true?

I don't get this review at all. No clear minded, truly objective individual who played through the SP part of BL1 and has even played the first 2 parts of BL2 can say those games are equal. - The graphics are light years better, starting with the SNOW impacting the screen as you're walking, lighting effects are pronounced, everything looks 10X better. - Now all the "challenges" that became meaningless once you hit level 69 reward you with "badass tokens", allowing you to level up a specific part of your character (gun damage, shield recharge, etc). In theory, you could take one of those to 100% more. How that doesn't put replay value through the roof is beyond me, and that's just 1 example. - Simple improvements (a mini map, pressing square to pick up all ammo from containers, money being automatically drawn to you vs. pressing square) go a long way to making BL2 more streamlined and focused. - Environments are simply more ALIVE. I agree with some of the OP's here about BL1 being a complete slog if you're playing solo. Vast parts of that game were just dead. BL2 (at least so far) doesn't seem like that at all. - Improved and increased dialog, NPC's you actually care about and move you, and an incredible story vs. the disjointment of BL1. And that's just scratching the surface of this game. Perhaps we've hit a point in VG reviewing where we've seen it all, and it's going to take the mother of all games to rate a 10/10. Perhaps sites like GR, etc. are scared to pigeonhole themselves by giving too many 10/10. I mean, honestly, is ANY game without a flaw that would make it 9.5/10? I would say no. In all actually...the players ultimately make the determination of what's a 10/10, as reflected through game sales (the "Madden" series being the notable exception, that game's a shoo-in to sell 3M copies no matter what).

Out of curiosity, how much Borderlands 2 did you play before you wrote this? It's rare to see someone complain about a game not getting a 10. I personally thought Sterling gave a pretty succinct list of complaints. GamesRadar doesn't fall into the everything-gets-an-8 philosophy that other mags/sites sometimes embrace. I think that's a point in its favor. That said, rating this 4 out of 5 is pretty good -- good enough to warrant "Editor's Choice" status.

This game was reviewed on an Xbox 360 so I'm not sure how the money is attracted to you thing works he didn't mention any of the features using a square because this is the "Xbox Review" not the PS3 review

You forgot to mention that if you play in co-op that loot is shared. Games that use co-op with loot need to "copy" Diablo 3's idea of loot dropped is yours. Has to be the greatest idea in a game in the last ten years, or if you are in a middle of a boss fight for example its a mad scramble for the loot and players who play as zero have no chance of getting there loot as they will be half way across the battlefield sniping! Not to mention if there are still enemies around and the kind players who like to clear the area first are now forced to grab the loot and then someone ends up getting killed. I won't be playing in co-op. Also I hope the great music from the first borderlands returns.

Whenever me and my friends are playing we constantly call out guns and loot we find and see if anyone needs it more than someone else. Although if you're playing with random people I can see why that could be a pain. Also Zero can be a good medium range character too thus making him not super far from the action.

I don't understand how the first can get an 8 and then the vastly improved sequel can also get an 8. I don't know just kind of seems weird to give it the same rating even though it is miles ahead in many different things.

I'm still pretty psyched about this, even with it's 8- which is slightly lower than the 9 or 10 I was expecting- but I'm most disappointed about the fact that progress doesn't always carry over. Just to be clear, does it not carry over ANY progress if you're in a friends game rather than your own? Because up till now, I've always played the first with a friend, but on the same console, so both of us having our own copies of the game could be a problem for when only one of us is available. I'd understand if only story-missions carried over, and secondary quests didn't, so is that the case?

Basically, if you play on someone else's campaign, you get XP and progress, but not all of the quests you've done will show up when you're playing campaign.

Does that mean if I were to play in a friends campaign- or he were to play in mine- when we returned to playing our OWN campaign, any progress we'd made would be lost, and we'd essentially have to redo the story up to that point?

So in other words...an improvement over the original, but can't live up to the impossible levels of hype it generated [just like any game with impossible levels of hype]. The 'better but not perfect' drawbacks aren't enough to discourage me from buying; the first's personality was what made it so special.

This is going to be a wait for me, I've barely played the original Borderlands and with the other titles coming out that I know I'll be playing a lot of I don't see the point in having it sit on my desktop. Probably pick it up at christmas when it goes 33-40% off on steam.

Artificially long and bloated? So the same reason the first borderlands sucked so bad.