Borderlands 2 Game Review

[Akali]

Hello there forumers and welcome to my second game review. This time we are looking at a game that I have had for a while but I still enjoy it when I pick it up and this game is Borderlands 2. Before I begin SPOILER ALERT! However this game has been out for two years so shame on you.

 

Borderlands 2 is set five years after the first Borderlands with four new vault hunters to play as on their journey to take down Handsome Jack with billions of guns and new abilities to mess about with.

 

Borderlands has a few different classes of gun classes like assault rifles, smgs, rocket launchers, shotguns, snipers and pistols. These also have different manufacturers which each have different properties.

 

Jakobs: Increased gun damage but will NEVER spawn with an element

Hyperion: Increases accuracy as you shoot but once you stop it will decrease.

Maliwan: Increased elemental damage.

Dahl: Whilst zoomed in you will fire multiple shots instead of one.

Tediore: When you reload you throw the gun like a grenade.

Torge: Fire explosive bullets, this is the only manufacturer that has an explosive element except for one gun called the cobra however that gun is extremely rare because the drop rate is broken.

Vladof: Very fast fire rate.

Bandit: Increased magazine however Bandit guns have bad accuracy and damage.

 

Guns also have different rarities. Common, uncommon, rare, very rare, legendary and unique (this is a list without dlc. We will come to that in a bit)

 

They are Axton (the commando), Maya (the siren), Salvador (the gunzerker) and Zer0 (the assassin and yes that zero is meant to be there). They have different abilities from the first four vault hunters except for Axton who has a turret.

 

Maya is a siren which is an extremely rare condition since there are only six sirens in the ENTIRE galaxy but they each have unique powers. Instead of Phasewalk Maya can Phaselock which puts the enemy afloat in the air for a couple of seconds, you can make this more powerful by making the Phaselock inflict elemental damage which causes incendiary, electric and a new element in Borderlands 2 called Slag, Maya can pull multiple enemies towards the Phaselock so she can pick them off very quickly but this skill can also increase her fire rate.

 

(Slag is a new element which will cover the enemy in purple ooze but Slag is a damage modifier and if an enemy is slagged they will take double the damage)

 

Zer0 is an assassin, he is an unknown race which the Borderlands community is still trying to figure out. Some people thinks that it is a very advanced A.I, others think Zer0 is robot and others believe that Zer0 is related to Athena from the General Knoxx dlc back in the first Borderlands. Zer0 can deploy a hologram but at the same time become invisible for a short amount of time. You can go three different paths with Zer0, you can either go an all out gun path, a sniper path or a meele path. With the right points placed in the right places you can do insane meele damage whilst invisible (you can get to around %1120 percent EXTRA meele damage) or you can go gun damage which can increase the guns' overall damage, bullet speed, zoom increase, recoil reduction and so much more.

 

Axton is a commando who was sent to be executed because he would always disobey orders to increase his reputation. Axton can deploy a turret like Roland can do in the original Borderlands but Axton's turret can do different things. Axton's turret can be equipped with a phalanx shield which will protect Axton and his team mates from a certain portion of damage, it can be equipped with a rocket pod and it can be added with a second barrel that will fire Slag bullets. Axton can also upgrade his turret with a longbow mod which will make him deploy his turret a lot further away and can also add a sticky mod which will make it stick to anything it lands on. Axton can also increase his gun damage, fire rate, recoil reduction and running speed for a few seconds with each kill that Axton gets.

 

And last but not least we have Salvador. The dwarf who is very strong who is also a cannibal and loves murder. Salvador has an ability called Gunzerking. This ability allows him to wield two guns at the same time however with the right guns and points, Salvador (when Gunzerking) is invincible 99.9% of the time, Salvador is also the only character in Borderlands 2 who hasn't received any type of nerf or tweak (yet) which is bizarre to me since I always see this class as the overpowered powerhouse. What makes this character so overpowered is help from two skills, the skills are called Inconceivable and Money Shot. Inconceivable has a chance for your gun(s) to not consume ammo and maxed out this can get up to 50%. Money shot increases damage by a lot (and I mean a lot) on your last shot, this includes every bullet fired so if you have a shotgun that fires 13 shots, on your last shot all thirteen pellets will do extra damage by around 400%.

 

Now that we have the main characters out of the way and before we get to dlc, Borderlands 2 has another new mechanic called Badass rank. What this does is that you have a set of challenges that usually includes killing a certain amount of enemies (example: Kill Jimmy Jenkins 15 times), open so may boxes (example: Open 500 boxes), fire so many rounds (example: Fire 10,000 bullets) and they each have their 5 ranks. The first one will give you 1 point, the second one will give you 5, the third one will give you 10, the fourth one gives you 50 and the fifth one gives you 100 points. There is a bar that will fill up and the more points you get then the more progression you will gain. Once you fill the bar you will gain a Badass token which can be used to increase quite a few things like elemental damage, gun damage, accuracy, recoil reduction and a lot more.

 

And now dlc.

 

Borderlands 2 has a ton of dlc. It has two dlc characters (Gaige and Kreig), four story expansions, five headhunter packs, quite a lot of character customisations, two level upgrades, a new area (which can only be accessed by purchasing both level upgrades), a new mode (ultimate vault hunter mode) a slaughter dome (pre-order/special edition), Gearbox guns and relic (pre-order/special edition) and a grenade which is a pre-order bonus. Lets start of with the two dlc characters.

 

Gaige is the first dlc character. Gaige is an eighteen year old scientist who fled her hometown after an accident with her experiment for a science fair project. Gaige is a mechromancer, It doesn't bring robots back from the dead, Gaige can summon a robot called Deathtrap. Deathtrap is a floating, metallic robot which can do both range attacks with two different types of lasers (one for air units and one for the enemies that cant fly, the ground unit laser must have a point in it before Deathtrap can use it), he can use powerful digi-struct claws to slice through enemies and when you spec into this skill, Deathtrap can restore your shields up to 30% or in some cases higher. Gaige can also spec into a skill called Anarchy. Anarchy is a skill which can be activated every time you empty a clip you will gain a Anarchy stack. Each token decreases your accuracy but increases your damage. You can get rid of these stacks by reloading before the clip empties. Gaige can improve this by increasing the maximum stacks to 600 and (if you're in the air) and you shoot an enemy and the projectile will explode at the cost of one stack.

 

A cool thing about Deathtrap is for most of the skills you invest points into, the physical appearance of Deathtrap. He will go from a small robot who doesn't look powerful to a giant, killer death robot that can kill you if you look at it O_O (not really but it looks like it could)

 

And now Kreig. Kreig is an experiment that has escaped from a Hyperion research facility, Kreig's ability is called Blood Axe Rampage. This skill makes Kreig like one of the pyschos that you fight in the game by charging into battle with his axe. There are multiple ways to play Kreig with each skill tree being completely different but can be played with the other two skill trees. Kreig can become an incendiary powerhouse with an entire skill tree focusing around incendiary upgrades but some of these only work when Kreig is on fire. Another is focused on becoming the meele god but this comes at a price since you have a 12% chance to hit yourself and another consists of a new thing called bloodlust stacks and you can also make enemies explode in an elemental/explosive nova when you kill an enemy which will do more damage if there is a chain reaction.

 

Bloodlust stacks can increase your magazine size, fire rate, weapon swap and reload speed but can also increase gun damage and grenade damage. It doesn't sound that good but you can reload your weapon in less that 0.2 seconds on some guns.

 

Now onto the four main story dlcs. (since I have typed a lot this will be watered down and the other dlcs such as the slaughter dome I won't do because it's not really that interesting, you fight through five waves of creatures. That's it)

 

Captain Scarlett and her Pirates' Booty: This is a dlc about a pirate after some lost treasure which haves you driving around in a new vehicle called the sand skiff (if you get some air whilst boosting you can fly (sort of) :3) which involves shooting pirates and even have a boss battle which will take you to the treasure room after you defeat it. This dlc includes some peoples favourite guns like the Rapier (increases meele damage by 200) and the Sandhawk (unaffected by the Bee Shield nerf). This dlc also includes more raid bosses, seraph crystals/weapons (the weapons are a changed version of a legendary)

 

Mr Torges Campaign of Carnage: This dlc is all about fighting gladiators, becoming #1 and EXPLOSIONS!! The dlc adds the loved character Mr Torge (the founder of Torge). This dlc is all about how the vault hunter became number one as you run around in Torge's fighting competition killing all the champions as you climb the ranks to become the best around. This dlc adds a new type of slot machine which is guaranteed to sell you a legendary which is made by Torge for the price of a new currency called torge tokens. These can also be used for a new skin, head and a few torge guns. The dlc also has a new raid boss that has the highest chance to drop legendaries.

 

Sir Hammerlocks Big Game Hunt: In this dlc you join up with Sir Hammerlock for a little bit of hunting when a scientist that crashed nearby asks you to fight him so you explore the new land to find and kill this Hyperion scientist. This dlc has a few new enemy types, the second hardest raid boss in the entire game and a few cool looking guns however this is the most hated main story dlc due to lack of creativity (that and you don't even fight the scientist, he falls down some stairs and dies...)

 

And the last main story dlc for the game is Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep: This dlc is personally my favourite as well as a lot of other Borderlands 2 fans favourite dlc. This dlc has quite a few new features such as fairies (which gives you random bonuses out of speed, ammo regen and damage reduction), Gems (same as fairies except it tells you what it does), New legendaries (the Ogre returns but it's not like how it was and two new grenade mods (the Chain Lightning and Firestorm), new quests, more backstory into some of the characters and a raid boss that makes you fight four dragons. Oh I forgot to say that in this dlc you fight trolls, spiders, skeletons, rock golems, dwarfs and dragons. Handsome Jack makes a return as the Handsome Sorcerer and Roland comes back as a white knight who helps you reach the Handsome Sorcerer. Also Bloodwing makes a slight appearance as well.

 

There are five headhunter packs in the game which are holiday themed. The first one is themed on Haloween, the second one is focused on Thanks Giving dead, the third one is themed on Christmas, the fourth one is themed on Valentines day and the final dlc for the game is focused on Easter. These are very cheap and very quick dlcs that will take you around 15-30 mins to complete.

 

And now onto my rating for Borderlands 2.

 

This game gets a solid 9/10. It's a great game which is really fun, wacky and crazy however there are some flaws in the game with them being lazy but those features aren't really noticed unless you're on the PC and you use flycam so it doesn't bother me.

 

If you made it this far you deserve a medal. I'm not handing them out though.

 

I also want to thank Self Destruct for making me do one on my 700th post

Edited August 26, 2014 by DarkAngel

[AnimeAddict]

My favorite part about BL2 is CLAPTRAP!

[BerriesBoo]

Never heard of that, but Nice!

[Caboose The Ace]

Nice review, personally I don't have the patience to write a review and just prefer to talk about with a rough Idea of what I have to cover.

 

Hopefully you do some more.

[Mr Biggles]

Really good review.

Makes me want to go and play Borderlands 2 now

[Akali]

My favorite part about BL2 is CLAPTRAP!

He is in the Presequal and you can learn more about him with my news article on his ability. Claptrap is also a buzzkill

 

Nice review, personally I don't have the patience to write a review and just prefer to talk about with a rough Idea of what I have to cover.

 

Hopefully you do some more.

I lost this about 9 times and I was up until 3am finishing it off and I do plan on doing more of these but it is difficult if there is dlc since I want to give a full review on it. I do plan on doing another one but I don't have the dlc however I know a few people so I will go to them to bring you my next review for my 750th post.

 

Really good review.

 

Makes me want to go and play Borderlands 2 now

Thank you Biggles Now go play some Borderlands 2.

[Ranger Intel]

Long review, I didn't read the whole thing but it looks like you put a lot of effort into this...or copy and pasted it all. Nice work DarkAngel.

[Akali]

Long review, I didn't read the whole thing but it looks like you put a lot of effort into this...or copy and pasted it all. Nice work DarkAngel.

I did not copy and paste anything Blake.

[Guts]

Its a great game. Pity I die too much in it.

[Connor Kenway]

Long review, I didn't read the whole thing but it looks like you put a lot of effort into this...or copy and pasted it all. Nice work DarkAngel.

I Don't think it's cop/pasted

 

nice review Chesty I luckily own this game on 360 and PC I have all dlc on 360 and man this game is great

[Ranger Intel]

I did not copy and paste anything Blake.

 

...

 

I wouldn't of congratulated you if I thought you had really copy and pasted.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Blake Belladonna

[Akali]

I Don't think it's cop/pasted

 

nice review Chesty I luckily own this game on 360 and PC I have all dlc on 360 and man this game is great

Correct, it isn't copied and pasted. If I did I would link where I got it from and credit them. I did have some sources open for a little bit about the characters and skill trees and such but everything there I typed. 

 

Also thanks Mereel

[Ranger Intel]

I Don't think it's cop/pasted

 

You too? I guess you struggle to detect sarcasm over text.

[ShockGazm]

Nice little review there mate. Borderlands 2 is frickin' epic!

Edited September 2, 2014 by WreckoningZebra1
Please do not attempt to circumvent the word filter.