F1 2012

Heading.

version reviewed.

GAMEPLAY


STORY


GRAPHICS

SOUND


VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL

BORDERLANDS 2 (2012) REVIEW

Back to the Borderlands.

PC version reviewed.

Borderlands 2 is an open-world first person shooter published by 2K Games and developed by Gearbox Software for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

GAMEPLAY

Borderlands' main premise is of course about guns, guns and finding guns. With hundreds of variations and a multitude of classes and brands, you shouldn't really come across many of the same ones. The actual guns control fine and you can usually feel the difference between one to another.

Some of the side quests are actually interesting, or decently written, and sometimes even quite funny which was refreshing as so many games usually just throw in very boring and generic fetch quests and escort missions, however Borderlands 2 did also have a few duds like those.

Cars are the only other gameplay focus in the game, and while they can be fine to ride around in with friends, they do control rather strangely, and often seem harder to control than they should be. It wouldn't surprise me if most people end up bashing into things as they feel quite static and have terrible turning circles. I also found that the different types of car all had the same feel when driving them.

The game is repetitive, like really repetitive. Some people might find that to be a good thing, but for many it will be a bad thing. Almost every level is either a fetch quest or a simple job of cleaning enemies out of an area, and despite the world being very large, most of that will probably be traversed by car, often going through areas you've already been.

There are some good boss fights in this game, but there was a certain one that was sadly greatly disappointing, because the fight is simply about hitting a bullet sponge, rather than using your skills. A few regular enemies can also feel like that a bit too, but there is a dynamic range of opponents, so you shouldn't run into the problem too often.

STORY

Handsome Jack and Claptrap are fun characters, however the rest of the cast is a bit boring, many only really serving as plot points and quest givers. Most characters even have the same crazy personality, which might tire some people.

Some parts of the story felt a bit cheap, and I'm largely talking about certain cut-scenes that don't let you move around, preventing you from dealing with things that could easily have been dealt with otherwise. Being frozen in place while you're antagonised is frustrating and just comes across as a cheap way to draw out the plot, which I feel went on a little bit too long.

GRAPHICS

I do like pixel shaded graphics as it means the games they are used in will look good years from release. The world also looks quite pretty in some areas.

However I did feel that some aesthetics were overused, such as the grotty tunnel kind of vibe was overused a bit, places like Bloodshot Stronghold.

SOUND

Jesper Kyd, Cris Velasco & Sascha Dikiciyan's soundtrack for the game is decent, even excellent in some parts. The inclusion of songs such as "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy was a pleasant surprise too.

Voice acting was fine and I feel many of the sound effects deserve a mention, something about the foley sound just seemed pretty good in this game, perhaps that was just me though.

VALUE FOR MONEY

Just the main story should give you at least around 20 hours, add in all the side quests and you’ve got almost countless hours of content, albeit a lot of it will be repetitive.

OVERALL

Borderlands 2 is a fun shooter, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit burnt out by it at times, due to its repetitive nature. If you enjoy shooters it’s certainly worth picking up, and even if you don’t it might be worth checking out for some of its fun mechanics and potential mayhem with friends. However the game can really get stale in some segments, and should be avoided if you don’t like repetition.

That's my final verdict. Thanks for taking a look.