Your window into this manic world (Pandora is probably what would happen if you put Texas and LV-426 from Aliens through Jeff Goldblum’s wonky fly-man teleporter, and then added the odd robot) is via one of the four new characters, with a fifth being made available post-launch as DLC. There’s floaty jumps and (eventually) four weapon slots, and you don’t take stuff like fall damage because, let’s be honest, who has the time? Also: guns and explosions. Borderlands 2 is the kind of game where you’ll be driving at a few hundred miles per hour and happily veer off a cliff because you saw something off in the horizon you thought was interesting. It’s a fun game, and by that I mean actually fun rather than the ‘fun’ Gearbox tried to peddle with Duke Nukem Forever. There’s an absolute tonne to see, and unlike the original it’s all very much worth seeing.

Borderlands’ randomly generated weapons didn’t distinguish enough, while the enemies stayed the same, and the backwater aesthetic homogenised your sense of progression into one giant sandy blur and occasional Claptrap soundbite.īorderlands 2 opens with knowing acknowledgement, dumping the player, alongside the occasional Claptrap soundbite, into miles of snowy valleys – because snow is basically the opposite of sand, right? It’s not long before you’ll need to be busting out the suntan lotion, but there’s something to be said for the game’s frequent ability to take you across myriad environments, often across massive quests that throw everything at you bar the kitchen sink.

Variety, as they say, is that elusive spice of life, and the lack of it was where I trailed off with the original game. This is a game of skill trees, side quests and comically massive explosions, but Gearbox’s most successful party trick is the way it manages to focus Borderlands 2 inside Pandora’s broad open world. Borderlands 2 showcases all the excitement, razzle and oomph a mammothly high-budget boxed title can produce when at its best. This is the game Gearbox both wanted and needed to make, rejigging a successful role-playing shooter template and refining it just enough to make it one of 2012’s first genuinely must have AAA games. While the original Borderlands won us over with charm, the sequel succeeds by actually being good. Developer Gearbox has boasted of increased budget, staff and scope for the sequel to its breakout franchise, and the fruit of these investments clearly shows. Borderlands 2 stinks of money from start to finish, cementing the series’ transformation from the little game that could to the blockbuster game that must.

Borderlands 2 review