Borderlands 2 - PS3 - Review

[Ohio Joe]

First up... This game is also available for both PC and Xbox and as far as I know, there are no real differences in the versions.

I'm loving this game, they did a lot of things right in making this sequel. Far to often in a sequel what made a game great gets changed in favor of 'doing something new'. New can be good... or not... Often it is not. They left pretty much all of the gameplay just as it was, the one big change I've noticed so far is that they got rid of the gun mastery system and replaced it with the badass system (more on that later). Other then that though, they just did more of what made the game great by turning everything up to 11.

Graphics - The game looks great, everything is sharp, clear and colorful. Some more varied environments then the first game mix things up nicely. No complaints here.

Enemies - All the old bad guys are back and they brought a lot of new friends with them. The AI given to them this time around is some of the best I've ever seen in a game. They run and dodge and hide and jump out for a shot... Not crazy hard but definitly a nice upgrade.

Characters - The basic game comes with four classes and a fifth has been announced as coming in October (the 16th if I recall correctly). All of them play great except for the gunzerker... I'm not thrilled with this one and I really thought it would be a favorite. I hated the mechanic of having to use both triggers constantly for Brick in the first game and thought it was gone but they kept it going for the gunzerker in the this one. Kick off the gunzerkers special ability and it straight away distorts your vision and has you clicking away with both triggers firing blindly. Yes, yes, you toss out a lot of bullets but since it is so freaking hard to see what you are aiming at, it is hardly worth it. The rest of the characters are a blast though.

The Story - Lots more story has been added and it does a much better job of driving things forward. It's done well, lots of laughs but at the same time pretty dark. One minor gripe is that a little more often then should happen, you get messages while in the middle of combat and miss the message. There is probably a way to repeat them later so... probably a minor issue.

Items

Guns, Guns, Guns! I don't even know where to begin... Guns of all types that do all sorts of crazy shit. They upped the number of stats (at least more are visible) but they seriously do not tell you if the weapon is any good or not. Try out your guns to get the real story. I found one assault rifle that I almost ditched but then tried and holy crap... It shot hand granades instead of bullets They don't go very far, maybe 20 yards or so but they explode when they hit an ememy or after a few seconds and when that stream starts going off... heh, it's awesome, too bad it does not apply my grenade mod. I also have a shot gun that shoots fire balls Loads of cool guns. It may sound like a pain to always be switching up guns but it is fun discovering cool ones and it also helps a lot with your badass rank (yes, yes, I'll get to that)

Grenade mods - Grenade mods get a big upgrade and can come with a lot of mods and stats. Pay attention to the fuse time is though... They can hurt you as well as enemies.

Shields - Like everything else, there are lots of stats and mods that can come on shields. I'm looking for shields with low recharge delay (how long it takes after the last time you take damage before the shield starts recharging) and a high recharge rate (how fast it recharges once it starts) over capacity (how much shield you have).

Skins - Skins can be found either as loot drops or in vending machines. Use them and they unlock new skins for characters or cars.

Class mods - These give +to skills as well as other bonus's. I have not gotten to where these are available yet but I'm expecting lots of these.

Something else - There is also another slot for some other type of mod but I've not found what they are yet.

Badass Rank - OK, here it is As I said earlier, the whole gun mastry system is out. In it's place is the Badass Rank system. Every time you complete a challenge (challenges are listed in the Start menu, all the way to the right, this is also where you spend badass tokens) you get badass ranks... 1 rank for the first level of the challenge, then 10 for the next and on like that... The bigger the challenge the more points. Every so many ranks you get a Badass token. When you spend the token (use 'x' in the menu), you get to select one of five randomly presented stats and you get a bonus to that stat permantly and for ALL of your characters... Yes, they all share the same badass stat bonus's.

There are tons and tons of challenges to complete so be sure to mix it up. Use different elemental mods, different weapons, everything, just mix it up. All challenges are listed in the menu for ideas on new ways to kill just to get more tokens, heh.

The Badass Bonus - I thought this was going to be even more overpowered then the gun mastry was in B1 and I think by the time all the expansions are out it may well be... But thats good, by that point you should be able to have a super kick ass character. It is something I really liked about the first game. The bonus starts out nicely with +1% but it quickly drops from there. There is a nice chart here:

http://segmentnext.com/2012/09/19/borderlands-2-badass-ranking-guide-how-to-rank-up-fast/

At level ten I have a Badass rank of 290 and have spent 23 tokens total and the most on one stat being 4 tokens. Right now I'm not getting more then a few percent on any given stat but I am getting that on 14 different stats... it adds up. If one were to play the game a lot and have 1 of each character (including the fifth that comes 10/16) I can see these stats getting into at least the 12-15% range... Now you have my attention I'm thinking of trying to get 2 or maybe 3 of them as high as I can by picking them every time the appear and trying to keep the rest about even with each other...

Re-Spawning - Enemies respawn... And they do it pretty quickly. Be careful.

Bottom Line - If you liked B1, go buy this game. It is everything you loved made better. If you did not like the first... I don't think you are going to change your mind... It will suck less then before but thats probably not a reason to get a game. If you are unsure... I suggest you rent it and give it a try (is there a demo for this yet... if not, I would expect one soon).

If you are playing on PS3, send me a PM if you want to play and we can set it up.