Borderlands 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to the beloved loot and shoot game Borderlands. Made by 2K, best known for games like BioShock and X-COM. They make notably good games and are a trusted brand so most (not all) games of theirs are good. BUT THIS ISN'T A REVIEW ANYMORE! This is a post that will break down the game mechanics and explain the lore to anyone who wants to get into the game. So let's do that
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF BORDERLANDS AND THE BEGINNING OF BORDERLANDS 2. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
So I will start off with the lore. The back story of the word is that Dahl Corporation came to the abandoned and dangerous planet of Pandora in search of a vault containing riches beyond imagine. Of course this brings in a cities worth of bandits to Pandora trying to get the loot to themselves. Four of these so called "Vault Hunters" are the playable characters, Brick, Lilith, Mordecai, and Roland. These characters go against Dahl and other enemies to find the vault, which is revealed to hold an ancient monster known as the Destroyer, which is a monster that was held inside for millennium so to keep it from destroying worlds. As any monster that can destroy planets, the four vault hunters defeat it (somehow?) and save the world. The defeat of the Destroyer releases an ancient and powerful element known as Eridium, which can give certain animals powers and is extremely rare. In search of a new vault, Hyperion Corporation, lead by the evil and quite funny Handsome Jack, goes to Pandora to kill all the bandits and use the new vault to become super powerful. On a welcome train heading towards Handsome Jack, the new players, Axton, Salvador, Maya, and Zer0(along with DLC characters Krieg and Gaige) are caught in a trap laid by Handsome Jack to kill them. The main characters end up surviving and are found by Claptrap, a lonely helper robot who is the supposed last of his kind. You then go on a revenge quest to both kill Handsome Jack and find the vault. When going into the story just remember that comedy can sometimes take a front seat to story so a lot of missions have nothing to do with the overall plot and are there for comedic relief.
As for the game play, the game play is very different for each character, so I'll just try and explain the general skills someone should use. So first of is the gun skills. Each class has their own gun type that they are proficient with, so if you choose Axton then machine guns will compliment your class or if you play Gaige then shotguns are your best bet. The second thing to learn is what your base skills are. Each class generally has two skills and buffs for those skills. Your main skill is the first one you get, but people like Gaige have a secondary one which is either a stackable buff or a buff to their stats under certain conditions. Once you learn how to use your main skill effectively in combat, learning how to gain stacks for a skill or get the certain condition like being lit on fire as Krieg to boost his stats. Also, just keep in mind what skills you want early on in the game because you can't get them all so if one doesn't help your play style don't bother with it. The other secondary level up system is Badass Tokens, which are challenges in game, that once completed give a token that can be redeemed for small stat boosts. So make sure to spend these whenever possible and try to go for challenges if they're not too far out of your way. Another thing to keep in mind is how to use your class. All of the classes have their own play style that their skills are aimed towards, but if you really like your character but not the play style, you can invest in certain skill trees to modify your class. Either look up or figure out what skills you'll need beforehand.
Next is your load out. You can carry up to four guns in your hotbar at once, along with a shield and grenade mod. Looking for the right shield can be daunting, but just keep in mind what you'll need it for. If you constantly tank, get a shield with a ridiculous capacity. If you need to recharge faster, get one with a higher recharge rate. If you get killed by melee weapons or elemental damage, get a shield that does damage to melee attackers or is resistant to a certain element. When picking a grenade, all you need to choose from is elemental modifiers or pure damage, and if you want a bigger spread to kill a big group of enemies or a smaller fuse to catch them off guard. When choosing the guns in your hotbar just remember to have four different types of guns because if they are all pistols and you run out of ammo, you may as well have had just one. Also look for any guns you would need a lot, whether it be sniper rifles or shotguns.
The last thing you'll need to know about thus game is the most difficult part and the best aspect of the game. The loot. While the advertised 87 Bazillion guns may be exaggerating, there are a lot and they are randomly generated. Things to look for in a gun are Model, Rarity, and Manufacturer. The model of the gun determines it's base stats, so even though technically every gun has different stats randomly generated, if the shooty pistol Mk. III has mediocre stats, they will stay in that mediocre parameter, so always try and find the guns with naturally good stats. The next thing to watch out for is Rarity, which determines if the gun has special abilities or better stats than the common type of the same gun. The rarity levels from common to legendary are white, green, blue, purple, and orange. The higher rarity guns are usually better in either stats or have certain abilities, with orange weapons having names and amazing abilities like infinite ammo. The last thing to look for in a gun is Manufacturer. Each gun maker in the game has a signature trait that all of their guns have. For example Hyperion makes really inaccurate guns that get more accurate the more you fire it. And Jakobs makes guns that are semiautomatic but can fire each time you pull the trigger, making them fire incredibly fast if you spam the trigger. After looking at all these skills you should also take into account that sometimes a completely average common gun can have better stats than your purple weapon. That's the beauty of Borderlands.
So this is technically the first true Breakdown with the new format, so I hope all you enjoyed it and let me know if there is something I missed. Hopefully to anyone playing Borderlands 2 for the first time in prep for the Pre Sequel this helped you out a bit, that's all this was meant to do, after all
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