Borderlands 2 Review

Posted By Johnny Maloney about 7 months, 3 weeks ago

Borderlands 2 Review

You might know, if you’re a dedicated listener to the Blistered Thumbs Podcast, that I didn’t have a particularly high opinion of Borderlands. If you’re a REALLY dedicated listener you’ll also know that earlier this year I had a camera shoved up my urethra. How are those two related? Well, to those that don’t listen, it might interest you to know that I spent far more time, total, complaining about the original Borderlands than the camera in my penis. So when the time of Borderlands 2‘s release crept closer, the managing staff of Blistered Thumbs, naturally, did everything that they could to keep me away from playing it in any official capacity whatsoever. What they’ve learned is that THEY ARE NO MATCH FOR MY MIGHTY VOODOO.

There honestly wasn’t anything nearing a conspiracy to prevent me from being the official BT reviewer of Borderlands 2, but everybody was quite worried as to whether or not I was capable of giving it a fair score. Through gently massaging every BT ego I came across, and by use of a very seductive (and extremely violent, overly stylistic) method of dancing I learned from watching the film Suckerpunch, worries were laid to rest, having convinced our Editor in Chief that I was really hoping to like Borderlands 2. I didn’t really think I was going to, but I’m sure people relaxed just by hearing it.

What I wasn’t prepared for was actually how much I really wound up liking Borderlands 2. Nearly every gripe I fired while taking aim at the first one was (for the most part) thoroughly addressed. The environments, the weapons, the characterizations, the quests, and the humor all get some attentive restructuring work. Surprising me the most however, was that the folks over at Gearbox appear to have gone rooting through their storage room and found a talented writer in there.

They call him Johnny Waffles because he really likes Pancakes.

Not only does the main plot bring much more to the table than Borderlands‘ weak and vague find-the-treasure-but-ohhh-no-it’s-a-monster-what-did-you-expect-the-planet-was-called-Pandora story, there’s an incredible amount of improvement done at how the story gets told. The best addition, both in terms of motivating me to continue fighting, as well as for full on laughs and interesting transitions is through the game’s antagonist, Handsome Jack. Jack’s an absolute delight as far as villains go, quipping immature insults, telling ridiculously brutal stories that he desperately tries to twist into painting him as the hero, and even when you get a chance to learn more about the charismatic Hyperion CEO who bleeds Pandora of life in an iron grip. More encounters with him and his cronies were an exceptional reason to continue the shooting, the looting, screwing my face up at horrible jokes, and the quests.

The quests receive much needed love too, with more voice time awarded to the quest providers, giving the world of Pandora a touch more life. People have reasons to get things done that are explained to you like a human being, not just handed to you as a “to-do” list of killing. Very seldom are the quests anything like the “kill a bunch of slags,” but instead find reasons to put yourself in a group of slags that just so happen to need a(n un)healthy dose of killing. It dresses the game up a bit, and makes the experience of hitting buttons for rewarding stimulus richer.

Handsome Jack – No relation to Gorgeous George.

The world of Pandora, too, gets an intense remodeling. No longer only bleak deserts, bandit camps, and caves, locales such as ice shelves, volcanic wasteland, verdant coastal lines, and cities (ACTUAL cities, with populations! That live there, walk, talk, and occasionally quote songs from the 1980s!) all grant a more engrossing atmosphere, populated by these more developed characters. The music and sound contribute to this even more, with a superb score, excellent acting, and engrossing sound effects. Even the one-off bosses seem to have a little more going for them by way of their chosen setting of confrontation and their mannerisms.

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