Borderlands 2

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)
Genre: First Person Shooter; Sub-genre: RPG
ESRB: M (For a lot of blood and innuendos)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 40/20
Developer: Gearbox Software
Wiki page

I was looking forward to this game all year. And it is great. But I've chosen to ding it for several reasons. I could argue that most of these stem from things that I wanted to see improved from the first game, but they all affect the overall game. The big issues I have are going to ring true for everyone. It hurts me to give this game less than three stars, but as I am closing in on finishing my second playthrough I feel strongly about it. If I had to pick one central reason that forced me to give this lower rating it would be this: enemy design. I'll try to touch on as many things as I can, but this one thing sours the whole experience. Basically, the game whittles down to sniping. Like... all the time. Any time you are not sniping? Your ability needs to be off cooldown or you're going to use "consumables" (rockets and grenades, there are no health potions). Failing that, you'll have to exploit the "Fight for your life" game mechanic. Just pray that your enemies don't arbitrarily run away from you the SECOND you get downed. This could potentially be fixed in future patches... sorta. Tweaking numbers and such. But even then the AI would not be well executed. Let's get down to why.

This should probably be "another wind" or something. How many "seconds" can you have?

So here's how shooters work: either projectiles are slow and clumsy so the player can dodge them (think old school games like Contra or maybe some of Doom) or they are fast and deadly, turning the game into a semi-realistic firefight relying on cover (like Call of Duty). In Borderlands you can FEEL that the game wants you to get in there and fight toe-to-toe with stuff, but bullets hurt a hell of a lot and there are always a ton of bad guys with a ton of health. Also, these bad guys move really Goddamn fast and lose none of their accuracy while dancing around. BUT if you run away from everything to sniping distance? They take cover and stay nice and still for ya. And guess what? Their aim is just as good when using cover. However, their artificial inaccuracy (that is, the statistic given to them to make their shots have randomized trajectories as they otherwise can instantly lock on to you visually) renders them completely ineffective at range. What does this mean? It means you're invincible when you snipe, but made of paper when you get any where near them. Enemies don't flinch reliably when hit with damage either.

It's hard to focus when things hit you in the face as this album cover shows.

Now listen: I'm not complaining that the game is too hard. It's actually relatively easy... so long as you use sniper rifles a lot. But my point is that enemies don't seem to have logical design to them. In all of these previous sentences, I've basically been talking about the "Marauder". It's like the most basic bad guy. He just has a dinky little gun, low health, and runs around like a normal guy. And he's pretty damn threatening if he gets up close to you. I upgraded my shields from about 5000 to 16000 at some point and STILL found myself dying in a split second up close with this guy. But that was during my second playthrough, which is supposed to be harder. The last boss, who is built up as an unstoppable death machine (this isn't a spoiler, just common sense as far as bosses go), is kind of a push over. It took me a lot of effort to beat him, but he was kind of a weakling. I think I could say that about all the bosses. Without analyzing every unit in the game, I'll just talk about one more: Hyperion Sniper. The name suggests he'd be good at range and maybe bad at melee, right? Wrong! This mother fucker is so good at hipfire and combat rolling you will be long dead by the time you realize you're surprised! And at range? He misses all the time, especially if you strafe side to side. It just feels to me like every enemy was approached with zero thought on playability and fun. Watch out for Stalkers and Constructors!

It never stops shooting. Never. After it's dead you'll still hear missiles exploding for like ten seconds.

The weapons are improved from the first game, sure, but... not enough. The weapon tooltips are more detailed, but important stats like recoil and stability are still a mystery. Hell, you can't even tell if something has a scope now unless you look at the actual gun while it's in your hands. That's just clumsy, man. And they went out of their way to give every brand a flavor. It's a nice touch, but it means you'll instantly hate weapons just by seeing the brand. Typically I avoid Hyperion and Dahl guns at all times. I love Vladof, but good stats are hard to come by and the spinny assault rifles suck. Jacobs is only good for sniper rifles. Tediore is only good for shotguns (personal taste). Torgue is terrible for everything except launchers. And Maliwan is pretty damn awesome. Their guns are designed around the elements, and elements are fucking useful! Except shock. Shock is still pretty lame. Although in the second playthrough you'll find enemies with shields more frequently, but you need another gun once their shields are down. Why does the bonus only apply when their shields are up? Why not always get a bonus against enemies with shield capabilities? And why did they introduce a new element (slag) when they still had a lame one? In the previous game, you eventually ran into Eridians who had high shields but low health. There is no such enemy in this game. So again: enemy design.

They give you a handy tutorial to explain how totally useful shock is!

Another "big improvement" is the story. This is actually a really funny thing to comment on. Not because the game is full of humor, but from like an intellectual examination perspective. For a game that relies so heavily on "dick and fart" type humor, it handles story less clumsily than a lot of games. Like every Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, Resistance... just to name a few. I point this out because there's characters, goals, arcs, and twists. It's still stupid as hell, but many games don't even attempt these things. Although there are enemies with no explanation (like the bandit Goliaths who randomly have Resident Evil 4 powers... is there an infection and only they got it? Huh?), I think I'll blame the enemy design team for that since they suck. Unfortunately I can't actually praise this as a fully positive mark in the game. Not because the plot is stupid. It's totally fine that it's stupid. But it doesn't fit the tone of the game. Too much melodrama, anger, desperation, and such. I get that it's a planet filled with psychopaths, bandits, and unscrupulous corporations but it's shown as such a fun adventure that none of that stuff feels good at all. Plus they made the old characters into important NPC's so we could learn about them or something. But the new characters are silent while everyone else now talks. What the hell! So then maybe in the NEXT game will these characters get to talk? Just give the character we control a damn voice!

My commando, Super Fucker, likes to listen. That is what I have derived of his personality.

I'm sorry I'm complaining so much. It's not making sense that I gave this game two stars instead of one, is it? Well, there is a reason I've pumped so many hours into this game: it's still pretty fun. And it's clear they did a lot of work in a short development cycle for a game with so much stuff in it. I'm just... so tired of sniping, man. I've been forcing myself to not use sniper rifles lately. It's harsh. I die a lot to stupid bullshit, which is frustrating. I've been studying the terrible enemy design to see how terrible it is since everything acts similarly stupid to sniper rifles. Ugh. There's so many little things I'd do differently. Like the Y button! It's useless! Use the D-pad to switch weapons, the Y button is just going to slow you down! And why are shotguns so crappy? They should provide a definitive advantage at close range over other weapons, not provide marginally better DPS if you find something big enough that all the pellets will hit! Jesus. I can't review this game. I've become too close. Call it a wash.

I'm off the case! Other cop drama cliches!

Conclusion:
You probably already own this game and love it. You also know I'm right. Think about it! But there's a shit load of DLC coming out. I'll continue playing then, but XCOM: Enemy Unknown is coming out very soon. Wooo-wee!

If my "censor gore" is off how come there's no dismemberment in this game? Agh! Can't stop complaining!

Extra Note!

Here's a little something I wanted to point out that's nifty about this game series that I don't think people have really noticed: female characters. It goes without saying that video games have real trouble with female characters. Being that the industry takes so much profit from the male population, it's more concerned with making them into hood ornaments than living, breathing people. You'd think a game series like Borderlands would be a big offender with all it's inappropriate humor, but no! Not really, anyway. There are actually quite a few female characters in the story, and a lot of them are kinda cool for reasons other than "having tits". Here's a list of girls who are important, not whorishly dolled up, and have as much complexity as a game about shooting retards can afford:

-Helena Pierce
-Athena
-Ellie
-Tiny Tina
-Patricia Tannis
-Gaige

Here's three more who fit that bill, but are made out to be more attractive than maybe necessary (although these can be tied to lore reasons, I guess):
-Lilith
-Maya
-Angel

And here's the list of whores:
-Moxxie

Mind you, she's an actual whore. Even then, she's a mother of two (perhaps more?) and arguably has layers.

You also run into NPC's from time to time who seem to fit the atmosphere more realistically than one would expect from a video game (like T.K. Baha's daughter). And remember: I'm not saying these characters are like... super feminist ideals or anything. Just that they're not total trash.

Sorry this is such a weird thing to bring up. Felt compelled to ... probably because I'm still in the process of playing Kingdoms of Amalur where the average female NPC looks like this: