You Don’t Know Jack… But You Will

As I move slowly through the BorderlandsConceptually, Borderlands is Mad Max but set on an alien planet, with magic. The game play might be action-shooter-RPG fare, with a bit of Diablo thrown in, but the aesthetic is pure, Australian post-apocalyptic exploitation. series – seriously, this replay of Borderlands 2 took a long time because I wanted to do all three playthroughs and really experience all the game had to offer – I have this sinking feeling that the series peaked with the second game of the series. I know the adventure game, Tales of the Borderlands, has its fans (and, yes, I’ll be playing that as part of this series as well), but when it comes to pure action, adventure, and storytelling, Borderlands 2 hit all the notes it needed to and did everything the series required. I wouldn’t call it perfect, but for this series it was as close to perfection as any game was going to get.

There are the basic improvements the game makes of the original. Firstly, the weapons are better. Borderlands has a ton of weapons, shields, grenades, class mods, and more in it but they are all, functionally, very similar. One combat rifle is generally going to work the same as all the others, regardless of the name slapped on the side. Maliwan, Torque, Dahl, Hyperion, those names didn’t matter that much in the first game; what mattered was the type of gun you were using.

That changed in Borderlands 2. Now you didn’t just have to keep an eye out for the type of gun you were picking up, but also the name printed on the barrel. Each manufacturer made their own kinds of guns, and each gun from them was going to be very different from the same types of guns from other makers. Dahl guns had burst fire when zoomed. Hyperion guns lock down the more you shoot them. Togue guns come with more explosions than you can shake a fucking stick at. Maliwan guns have high elemental chances. You can pick up a brand and know what to expect, and then figure out if the gun itself was a type you wanted to use or not.

Make no mistake, this alone changes the game style a lot. I was a combat rifle main in the first game of the series but I find that in Borderlands 2 I prefer certain brands of weapons over certain types. I love Hyperion, and if I have a few good Hyperion guns in my collection, I’ll set them to my various weapons slots even if they’re gun types, like combat rifles, I don’t tend to like as much. I hate shotguns, but I’ll use them more often if they’re Hyperion. Making the brands more interesting added to the diversity and made players think about what they were doing.

The powers in the game were also more diverse and interesting as well. I’d argue that three of the characters from the sequel generally slotted into similar roles as characters from the first game. Maya was a siren, and though her powers were different from Lilith, she still had a strong support role just like her counterpart. As Lilith I would use phasewalk to run into battle, hitting everyone with elemental effects before running back out as my power ended, and with Maya I like to phaselock them and suck them into a mass, hitting every enemy with elemental effect before my power runs out. Different functions, same results. Axton the commando has turrets, like Roland, and while some of the support skills coming from the turrets were different, their functionality in battle was the same. And while Zer0 doesn’t have a bird he can throw, he and Mordecai were both spec’d well to act as assassins, with sniper kills and lots of range powers.

One key difference was that Brick in the first game doesn’t have a counterpart… but that’s okay, since Brick sucked anyway. Salvador, with his gunzerking ability to carry two weapons and fire them at the same time, often while building up more time, staying in gunzerk longer, killing everyone around him, really was a much better character for a game where the guns could be so diverse, and so interesting, that you really wanted to dual wield them all. I often lamented the fact that you couldn’t play the Borderlands characters in Borderlands 2, but I’d honestly take Salvador over Brick any day of the week.

Plus, Borderlands 2 benefitted from two extra characters as DLC: Gaige the Mechromancer and Krieg the Psycho. My nephew played as Gage while we were running our playthrough this time, and she did seem pretty solid (I’ve played her before, just not this time) with enough support abilities backed up by her robot. I will say that I don’t think Gaige is great to partner with on a playthrough, often because her robot would get in the way of my line of fire and my turrets (I played as Axton) and would block all my shots. That was pretty annoying. I preferred the combo of Axton plus Maya that my wife and I played a few years back as I felt like the two really supported each other well.

Krieg I do like, but he’s more of a solo character as well. He doesn’t really benefit from having others around him, and all of his skills are meant for attacking, melee, and laying waste. He’s more like a Brick in that respect, but way more fun to play. I had a blast when I took Krieg through two playthroughs back in the day, but I also don’t know if I’d recommend him to players, especially not first time players. And don’t bring him in for a group session as he has to do his own thing his own way.

Adding to all of that, I feel like Borderlands 2 was specifically designed to feel more full, and more diverse, than Borderlands. Most of your time in Borderlands is spent going from one desert location to another, broken up only occasionally by a small settlement here or there on some trash heap. Borderlands 2 breaks away from that at the very beginning of the game, dropping you into a frosted, wintery landscape, and then putting you up against a new type of enemy, the bullymongs, before it even starts introducing back in familiar elements. You have towns, seaside settlements, caves, acid caves, volcanic areas, and so much more. The sequel, with everywhere you can go and all that you can do, makes the first game feel like a tech demo for Gearbox’s eventual ambitions.

But the real thing that sets Borderlands 2 apart from the first game isn’t any of that, even though all of it is important. No, what makes Borderlands 2 not just an improvement but a title that everything after has struggled to match, is Handsome Jack. He’s the villain of the sequel, and from the early moments of the game he’s a voice in your comms, chatting at you, heckling you, and pushing the story forward. Because this is a story-driven game which is so different from what you saw in the first title.

Borderlands, as fun as it is, doesn’t really have a plot. You meet Tannis at some point, and she tells you there’s a key, which is broken into pieces, that you need to collect before the Dahl corporation does. So you run around, find the pieces, bring them back to Tannis, and then eventually Dahl comes and steals them all anyway so they can open the mythical vault… and then accidentally unleash an alien demon that you then have to kill. Case closed. And that isn’t me trying to quickly summarize the plot: that’s all of it, in some detail. Borderlands was designed with the action and artwork first and then a loose plot was strung over it.

Borderlands 2, though, has a real story. Jack is the head of Hyperion, and he has designs on opening another vault on Pandora (the planet these games take place on) so he can unleash another monster… but one he can control. He figures with one really powerful demonic soldier he can rule the galaxy, or something. Maybe his ambitions aren’t super logical, but he’s a charismatic and entertaining villain that helps guide you through the story. You hate him, you appreciate him, and you enjoy his presence whenever he’s around. Jack makes Borderlands 2 fun to play.

And you can see that the game struggles to make up for that the second the main adventure is over. Once Jack is out of the picture, Gearbox tried to find some other villain for each DLC that could keep up with Jack, and they all failed. Captain Scarlett isn’t that interesting as a villain, and her DLC is pretty boring, through and through. “Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage” is better because Torgue is there, chatting in your ear, but the villain, but Piston is a nothing villain who barely gives you incentive to carry through the adventure. “Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt” is even worse as Hammerlock is an annoying character, and the villain, Professor Nakayama, is such a joke that even the game kills him off in the dumbest way possible.

The one full DLC that’s legitimately worth playing over and over is “Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep”. This one has everything: a lengthy adventure with a lot to do, new enemies, artwork, and weapons, rich characters, and more Jack. It even has an emotional throughline that actually makes you care about the adventure. This is the story that players wanted after the end of Borderlands 2, but sadly it was also a trick that the series could only really pull off once, as evidenced by every game that came after.

Before we get to those, though, we do actually have one more DLC: “Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary”. And yes I know there’s other things available, like the Digistruct Peak area, but that’s really just a plotless grinding location, as well as all the mini-quest Headhunter packs. These are disposable content, and while fun, not really worth reviewing (although I did play through each of these areas once for this replay review just to confirm). But Lilith’s DLC is the final pack of the game, and the one meant to set up the adventure for Borderlands 3. It was released after The Pre-Sequel was completely done, as well as Tales from the Borderlands, and going back to it feels… well, not great.

There’s nothing inherently bad about “Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary”. It’s a decent set of new missions that adds in some new enemies and lots of new guns, all while setting up the story for the next game in the series. What sucks is that the villain of the adventure, Colonel Hector, is an empty, hollow villain that doesn’t have the personality, charisma, or storytelling to carry the adventure. I’ve played this DLC multiple times and if you asked me anything that happens in it I still couldn’t tell you.

Scooter does die. I remember that. Or, technically, he dies in Tales of the Borderlands, but his death is memorialized here. It’s really an awkward fit for the whole series if you’re playing everything one full game at a time long after everything is released.

Anyway, what all of these are generally lacking is Jack, the charismatic villain that guided the main game. Going back and playing the main adventure is fun. It will always be fun. Having Jack there, guiding you along, was a great idea and the game pulls it off so well. As the DLC’s illustrate, it’s hard to do that again, and even har\der to make it as fun, interesting, and exciting as the first time. The DLCs struggled with it, and as we’ll soon see, the sequels (and pre-sequels) struggle with it as well.

All of that, though, is to say that Borderlands 2 is peak Borderlands. I can go back and play this game over and over again… and once I’m done playing through this whole series, I just might go back and boot up Borderlands 2 again. This playthrough confirmed one thing for me, which is very clear: Borderlands 2 is easily a top five all time game for me, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I just might not play all the DLCs ever again.