My Review of Bordelands 2

[MadGypsy]

Borderlands 2 (a review):

I got a Vita a few weeks ago and it came with Borderlands 2. I was looking for a new FPS to try out so I was pretty stoked that one came with the new system I bought. The following is my overall assessment of the game after playing it for 47 hours (accumulatively):

Graphics: I really like the rendering style of the game. It seems to be completely fullbright with not a single generated shadow to be found but, the artwork is so excessive that you don't seem to actually notice this. The cartoon style graphics add a refreshing feel to the game when taken in contrast to the uber-reality of most current gen games.

Controls: The controls are pretty solid but, there are things about the layout of the controls that I really don't like for Vita. For an adult to comfortably hold the Vita there are plenty of times where using the analog sticks will result in you tapping the touchscreen. Unfortunately, in borderlands 2 this also results in you throwing a grenade or instantiating your turret gun. This can become real annoying. Aside from that I would say the controls and character response is very clean.

Gameplay: The game starts off seemingly impossible. You have to fight a semi-powerful monster right off the bat with the equivalent of a bb gun. There is also an incredibly annoying robot that will not shut the fuck up. However, depending on your method for completing missions and how you assign your rank and skill points, the game goes from being incredibly hard to incredibly boring. At some points it seems like they sat around and figured out every stupid innocuous mission that was possible and dumped it all in the game. The game doesn't seem to have a clue as to what your current specs are either. Case in point, I was sent on a mission to get some "awesome" shield and I already had one that was way better.

Even though I am like 17% (or something) complete, there is almost no challenge due to how I assigned my skill points. I can stand there and get my ass kicked down to almost zero, walk away for a minute, regenerate EVERYTHING and come right back. For real you practically cannot kill me unless you make it impossible for me to run away or in the case of a couple of bosses that have insane health and shields.

My guns are already incredibly powerful as well. If you mix my hard to kill status with the fact that one shot from my shotgun in a CQB is the end of you, the whole game turns into a series of walking around not giving a shit what my health is while I unload a buckshot in your face.

The game does have some very challenging moments and the pace is quite fast but overall I would say this game is poor to mildly interesting. The missions get dumber and dumber the longer you play and it seems the developers thought that making your own team fuck you in gameplay would be a cool feature. Case in point, I have to mutate some bug before it spawns and then I have to kill it to complete the mission but some asshole on my team, up in a mountain with some retarded god weapon keeps killing it before I can.

The same semi powerful monster that I could barely kill in the beginning often runs from me now and I've killed like 200 of them with nothing but an axe and didn't die the entire time.

This game has ZERO balance and as I get more skill points it will be even harder for me to die and easier for me to kill but nothing seems to be getting any harder.

I do not recommend borderlands 2 as a monetary or time investment for anyone. You will have fun for maybe 5 hours and probably never finish the game due to it boring the hell out of you. I say this in a single player sense. I have not played multiplayer yet but I can see where this game will probably be an average MP game. Probably not unlike any other MMOFPS aside from graphics and map structure.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Borderlands 2 (a review):

I got a Vita a few weeks ago and it came with Borderlands 2. I was looking for a new FPS to try out so I was pretty stoked that one came with the new system I bought. The following is my overall assessment of the game after playing it for 47 hours (accumulatively):

Graphics: I really like the rendering style of the game. It seems to be completely fullbright with not a single generated shadow to be found but, the artwork is so excessive that you don't seem to actually notice this. The cartoon style graphics add a refreshing feel to the game when taken in contrast to the uber-reality of most current gen games.

Controls: The controls are pretty solid but, there are things about the layout of the controls that I really don't like for Vita. For an adult to comfortably hold the Vita there are plenty of times where using the analog sticks will result in you tapping the touchscreen. Unfortunately, in borderlands 2 this also results in you throwing a grenade or instantiating your turret gun. This can become real annoying. Aside from that I would say the controls and character response is very clean.

Gameplay: The game starts off seemingly impossible. You have to fight a semi-powerful monster right off the bat with the equivalent of a bb gun. There is also an incredibly annoying robot that will not shut the fuck up. However, depending on your method for completing missions and how you assign your rank and skill points, the game goes from being incredibly hard to incredibly boring. At some points it seems like they sat around and figured out every stupid innocuous mission that was possible and dumped it all in the game. The game doesn't seem to have a clue as to what your current specs are either. Case in point, I was sent on a mission to get some "awesome" shield and I already had one that was way better.

Even though I am like 17% (or something) complete, there is almost no challenge due to how I assigned my skill points. I can stand there and get my ass kicked down to almost zero, walk away for a minute, regenerate EVERYTHING and come right back. For real you practically cannot kill me unless you make it impossible for me to run away or in the case of a couple of bosses that have insane health and shields.

My guns are already incredibly powerful as well. If you mix my hard to kill status with the fact that one shot from my shotgun in a CQB is the end of you, the whole game turns into a series of walking around not giving a shit what my health is while I unload a buckshot in your face.

The game does have some very challenging moments and the pace is quite fast but overall I would say this game is poor to mildly interesting. The missions get dumber and dumber the longer you play and it seems the developers thought that making your own team fuck you in gameplay would be a cool feature. Case in point, I have to mutate some bug before it spawns and then I have to kill it to complete the mission but some asshole on my team, up in a mountain with some retarded god weapon keeps killing it before I can.

The same semi powerful monster that I could barely kill in the beginning often runs from me now and I've killed like 200 of them with nothing but an axe and didn't die the entire time.

This game has ZERO balance and as I get more skill points it will be even harder for me to die and easier for me to kill but nothing seems to be getting any harder.

I do not recommend borderlands 2 as a monetary or time investment for anyone. You will have fun for maybe 5 hours and probably never finish the game due to it boring the hell out of you. I say this in a single player sense. I have not played multiplayer yet but I can see where this game will probably be an average MP game. Probably not unlike any other MMOFPS aside from graphics and map structure.

In all likelihood , if it uses the same difficulty increases (more players = more baddies) that Borderlands1 used. PC has 4 slots for players to play the game together, using some 3rd party application whoever would host the game, would run the app and it would make the game THINK it was seeing 4 players,but in reality it was just TV/Myself with two locked up slots, giving us the difficulty of 4 players playing together but only 2 actual players in the game.


If Vita's Blands2 has online functionality where you can play the game with others online , the difficulty goes up with each added player.

PS : Oh yea, if you haven't reached one yet, the bosses can be a real PITA sometimes. Trust me, the game will (should?) get waaaaay more difficult as you level up.It's hard talking about this game without spoiling so I drop it here hah.

[MadGypsy]

Well I finally reached an area that has enemies with a skull next to their health bar (indicating incredibly hard to kill) but the game still suffers from boring syndrome. Get a mission, go to area, kill things (or don't), grab something, go back to first area and turn it in. Over and over and over. I did my last few missions by just running to the thing I needed to get or do while completely ignoring the things shooting at me and then running to a quick travel machine and turning it in. If I were to kill everything on the way to the POI there is nothing to kill on the way back.

I just had to fight my current hardest boss for the second time to complete a mission. The first time I hid behind things and used a stick and move style. This time I just walked up to him and unloaded my shotgun in his face about 15 times. He made a big show and knocked my energy way down but he died first and 5 seconds later my health and shields fully recovered. There isn't really a scare factor when you know you can regenerate at any time by simply leaving the battlefield. Even these real hard enemies. I'm not even a high enough level to fight them and I can kill 2 or 3 before I'm too overwhelmed to continue.

I fought this huge dog thing by breaking down his shields with a shock weapon and then walked right up to him and unloaded my shotgun in his face. I looked at my health/shields after and he didn't even get past my shield but he had a skull icon. I was like...wtf! I got in another fight that had a dog thing with a rider. I killed the rider and the dog thing just stood there and didn't do anything. I just walked away...lol.

The game has it's moments where it's real intense but it seems like being really offensive and getting right in your enemies face almost guarantees success. The only thing so far that really fucks me up when I do that is this hella powerful nomad with a flame thrower BUT only when I'm not using my flame resist shield. If I'm using that I can kill him with an axe but it takes an ass load of swings to finally kill him, like 100 or something.

Currently I'm using a shield that if you shoot me, my shield absorbs it and sticks the bullets in my weapon with no damage to me o.O however at least that is based on a percentile. Not every bullet will get absorbed but I have my skill tree set so my chances are actually pretty good. Like 30% or something along those lines. I don't have a way to know the actual percent but that's my best guess.

In Blands 1 were there weapons where when you finish a magazine you throw a copy of the weapon and it explodes, leaving you with another copy that has a full magazine? I'm all about some imagination and creativity but it seems like they go straight up retarded with some of this. The first time I threw my weapon like a grenade and still had the weapon I thought the game fucked up.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Well I finally reached an area that has enemies with a skull next to their health bar (indicating incredibly hard to kill) but the game still suffers from boring syndrome. Get a mission, go to area, kill things (or don't), grab something, go back to first area and turn it in. Over and over and over. I did my last few missions by just running to the thing I needed to get or do while completely ignoring the things shooting at me and then running to a quick travel machine and turning it in. If I were to kill everything on the way to the POI there is nothing to kill on the way back.

I just had to fight my current hardest boss for the second time to complete a mission. The first time I hid behind things and used a stick and move style. This time I just walked up to him and unloaded my shotgun in his face about 15 times. He made a big show and knocked my energy way down but he died first and 5 seconds later my health and shields fully recovered. There isn't really a scare factor when you know you can regenerate at any time by simply leaving the battlefield. Even these real hard enemies. I'm not even a high enough level to fight them and I can kill 2 or 3 before I'm too overwhelmed to continue.

I fought this huge dog thing by breaking down his shields with a shock weapon and then walked right up to him and unloaded my shotgun in his face. I looked at my health/shields after and he didn't even get past my shield but he had a skull icon. I was like...wtf! I got in another fight that had a dog thing with a rider. I killed the rider and the dog thing just stood there and didn't do anything. I just walked away...lol.

The game has it's moments where it's real intense but it seems like being really offensive and getting right in your enemies face almost guarantees success. The only thing so far that really fucks me up when I do that is this hella powerful nomad with a flame thrower BUT only when I'm not using my flame resist shield. If I'm using that I can kill him with an axe but it takes an ass load of swings to finally kill him, like 100 or something.

Currently I'm using a shield that if you shoot me, my shield absorbs it and sticks the bullets in my weapon with no damage to me o.O however at least that is based on a percentile. Not every bullet will get absorbed but I have my skill tree set so my chances are actually pretty good. Like 30% or something along those lines. I don't have a way to know the actual percent but that's my best guess.

In Blands 1 were there weapons where when you finish a magazine you throw a copy of the weapon and it explodes, leaving you with another copy that has a full magazine? I'm all about some imagination and creativity but it seems like they go straight up retarded with some of this. The first time I threw my weapon like a grenade and still had the weapon I thought the game fucked up.

Those exist still. The game really survives on its predecessor's success. Another Quaker has said "Blands2 could have EASILY been Blands1.5 / an update".

I was being dumb founded at your description of the game, which made me do some research and I found out why your description seems way off key with the game I played on PC.

Borderlands 2 On Vita Is The Worst Version Of A Good Game | Kotaku Australia

I won't agree or disagree with that review, short of the graphics department. Then again,what the fuck was guy expecting? That's almost like going to your favorite Pizza parlor, enjoying some fantastic pizza, then going to the grocery store and buying a DiGoorno's pizza next time you want it only to complain it wasn't 'The Same' haha, this comes to mind....

[MadGypsy]

@that review

Well, at least it came free with the Vita. If I spent the $40 bucks on it I might be a little PO'd. Playing it still has some fun moments, it's just getting to those moments requires a spell of being less than impressed and sort of trudging through it. I unlocked a few new areas and they put some fun back in the game. I'm basically fighting in levels that there is no way I could win at my current level, but I know that so it's kinda fun to see just how far I can get. Right now my top is 6 incredibly hard enemy kills with comparably bullshit weapons. Like fighting a shambler with a rubber band gun.

[Krymzon 45]

Borderlands & Borderlands 2 were fun.

The Borderlands games were entertaining but I have to go with The Fallout series when it comes to this type of game. They both share similarities like the atmosphere and style aside from borderlands being like a cartoon where fallout tries to look a bit more realistic. I love how both series has lot's of primary and secondary missions and quests to chose from as it makes the game last longer but after playing them all I got the best experience from Fallout 3 & Fallout New Vegas. There was always something to do and if you looked everywhere in the game to find all the quests it seems like it really never ends. Either way Borderlands 1 & 2 was fun and I enjoyed playing them through.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

The Borderlands games were entertaining but I have to go with The Fallout series when it comes to this type of game. They both share similarities like the atmosphere and style aside from borderlands being like a cartoon where fallout tries to look a bit more realistic. I love how both series has lot's of primary and secondary missions and quests to chose from as it makes the game last longer but after playing them all I got the best experience from Fallout 3 & Fallout New Vegas. There was always something to do and if you looked everywhere in the game to find all the quests it seems like it really never ends. Either way Borderlands 1 & 2 was fun and I enjoyed playing them through.

Fallout is fantastic series, its just too bad its buggy as fuck. Game breaking buggy

New Vegas was a improvement over Fallout3 in terms of bugs though, I was actually able to enjoy the game. I recall Fallout3 thoroughly failing to play longer than 30 min or so before taking a huge shite.

[Krymzon 45]

Your right on that Mindf!3ldzX.

The game on my PS3 would run perfect for me at first but after it has been going for an hour or so it would lock up and I would have to reset and things would go haywire from time to time. They just had so much stuff cram packed into one big open world that I don't think even the game itself knew what the hell was going on at times. I heard it was a lot better on PC because they had patches that was supposed to fix a lot of errors in it to make it more playable. The DLC's for it were so buggy I couldn't even really play them. I loved the slow mo detail they had though, if you got a good head shot you could see the head splitting apart throwing eyeballs, jawbone, brain, half a skull and all kinds of crap. However I think that system when used a lot will crash the game as well.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

The game on my PS3 would run perfect for me at first but after it has been going for an hour or so it would lock up and I would have to reset and things would go haywire from time to time. They just had so much stuff cram packed into one big open world that I don't think even the game itself knew what the hell was going on at times. I heard it was a lot better on PC because they had patches that was supposed to fix a lot of errors in it to make it more playable. The DLC's for it were so buggy I couldn't even really play them. I loved the slow mo detail they had though, if you got a good head shot you could see the head splitting apart throwing eyeballs, jawbone, brain, half a skull and all kinds of crap. However I think that system when used a lot will crash the game as well.

Lol ,it did get somewhat better, but still was riddled with "FUCKING GAME!!!" moments, when you know, you're break your ass for a couple hours trying to accomplish a goal, only for it to crash or lock up cold. I think they was just too ambitious for FO3,and it shows in New Vegas because it was more broken down, lots of transition area's where it would load new map sections entirely,. rather than 'on the fly' like in FO3 seemed.

[ArrrCee]

I really liked the first game a lot. We played the hell out of it!

But the 2nd game, I don't know, just didn't do much for me. I played it through to the end with a friend of mine and he loved it but I just wasn't feeling it.

I think it was the mix of same ish gameplay with jokes that weren't even close to be being as funny as they were in the first game and they did something to the shielding mechanic. I played as a Soldier and I felt like half the time I played I was behind cover waiting for my shield to come back! I didn't die very often but my shield felt absolutely useless.

Each section would be like: Step up, shoot a bit, shield goes out, cover up, wait 10 second and repeat. It got very stale for me.

For the record though, I played on PC and the game looks really nice. It does have shadows and cool lighting and all of that stuff. I guess the vita just couldn't handle all the bells and whistles?