Borderlands 2

[elmuerte]

Good. Now I just have to wait for it to be delivered at work, so I can pick it up after my vacation

[Frenetic Pony]

Got this yesterday. Eight hours straight with my brother, and I'm pretty sure we're not even halfway done.

This is the sequel almost every average video game fan wants. The same and yet bigger and better and more in every way. More guns, more skills, more art, more vehicles, more enemies, more upgrades, more more more. If you liked Borderlands 1 (and still think you would) there's probably a good 95% chance you'll like Borderlands 2.

I'm going to get back today, and probably play for another eight hours straight, and maybe even tomorrow as well. Game of the year for me so far. Not because it's phenomenal or groundbreaking or etc. It's not really. It just delivers exactly the mostly mindless shooting/co-op/loot collecting violence it promises, with some neat looking art and a very good sense of humor on top. And for whatever reason that's what I happen to really feel like playing at the moment.

[Sno]

I enjoy the revamped grenades system.

Instead of the attribute & element & damage scheme of the first game, radius and fuse are also variables, and multiple attributes can be stacked. (I'm sure i've seen grenades with as many as four combined, you can end up with some pretty weird stuff.)

[Cigol]

Loving the engine upgrades, really smooth and looks awesome. The customisable FOV means I don't get dizzy and mouse controls are much more responsive, but I really dislike the inventory UI, why can't I use WSAD in them if it's going to be controller specific? Makes switching items or even just looking at your loot a chore on the PC. I also might be outing myself as a crazy-bore-of-a-hermit here but I prefer to play it offline in at my own pace as well. It's a pretty noisy and chaotic game with just one person that throwing more into the mix spoils it for me.

[cyrix]

It's funny, I can totally hear Anthony Birch's style in the writing (at least in the claptrap).

It's Burch, With a "u", and yeah his voice is really strong in what I've seen of the dialogue.

He and the greater HAWP crew have been streaming a bunch of BL2 over on the HAWP twitch.tv along with a lot of other good stuff.

Edit: Forgot to mention when I said "seen" I meant in video and such, stupid money.

[Sno]

This game has many easter eggs.

The Minecraft one is pretty incredible, you smash blocks and fight creepers!

[Korax]

I'm a bit annoyed at some sort of bug that's giving people (including me) "Out of video memory" crashes if they've got PhysX on, even on high-end systems. The PC version is still the version to get, but I was pretty stoked about the PhysX stuff, so having to turn that off for now bums me out.

I thought accessing the Angel Control Core area thing would be the final quest of the game, but something happens (which is actually telegraphed fairly obviously if you've been paying attention to things) and now there's a decent chunk still to go, including a good number of side missions.

I've been getting some pretty crazy weapons, though:

The Bane (reward for a quest). I've got a corrosive one, though I've seen shots of an electric one, too. It's slows your movement to a crawl, and makes midget-style shouts every time you do anything with it.

The Venture Morningstar (quest reward). This one has a voice that insults you every time you reload. Things like, "Maybe if you could hit something, you wouldn't have you reload." I think the "Venture" part of the name is the Hyperion-style naming for "sets things on fire." All the Hyperion weapons have weird naming like that.

I've received a pistol, SMG, and shotgun from Moxxi, two as quest rewards, one for tipping her a lot. I find it weird that they're uncommon or rare instead of legendary, since they are unique, named weapons.

And something I actually looted from a chest: the Rapid Infinity. It's got a magazine capacity of 1, but it NEVER RUNS OUT OF BULLETS. Couple that with its decent accuracy, damage, and fire rate, and I can run through an area holding down the fire button the entire time and not really have any problems.

[Sno]

I found both the bane and the nagging snipe in my Axton game, they're pretty hysterical. There's also a hyperion shotgun you can get that delights in the carnage you cause. BL2 features a ton of goofy talking weapons.

For non-quest generated weapons, one of the neatest things i've found was a e-tech pistol capable of rapidly spitting out homing blue shock projectiles that would ricochet off of walls endlessly until they found a target. It had a massive 50+ round barrel magazine and a totally superfluous scope too, it was amazing.

Anyways, i've got time in on all of the classes now, and i think they're all pretty fantastic. I think Axton is probably the least dynamic of the new characters, but he has some really solid skills available, he's a lot of fun. Zero and Maya both facilitate some really wildly varied playstyles, and Salvador falls somewhere in the middle of everything. Salvador nets you big rewards for putting yourself at risk though, while Axton is more about playing it safe, and Zero can be either. Maya really seems like the most flexible character in the game though, she has probably the least interesting ability, but the most interesting skill trees.

I love the idea of the one-point game changer skills too, i think it shows Gearbox's awareness of how people were playing Borderlands. In the first game there were skills where there wasn't a significant difference between having one point in something and having five, and therefore people were just planning their builds around these "one-point wonders", never fully utilizing them. (Roland was particularly guilty of this, notably the supply drop and missile launcher skills for his turret.) So instead of trying to force everything into a unnecessarily rigid skill tree, they've allowed themselves to be a little more flexible in BL2, and it works out great.

Also, i was kind of expecting the main story to at least take me to every area, but it seems like there's a fair number of locations that are exclusively for side quests. I'm not all of the way through the game, but there are areas i am well past that no story quest ever took me to. (In one case, there weren't even any side quests pointing me towards a given location, but when i took the initiative to explore the area, found an absolutely enormous space with multiple, lengthy quests.) I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's a little unexpected and odd.

Finally, It's a small thing, but i'm kind of glad they get Claptrap out of the way, up front. It would have been really easy for them to ramp up on all the silliness that people latched onto in the first game, but i think they show just enough restraint for it to not overstay its welcome. Whether you think it's actually funny or not is another thing, but i don't think it ever crosses into annoying.

(Anybody want to talk builds? At 27, my Axton is sporting 5 on Sentry, 5 on willing, 1 on Scorched Earth, 5 on Healthy, 5 on Preparation, and 1 on Phalanx Shield.)

[Frenetic Pony]

Borderlands 2 has, for me, been a journey of a game. The first time I sat down to play it (co-op) I went for eight hours until it was about four in the morning. It was a game with a beautiful and unique art style, a clever sense of humor, very solid shooting of everything in sight, and a very good clip of introducing new types of enemies and weapons and even the occasional puzzle.

Since then the clip of newness has gone down steadily. The routine of finding new and better weapons has exhausted itself, and I now have two dozen different arrows to compare with two dozen other different arrows on eight different possible items I can equip which is not to mention leveling up and "badass" tokens. The once gleeful process of improving my stats has now turned into a morass of comparing any number of arrows to each other every five minutes only to be disappointed most of the time, or unexcited at scratching out the barest of improvements for the hundredth time in one of the arrows.

The combat and "story" have both taken a turn for the worse. The worthlessness of money has made its collection equally worthless, which has in turn made death itself (for which you are punished by the removal of money) utterly pointless. The constant intrusion of a story that doesn't know whether it wants to be a self serious pie or delicious hilarity cake has necessitated itself into my playtime thanks to enemies being constantly below my own and my co-op friends stats level, thus we try to slam through it to get to a real challenge and back to the sidequests and their all delicious hilarity cake all the time.

As for combat, the lack of any challenge has caused any marked difference between enemies to become pointless. Combined with the horrid design of boss levels and boss event types being nothing more than a slog through vast waves of identical enemies and/or fighting a boss with enough health to drain our entire ammo reserves combat has become a morass of flashing lights and mind numbing exposition by characters that lost their chance to interest me story wise long ago.

Perhaps, if I slog enough, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps, if I cut enough corners I'll be able to get back to challenging combat, which will allow me to go on the hilarious, reference filled quests I want to do, allow me to care about my multitude of stats again because I'll need them, allow me to care that the AI seems to be changing tactics because they'll be hard to kill. But right now, at what is about 18 hours in, I'm not really having fun. Instead, I'm fighting for the hope of having fun at some point down the line, and have the feeling that there could definitely be a better game out there that I'd be playing instead; if only this game season's release dates were not so spaced out from each other.

[Sno]

If you don't want to end up hugely over-leveled, do side-quests as they arise, before doing story quests. The game does a lot of pretty harsh exp-scaling, so doing side-quests of your level will net you almost no experience, and story-quests of a slightly higher level will net you a ton. The arena side-quests can also really throw you off, since enemies and loot there are actually scaled to your level, rather than predefined. I chose to not do them, since they were pushing me way ahead of the curve. Even so, playing the game with a completist mindset has mostly put me in pretty much the right spot for most of the game. The basic thing to keep in mind for when you start tackling quests above your level is that you will level up immediately and be over-leveled for everything else.

And yeah, i wouldn't say the game is a huge challenge, and i wasn't expecting it to be on the first playthrough. (Hearsay is that the second playthrough is savage, and that's how it should be.)

If you're finding the enemies to be huge bullet sponges, you might consider a respec or finding some better weapons, because that generally hasn't been my experience outside of a few very specific encounters.

I have also actually found money to be much more important than in the first game. The potential issue is that the shops are set to the level you are assumed to be when you arrive in a given area, while the sanctuary shops only update at several points throughout the course of the game. Look at the right shops at the right time. (Interestingly, the shops in the arena side-quest areas scale to your player level and are probably the most useful ones in the game.)

I'm also curious, how many people do you have in your co-op session?

I find two or three to be the ideal number, i think four just ends up being too much of a force. You just end up recklessly steam-rolling through the game with brute force. (Versus opponents that are scaled up to be huge damage sponges because of the co-op scaling, some of the named enemies do get a little ridiculous.)

[Frenetic Pony]

Only me and one other.

And I'm not finding enemies to be bullet sponges. My guns KICK ASS, constantly. Even enemies two to four levels above me die easily. I find guns I use for 6 levels or more without finding a replacement. Which is why money is useless to me, as I never need to buy anything at all.

[Malice Song]

(Hearsay is that the second playthrough is savage, and that's how it should be.)

This, so far it is considerably harder than the first run. I can't quite point my finger on the culprit, but basically I had to ditch my sweet set up of armaments within a few minutes, because it wasn't even close to getting me anywhere. I think it also may have something to do with the good old RNG, especially if your guns tear that much ass. For example I was playing Siren going into the game expecting to Lilith it up again and was looking for a decent SMG. Not only did none of this turn out happening the way I expected it to, my effectiveness was also largely determined by the gear I found. It was basically fighting through a horde of robots at times, slightly struggling, just to find a great corrosive sniper rifle along the way coupled with the thought of "it's on!". You know, that endgame glee you get when finding that last overpowered weapon in your typical game and I actually love how it's delivered here over and over again, but one of the downsides can be how it potentially affects your game and if you're actually looking for a challenge, running into a bunch of great gear in a row can hamper with that.

As far as money goes, I don't know, it seems to me that money is more of a concern than it was in the last game, simply because there is more to spend it on (slot machines, tip jar) and simultaneously more incentive not to spend it (bad ass points). On the whole it is still in the useless territory, but I just think of it as another stat and so far that works out fine as far as accepting it goes.

a story that doesn't know whether it wants to be a self serious pie or delicious hilarity cake

I could be wrong, but personally the story seemed to me deliberately not really concerned with any particular tone it was aiming for, but rather aimed at being one big trip through fan service land. Like "This is Borderlands, we can't have story in here, let's write fan fiction!". I guess it depends a bit on whether you played its predecessor. If not, Borderlands 2's story is a video game story. It's very typical and it's bad. If yes, it's awesome in a make-believe kind of way, where you see stuff you make up comes to live all off a sudden and it's awesome and beautiful. Kind of hard to explain. Also I am easily entertained by those things, so there's that.

I'm into teaming up if anyone's down.

This, too.

[Sno]

I never really liked the argument that something can't be funny and grim at the same time, i think there's a pretty good tradition of satirical and outright comedic horror films that would point to the contrary. That kind of uncomfortable humor can be wonderful. It can definitely be done poorly, but i feel Borderlands 2 straddles the line acceptably, i don't think either part of the equation particularly overstays its welcome. It is both goofier and darker than the first game was, and in general has much more personality because of it.

I'm nearing the end of playthrough 1 on my Axton, and i want to say that the story has exceeded my expectations. I absolutely don't mean that as lofty praise, but i have genuinely enjoyed this ride. So, as Video game narratives go, i don't find this one horrible. It's fun dumb, and i like fun dumb. Handsome Jack also really is one of the more contemptible Video game villains i can recall, an exaggerated version of a aggravating and frightening personality type you may actually know from life encounters. He's a totally frustrating, hatable villain.

This, so far it is considerably harder than the first run.

I am looking forward to starting on Playthrough 2. I had this weird experience of going back and playing the BL1 DLC right before BL2 came out, doing it in co-op on a playthrough 2/above 50 character, and then playing through to the cap. Might have just been the time away from the game, but it was absolutely savage. BL2 has been super chill, relative to that, but still fun and at times challenging.

Also, i was mistaken about the arena side-quests scaling, but they still push you way ahead of the leveling curve. I think i'd generally advise against doing them, if you want to stay in that difficulty sweet spot.

Also, save bugs, apparently. Story is that the game has in rare cases reset costume unlocks and badass ranks for players. There's no solution on the PC, but on the 360, if you had a BL1 save and notice the game trying to import it again, immediately dropping out to the dashboard without letting the game save will apparently spare you from the problem. (Other than that, there's a convoluted profile trick involving co-op that can apparently restore an affected save.)

Beyond that, there's some quests that will intermittently break, which can be resolved by completing them in co-op with somebody unaffected hosting. (Or, again, immediately bailing out to the dashboard without letting it save and restarting the quest.)

^ I have run into a few borked things, usually quest items falling through the terrain and stuff.

BL1, in general, had much more severe launch issues though. (Completely bugged and non-fuctional skills and items, as well as a nasty outright save corruption issue.)

[Frenetic Pony]

Oh I completely agree that something can be funny and grim, or funny and serious, or etc. It's just harder to pull off than a single tone, and Borderlands 2 doesn't really make it work.

Which is one of the things that make it an odd game. It enhances a lot of the great things about Borderlands 1, but doesn't really grab any opportunities that the first did nor even eliminate some of the gripes. Just finished, and the end boss battle way another boring shrug of the shoulders in terms of climaxes. Great animation and look, and yet we sat in the corner and just pulled the trigger until it was dead, no real tension or excitement except when it burst like a pinata and showered guns everywhere.

There were more problems than that though. The guns and their rarity system were nonsensical. I got 1 damned orange (highest tier color) throughout the entire game, at the very end when the boss died, and it was worse than my green SMG I'd gotten several levels ago. The colors had almost no bearing whatsoever on the actual goodness of a gun, or other equipment, and I ended up using a cornucopia of whatever happened to be there.

They also missed out on the idea that there'd just be a ton of crazy guns to go around. One or two with the red "special" tags for their stats did something truly interesting. It was fun to see the guns that were tossed as grenades, and doubly fun when I finally found a rocket launcher of the same type that goes off like a rocket when depleted. But they're still missing a lot of stuff just in how guns work. Beam weapons, stuff that overheats, takes time to spin up, slows you down or makes you faster. That's what I'd have like to see, and would like to see along with much more variety in how classes move and jump and what their skills do along with other stuff in Borderlands 3.

And there is going to be a 3. Borderlands 2 was one of the most pre-ordered games ever right? I mean the end cinematic obviously implies a 3 (not even really a spoiler to be honest). And what Borderlands 2 ultimately did was take much the same gameplay formula and try to hone it and add more numbers. It was fun, but if I'm buying 3 it's going to have to change up the gameplay somehwat.

[Sno]

There were more problems than that though. The guns and their rarity system were nonsensical. I got 1 damned orange (highest tier color) throughout the entire game, at the very end when the boss died, and it was worse than my green SMG I'd gotten several levels ago. The colors had almost no bearing whatsoever on the actual goodness of a gun, or other equipment, and I ended up using a cornucopia of whatever happened to be there.

They also missed out on the idea that there'd just be a ton of crazy guns to go around. One or two with the red "special" tags for their stats did something truly interesting. It was fun to see the guns that were tossed as grenades, and doubly fun when I finally found a rocket launcher of the same type that goes off like a rocket when depleted. But they're still missing a lot of stuff just in how guns work. Beam weapons, stuff that overheats, takes time to spin up, slows you down or makes you faster. That's what I'd have like to see, and would like to see along with much more variety in how classes move and jump and what their skills do along with other stuff in Borderlands 3.

The first game was much the same, if you don't recall.

Both games have been balanced around the expectation of two playthroughs, with legendaries being extremely rare until you're into that higher difficulty mode. Similarly unchanged from the first game is that the role rarity serves is in determining what component parts and modifiers the weapons are assembled from. It doesn't guarantee that the system will always generate blues that are better than greens. Personally, i like it that way, i feel that it gives rise to more variety.

I also feel like you've had the poor fortune to get bad drops, or haven't been paying attention. I've seen a fair number of legendaries on my playthrough 1, and lots of weird modifiers and variant weapon types. I saw a shotgun that fired bouncing explosive fireballs, pistols that fire homing energy projectiles, different assault rifles for both grenades and rockets, and missile launchers that fire extremely high-damage projectiles that move so slowly they struggle to remain airborne, etc, etc, etc. Not even talking about boss drops or quest rewards here, there are a lot of oddball weapons in the general item drop rules for the game. Right now i'm using a scoped legendary magnum that fires buckshot.

Additionally, there are weapons with spin-up times, the "spingun" assault rifles. I found them very frequently in my playthrough. It's not just the flavor text that indicates a unique weapon with unique attributes, the prefixes and titles also indicate a lot of interesting traits. (As do the manufacturers, in a more general sense. Tediore weapons are the ones that are tossed like grenades or rockets when reloaded, they even explode for more damage if they have ammo left in the clip.)

They also already had weapons with cooldowns in the first game and people hated them, so they're gone in BL2.

[brkl]

I played a few hours of this with my brother yesterday and it was a good time. The shooty mechanics aren't really up to par compared to pure shooters, but a decent co-op experience trumps that.

[juv3nal]

Randy Pitchford has been intermittently tweeting shift (under 'extras' on the main menu) codes for golden keys (to open the fancy chest in sanctuary). He's @DuvalMagic

You have to sign up but you get a key just for signing up even without entering a code. The chest usually contains 2 purples.

[JonCole]

Golden keys are great for when you hit that seemingly loot-centered-game-specific problem of not having any weapons strong enough for certain areas/enemy types all of the sudden, which would normally necessitate either grinding levels or farming for better gear. That said, the items are usually good enough that you'll end up relying on them for a good couple levels unless you're getting some great drops incidentally.

For some reason, I've hit a weird brick wall of motivation on this game recently. I was plowing through two or three levels every night when it first came out, but I've been moving between 27-29 this whole week without a lot of vigor. I wonder if it's due to the weird pace at which the game doles out sidequest content, or what. Anyone else having this problem?

[youmeyou]

Yep. The pacing of this game is just incredibly awkward. They don't seem to have learnt any lessons from the first in that regard. Constantly having to return to explored areas to do side missions, having to return to town to cash in missions, having to do numerous fetch quests, adds up to a poor ratio of time spent to fun had.

At this point I can't find much enjoyment in the single player, I tend to have fun when playing with friends, so I usually just wait until someone I know is playing.

[Lu]

I do the same. In fact, I hit around lvl 10 and have stopped playing due to having no one to play with. In games like this it feels especially pointless to play it on my own, for some reason, because I realize I would have more fun playing with friends.

[TheLastBaron]

I have a Zer0 thats level 10 ish, we should get a Thumbs game going

[JonCole]

My secondary is a Gunzerker at 10. I'd be up for some Thumbs games.

[juv3nal]

I've got zero at 22 or so and an axton and maya somewhere between 9 and 11. but I'm on ps3...I don't suppose anyone else is on ps3?

[Sno]

Here is Gaige's skill tree, if anybody's interested.

Some wacky shit is going on there, it sounds fun.

Edit: BL2 has been patched and the new character is available.

[juv3nal]

Just got my Gaige up to where her class skill unlocks. Using robo pal will take some getting used to. Unlike turret or deception for some reason he is not very good as a panic button for drawing aggro away from you when you are already in deep trouble, much better to toss him in to draw aggro before you attack. (Although it can make sniping headshots on bullymongs tough as they turn to face him).

I feel like I should be playing xcom or torchlight 2 (already own those) or getting a copy of dishonored but after a day of work I just want to shoot things in their cartoony faces.