BORDERLANDS 2

Borderlands 2 releases Sept 21

Borderlands 2 You Tube Link

Borderlands 2 Pre-order info
[u]

Pandora is lovely this time of year, apparently.
After that swooning love letter
a little while back, in which Claptrap promised to sweep us PC gamers
off our feet and carry us over the threshold, I was a little
disappointed that my first hands-on experience with Borderlands 2
had to be with an Xbox 360 gamepad (because the PC controls weren't
ready). But this shooter certainly ran beautifully on an Alienware X51
PC -- a sly setup that let Gearbox and 2K demonstrate Borderlands 2 to
Xbox and PlayStation gamers where it looks far better than it ever will
on those platforms. In true 1920x1080 resolution and with
high-definition textures, it really does look good --
improvements over the first game are subtle but noticeable, and even
more so than before every frame looks ripped from the pages of a stylish
graphic novel about guns, explosions, and loot on an untamed alien
world.

Army of Two

Mike Nelson and I teamed up to run through a mission -- the evil
Handsome Jack had captured original Pandoran treasure hunter Mordecai's
pet bird Bloodwing, and he needs our help! I chose Maya the Siren --
unlike her predecessor Lilith, who has a get-out-of-trouble-free phase
walk ability that makes her temporarily incorporeal, Maya has a more
offensive ability called phase lock that traps enemies for a few
seconds. On top of that, I chose an upgrade called Sweet Release from
Maya's Harmony tree (one of three power groups) that causes enemies that
die while phase locked to burst like pinatas full of health orbs.



Mordeaci's back as an NPC who's too lazy to get his own bird.
Mike, meanwhile, chose Salvador the Gunzerker, whose class ability let
him dual-wield for a few seconds to double his damage output, and he
spread his upgrade points across Salvador's three trees to get abilities
like enhanced firing speed, a small chance for each bullet to cause an
explosion, and a huge damage bonus for the last round in a clip.


This is still Pandora, but Borderlands 2's topography is far more colorful and varied.
While the art style and location are the same, Borderlands 2 is
definitely a refreshing change of scenery -- even though this is still
Pandora, which we were led to believe was as uniformly arid as Tatooine,
Borderlands 2's topography is far more colorful and varied. Our mission
to rescue Bloodwing took us through a green grassy valley with purple
mushroom trees, an industrial warehouse area with a high-tech interior, a
"wildlife exploitation preserve," and more familiar desert area with
pools of bubbling green acid, and a cave full of giant insect hives.

We Bought a Zoo

Likewise, while the original Borderlands has some interesting wildlife,
Borderlands 2 has considerably more. Just in this demo area we
encountered more species of Pandoran creatures than in all of the last
game, including dragon-like critters with scorpion tails, bugs that
would morph into more powerful versions if left alive, big stompy
tripods with crystal shells protecting vulnerable spots on their legs,
burrowing worms with big teeth and tentacles -- and of course lots and
lots of the good old dog-like skags. That's in addition to Handsome
Jack's army of futuristic troopers and a half-dozen different varieties
of robot. Add to that the different variants with unique abilities, like
the worm that creates a gravity field to suck you in and then whack you
with spikes, and it's fairly safe to say that Borderlands 2 will not
want for anything when it comes to enemy variety.



I wonder where they'll put the Troll Face?
One of the unique things about Borderlands is its huge catalog of
pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers,
each with their own interesting looks and animations for firing and
reloading. Borderlands 2 definitely carries on that proud tradition,
because right from the start I was wowed by a seemingly
utilitarian-looking Tedior-brand shotgun. When I hit reload, Maya flung
the entire gun away, and on impact it detonated like a grenade -- and an
instant later a new, fully loaded shotgun had materialized in her hands
like a cup of hot earl gray tea. The amount of damage the exploding gun
deals is dependent on how many rounds are in the clip when it's tossed,
so firing once and then hitting reload will do the most damage. It's
like having an alt-fire grenade launcher, and it works for all Tedior
weapons, from the pistol up to and including the rocket launcher, which
turns into a rocket of sorts itself when thrown.


When I hit reload, Maya flung the entire gun away, and on impact it detonated like a grenade.
There are plenty of other weapon manufacturers on Pandora, each with
unique looks and traits. One fires projectiles that move faster the
longer you hold down the trigger, another gets more accurate. And with
the randomization system shuffling around add-ons and to produce
countless combinations of stats like accuracy, firing rate, clip size,
reload time, and elemental damage type, there's an absurd number of
possibilities.

The Fifth Element

Speaking of elemental damage, Borderlands 2 adds one more (to the
existing incendiary, explosive, shock, and corrosive) by inventing a new
element: cooperation! Or as it's called here, Slag. It doesn't do much
damage on its own, but it'll intensify any other weapon type that hits
the same target during the next few seconds. I was able to juggle this
by swapping weapons back and forth between a Slag-enhanced pistol and a
shock-enhanced assault rifle, but considering this was co-op, it was
easier to just shoot the same guy Mike was shooting to increase his
damage.



Hey look, it's the car we didn't get to drive! Looks sweet, though.
I wouldn't call what we played notably challenging (not that that'd be
an accurate measure anyway, since Gearbox gave us leveled-up characters
to play with), but we did die a few times, particularly when facing
badass-level miniboss creatures like the badass shock skag. But even
death didn't stop the slaughter for long -- when I went down I had the
opportunity to fire from the ground to kill an enemy before bleeding out
to restore my health; if I failed (usually because Mike killed the
enemy I was trying for) and Mike couldn't be bothered to resurrect me
himself, I'd just respawn at the nearest checkpoint and charge back in
guns blazing. Because I'm such a team player, when I leveled up I chose
an ability that let Maya resurrect a teammate from a distance using her
phase lock, so Mike had even less down-time than I did.


Even death didn't stop the slaughter for long.
Things will get tricky when difficulty is cranked up and scaled for four
players, so that will be the true test. Co-op buddies should be even
easier to come by this time, since Borderlands 2 uses Steamworks for
easy inviting of friends -- plus there's nothing stopping Gearbox from
implementing cross-platform play with PlayStation 3 (a la Portal 2).
Gearbox wouldn't deny it was in the works.



We didn't get to try out the other two player classes, or any vehicles
(and their supposedly improved handling) but there should be ample time
for that between now and September. I'm looking forward to it, because
if Gearbox can live up to its promises -- including more attention to
the plot and a better ending -- Borderlands 2 will fix pretty much every
problem I cited when I reviewed the first game.