Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)

Not gonna lie, developers left me astounded with how repulsive they made this entry, despite how much i enjoy previous Borderlands games. Unbearable level design where you can fall at every corner, obnoxius enemies AI making them wiggle left and right and run away from you even if they're full hp, annoying and exhausting boss fights making you run out of all bullets two times at one boss fight. And on top of all that, game is terribly balanced for solo playthrough, it was obvious with BL1 and BL2, but Pre-sequel takes the cake in that department too.

I want to commend Gearbox for going with experimental stuff and not just making another game with Pandora setting, but other than that Pre-sequel doesn't have any new good things to show off, that wouldn't already been shown in previous games. I'm giving Borderlands Pre-sequel 3 out of 5 and taking a break from videogames for a week or two.

I really liked Borderlands 2, and this is more of that. Solid shooting, lots of looting with a massive variation of guns, a large open world with many sub-quests, and the hit and miss humor. I played this in The Handsome Collection, and the distinctive cell-shaded graphics are on par with Borderlands 2.

I liked Borderlands 2 better though. In that game you are trying to take down the villain Handsome Jack. In this game you are a mercenary for Handsome Jack and storyline feels kind of gross doing missions for an asshole.

This game definitely feels like "The Space DLC" for BL2. If you liked that game, it stands to reason you'd like Pre-Sequel, since they're damn-near identical gameplay.

I can't say that I was a big fan of the floaty moon-physics, nor the awkward "Skyrimming your way up a mountain"-feeling platforming that it occasionally influenced. Oxygen conservation is a neat idea, in theory -- but in practice it was 100% inconsequential for my playthrough. Never once was I at risk of dying from lack of oxygen.

Being "on Handsome Jack's side" is an interesting story turn; and I actually enjoy Jack as an evil psychopath SOB antagonist-type character.

Level progression from side quests didn't feel quite as forced in this game as they did in BL2, but that might've just been from me voluntarily doing more sidequests. EDIT: I did, however, skip the Claptastic Voyage DLC due to the few hours of endgame grinding the game seemed to want me to do before attempting those missions. (The final mission of the base game is a Level 26 quest, and Claptastic starts at Level 30.)

Other good news: I did not have a single crash to the PS5 dashboard in my Pre-Sequel playthrough. This was a vast improvement from BL2 (also part of the Handsome Collection), which probably crashed a dozen times (no exaggeration) for me during my playthrough.

The bad news: WTF was up with that first boss fight? I'm guessing a lot of people fell off this game on the Deadlift fight because they didn't have a shock rifle, which is required to beat that dude on a solo run. Even the final boss, while appropriately difficult, didn't seem nearly as impossible as the first boss without a shock rifle.

I mean, the main storyline's kinda boring because prequels are always bad, but the world is fun, with some nice variation from the mostly-desert Pandora, the characters are fun (the Australia of it all is endlessly charming) with some great side-missions, and the new mechanics like low-grav and laser weapons were fun. The Baroness is absurdly broken against goons but then kind of terrible against bosses, so there were some balance issues there (obviously the class is designed for multiplayer, but I couldn't get either of my roommates to play through more than half of the game with me), but still a cool class, and the other classes seem interesting (especially Claptrap, I love randomness).

So yeah, narratively weaker than Borderlands 2, but the world is more interesting, and it's better in pretty much every way than Borderlands, and (as with B2) the more-developed characters and actually having voice-acting definitely helps slow you down to smell the roses so you're not just on a constant dopamine rush.

This game lives in the shadow of Borderlands 2. It's a very good game, but it doesn't have the variety and impact of its predecessor. Even with some new features -Ice weapons, lasers, the grinder, low gravity- it's not enough to create its own impact.

Still has all the charms of the series: bigger-than-life characters, a great game loop based on loot, lots of humor and great gunplay.

Let's see if Borderlands 3 is able to be more than this one.

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

Gameplay: 4 /5 Story: 3.5 /5 Presentation: 3.5/5 Difficulty: 2 / 5

Being the third game of the series the game made improvements, but also didn't change things up a ton. The new mechanics of the game were a lot of fun such as Spoilers: O2 masks( slam move), The gun grinder, and new vehicles

I did get a bit tired of the grinder though as it destroyed my income and really offered me one good item after lots of grinding. I could have used more moonstones, but I spent them more on SDUs. It was too much of a gamble to really feel worth it to me on a first playthrough at least.

The game stuck to its funny humor and its cartoon shader art style. They took the story full circle which has played all three games it makes me realize how in depth the Borderlands series is in terms of rich characters with backstories. At first glance or even after playing the first game it seemed like just a fun co-op shooter with no real deep story elements.

The game, as all the others, excelled at its voice acting. I have been impressed throughout all of the games how they have such unique crazies that just nail it. It really fits the theme of the wild Borderlands universe.

You'll like this game as much as the others and if you haven't played the others I recommend that you do so before playing this one. If you just want to have a good time blowing stuff up and don't care too much for the story skip the first two.