Borderlands 2 review: exciting thrillride for series fans

“So you wanna hear a story eh? One about treasure hunters? Haha. Have I got a story for you!”

Marcus opens the Borderlands series with these lines, that fit quite perfectly with Borderlands 2 as it did with the first installation. While relatively similar to the first, Borderlands boasts four, soon to be five, new vault hunters and a wide variety of new enemies, places and, most importantly, guns. Familiar faces like the original vault hunters make appearances throughout the story, and many favorite NPCs like Scooter and Moxxi, from DLC, return.

Borderlands 2 starts you off in the arctic wasteland or, more specifically, on a glacier where you awake after surviving an encounter with Handsome Jack, the new main baddie. The Last friendly CL4P-TP unit greets you and instantly takes you under his wing – er, arm – as his minion. The first enemies you encounter are new: the bullymong. Hint. Their head is the critical zone. You’re welcome.

With no intention to spoil the first few hours of the game, Borderlands 2 definitely throws the player back to what originally drew them to the series. With a familiar feel to the actual gameplay mechanics, the new additions truly add things that we, as gamers, didn’t even know were missing, like a new style of tutorial and game introduction.

One such thing is the new “badass rank” system. By completing challenges, one gains ranks that, at specific intervals, will convert to points that can be used for additional bonuses to characters’ abilities and stats.. Who wouldn’t love additional weapon damage and faster shield recharging? With this new system and some dedication to challenge completion, it is fairly easy to gain the ranks and desired perks.

For any shooter fan, this game definitely delivers. Anyone familiar with the first game knows how using the guns are, down to the shaky, unstable aiming and recoil that may be the difference between respawn and a second wind. The controls are easy enough to pick up that any shooter-newbie can learn and enjoy.

Overall, this game promises hours of joy-puking and mayhem (bring friends), just as the back cover promised. The cel-shaded graphics, unique comic style, and captivating story add another facet to the excitement of Borderlands 2. This game is best in hour-long segments or an all-day power play through. It is definitely worth adding to any game collection.

Metacritic gives it 90% and the Game Informer gives it a 9.75 out of 10. We give this game four and one third paws out of five.

Borderlands 2 is available on PC through the Steam network, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.