Borderlands 2

I am going to start my review blog with the game that made me want to write a review blog in the first place. This game was given to me by a friend who had discovered she did not want her extra copy, thus if she hadn't done any spring cleaning, I would not have played this game at all. I never even considered purchasing this game because the case was very off-putting. People say "Never judge a book (or game) by its cover," however when it comes to games, that is the main selling feature. Before I digress too much, I will say that my initial instinct with this game was correct. The case looked very cheesy and discouraging. First off, It is a color that just disgusts me, and secondly my eyes aren't what they used to be and 3 microscopic pics that aren't even of actual gameplay weren't enough to sell me on actually buying the game.

All that aside, I actually did play the game thinking that I would be proven incorrect after playing for a little while and discovering that it is in fact a fun and enjoyable game. Unfortunately, my initial reaction was more correct that I could have possibly known. Instead of going straight for the bad comments, I feel it would be better to dictate my initial experiences with the game starting with the very first time I turned it on. I suppose the best place to start would be the character selection, which I personally don't think gives you enough info to actually start a proper game. The list is: name, class, Action Skill, and Combat Style. Normally all of those would be enough to begin your quest because I know my Combat Style on other games is the stealthy assassin, which is who I ended up choosing for my first playthrough. That was my first of many thousands of mistakes made with this game. The assassin should never under any circumstances be chosen to play this game if you are a solo player like me. Borderlands 2 is most definitely not a game to be played alone.

This is also the first of many contradictory concepts of the game itself. It's a game with no separate server or mode designated for online play, yet one simply cannot finish the game without the help of someone else. The second contradiction with this game lies with the Assassin personally. Borderlands 2 is an FPS, and by nature those aren't exactly made for stealth gameplay. Having an Assassin at all contradicts the nature of the entire game. Second to that, his Deception skill is by far the most useless skill of all the characters. His skill requires complete and full stealth from beginning to end in order to be used at all. However, being an FPS, the game uses a proximity detection system (I doubt that is the real name for it but it best describes what I am referring to). The enemies have constant lock on you from the moment you pass the point of detection, until you either kill them all or run far enough away... no exceptions. Zero's Deception skill causes him to become invisible for reasons that are far beyond my comprehension because enemies still maintain the perfect continuous lock on you. Finally, the use of the Assassin's propensity for melee is completely useless as it again contradicts the nature of the FPS. On my first day playing (keeping in mind I chose the assassin for his long distance and melee skill set), a psycho ran after me and began attacking me. Having disposed of him, I noticed his dripped the club he was using. I went over to the weapon and much to my surprise I was not prompted to pick it up so that I could equip it. Wait... What!? A game that has a character whose main skill is to use melee doesn't have equipable melee weapons? That alone caused me to be down a skill that I as a gamer have spent years building.

Surprisingly enough, there is an entire skill tree dedicated to my last remaining hope for the Assassin. Though the skill trees themselves are yet another thing that annoy me about this game. Each character has 3 skill trees and each skill tree takes 42 points to master, which means that by level 42 (if you consecutively do one tree) you should master your first tree. But wait, there is a catch. You don't start earning points until level 5 AND the level cap (without DLC) is 50. Meaning that if you want something halfway down on one skill tree then you may as well forget about mastering any of the trees. Normally in this instance, the game would allow room to master two of the 3 trees or not enforce a level cap at all. Don't get me wrong, I am personally grateful for the level cap, but I hate that you can only choose one of them. I suppose the good thing is that most of the Assassin's skills have to do with melee which we all know is as useless as can be in an FPS (cant stress that enough) so I was able to focus on my sniper tree.

This seems a good place to Segway into the issue of money. The good news is that if you uh-oh on your skill trees, you can go to any quick change station and pay a small fee to start all over. And I do mean a very very very small fee. I don't know how others generally game, but the fee started out being ~10% of my cash at the start of the game to eventually being ~0.1% (yes I actually took the time to count. This applies to all numbers and figures presented). If percents aren't your thing, I can recall that the fee was just shy of $5,000 when I went to fight Jack and The Warrior on Normal Mode (my level was 36 if that is what it is based on). When you get further into the game and start doing quests in a place called Lynchwood, the money just keeps pouring in. I average about $50,000 just running through the map once on Normal Mode. It is also a great place to get quick exp. if you need to level yourself. What I do not like about this game is that you lose money when you die, which is very easy to do when you are playing solo in a game designed for 3 or more. The toll for dying is ~6.9% of the money you have in your wallet. Again, I have checked and rechecked that number. I know there are those who would say that it "Adds to the challenge" or "At least it isn't a larger number", and my favorite "At least it isn't an exp penalty", and my reply is Why? Why does there need to be any penalty at all? I wouldn't be so peeved that the game is designed so that one cant play solo if there wasn't a cash penalty for dying.

However the selling features for this game are (as I mentioned before), it is not too difficult to gain exp and level up. The down side is that you need a friend to come in and boost you high enough to go grind comfortably. Another great selling point is the actual storyline. I love that from the very beginning there are lewd jokes and sexual innuendos and humor throughout. Handsome Jack may be the villain of the game but he is also the comic relief. I like that there is raunch in the game but there isn't any actual sex. Most people would say that it is a minus for any game, but I personally think that it improves the game. I seriously only recommend this game to those who either have 50 friends who can join in at a moments notice or who like to run and gun.