Borderlands Pre-Sequel

The new Borderlands game has been my obsession the last week.  The game is set between the events of Borderlands 1 and 2, detailing the rise of Handsome Jack (the main villain in Borderlands 2).  It’s set on Pandora’s moon, Elpis, so it introduces a number of new game features, such as low gravity and oxygen requirements.

What I like:

• New environment – not just ‘moon’ terrain and low gravity, but things like methane lakes and jet plumes of various gasses
• New guns – LASERS! and cold-base weapons that freeze enemies (laser shotguns are particularly cool)
• The Grinder – My favorite addition – instead of just selling all those crappy guns you don’t need, now you can ‘grind’ them up and get a better gun; a much needed addition to the series
• The story is interesting so far; my take is it will tell the story of Handsome Jack’s transformation from a pretty decent chap into an insane master villain
• The same sense of dark humor, though the Pre-Sequel doesn’t seem quite as funny as B2
• CL4P-TP is now a playable class! (about time)

What I Don’t Like:

• Quest lines that just go on forever, sending you this way that that; it makes it hard to just jump on for a few minutes and do a mission or two
• Jumping puzzles – I really hate jumping puzzles in FPS’ (not least because I suck at them), and a big portion of the Pre-Sequel is built around exploiting the new low-G mechanics…which means lots of various jumping puzzles 😦
• Return of most of the things I didn’t like from the first two games, such as being sent back to the same areas for new quests over and over again
• CL4P-TP’s class abilities seem awfully random…too random for my tastes

If you liked the first two Borderlands games, you should like this one too.  If you hate Borderlands, there’s nothing in the Pre-Sequel that will change your mind.

Tags: Borderlands, Computer Games, The Pre Sequel