Borderlands 2: 5 reasons you’ll love the game

 

Whether it’s movies, books or video games, sequels are hard to do. With video games, your audience expects everything to be new and sparkly, but they expect to feel right at home, too. So it’s not enough to update the graphics and combat a little: Gamers don’t want a been-there-done-that-more-of-the-same experience. Ya’ gotta’ give ’em something new and different, or they’ll quickly get bored with the game. But you don’t want the sequel to be so different they don’t recognize the game: You can’t have Assassin’s Creed without a stealth mode or Halo without a Master Chief.

Sure gamers will probably buy the game, just like movie-goers will line up for a sequel, but if you let them down too much, you run the real danger of losing your audience. Does anyone line up to buy Tomb Raider, anymore?

So how’s Borderlands 2? Short answer: You’ll love it!

Here are 5 reasons why:

1. The story

The first Borderlands was your basic treasure hunting story. Whether it’s Tomb Raider or Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s a classic storyline that works. But it’s safe to say the first Borderlands was a little light on story. Basically, the story was go kill bandits, skags and aliens, whatever, and get the treasure.

While Borderlands had minimal character development, at best, sorta what you get in your typical Michael Bay film, Borderlands 2 has an engaging, robust storyline, with real, live character development. There are fun, new characters, plus many of the characters from the original game return (No spoilers, here.), some in very unexpected ways. There are actual secondary storylines, not just fetch-it and kill mobs and bosses quests. All of this adds to the lore of the Pandora (The world where Borderlands takes place.) and helps draw you deeper into the game.

In Borderlands 2, the story of Pandora comes alive. You’ll get sucked into the game simply by the story. Oh, sure, it’s still good to blow things up and burns them down and run over them, but everyone likes a good story.

2. It’s funny and clever

Let’s see… There’s an insane robot who gives you bad advise. There’s a profane quest to rename the indigenous yeti-type beasts, which already have the silly name, bullymongs. Every character in the game seems to be a comic. Even the evil Handsome Jack will make you laugh. No, he’ll have you howling. Sometimes you’ll be laughing so hard it might be difficult not to get yourself killed.

3. Loot midgets

Enough said.

4. New, improved classes

All the classes have been updated and changed. They’re not so different you’ll be disappointed. You know, like, boo hoo, I wanted to play a siren. They’re still sort of the same classes.

That’s one of the truly amazing things about what GearBox has done with Borderlands 2: The classes seem familiar, but they’ve been updated with new skills and new abilities. The siren in Borderlands 2 doesn’t phasewalk, she phaselocks enemies taking them out of combat. Nothing has changed so much you’ll feel like you don’t know how to play these classes, but they’ve changed enough that you’ll love the newness of them.

5. Achievements are badass

Your Borderlands 2 achievements are badass. No, literally. They’re badass. Every achievement is worth a badass rank. Badass ranks get you badass tokens. You use badass token to make your character more badass by increasing their badass skills. How badass is that?

Borderlands 2 is a fun, badass game (Sorry. Had to say badass just one more time.). You’ll love it.

(You want a review? Okay, Borderlands 2 gets a gazillion out of a bazillion. It loses a zillion for not giving you a massage while you’re playing. Really. You’ll need the massage, because you won’t get up from the game for hours.)