Well, it's not really back on Pandora. In case it wasn't immediately obvious, I'm talking about the follow-up to the game I had an embarrassingly long obsession with – Borderlands 2* – that means I'm talking about Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!. That exclamation mark seems to be quite important and makes further punctuation difficult. I think they did it on purpose, just to annoy people. Like me.
I'm going to go ahead and spoiler the shit out of this game. It's been out for over a month, but if you've stumbled (miraculously, because hardly anyone seems to) on this post, haven't played Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! yet and want to, I'd close the door quietly on the way out and come back when you can tell me I'm talking shite.
I'll come out and say it right out: I enjoy this game. I've been playing on my own and with my wife since it came out on 17th October. I've kept abreast of the digging into the game and know quite a bit myself, so I decided to give my thoughts on it thus far. A review, if you will. But I'll say it again, despite anything else I might say, I enjoy this game. It is flawed, and because I have the best interests of the game at heart I see those flaws and want to salve them. Not everybody's going to agree with me, but tough shit. Opinion, man! OPINION! But really if I were a journalist, I'd be the kind who meekly writes the most harmless stories when I know the terrible truth and then after years is found overdosed on booze, sleeping pills and painkillers. I'm brave, me.
So, what do we have? I'll tell you what we don't have, it's not Borderlands 3. That's something that needs to be said outright. From its setting – the time between Borderlands and Borderlands 2 – to its general feel – it's a tweaked version of the Borderlands 2 framework. Borderlands 3 will probably be an evolution of what's gone before, and although we have some interesting things happening in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! it's not different enough to be that new game. I can see why some people have been prompted to say it's a glorified DLC, but it isn't that either, fortunately. The campaign is too substantial and the four, going to six, playable characters are all hallmarks of a separate, if very linked and similar game.
In this game we follow Handsome Jack, the villain from Borderlands 2, as he gets help from a new group of vault hunters to overcome a new threat to Pandora. This all takes place on Pandora's moon Elpis and involves all the Borderlands-y insanity and ludicrous violence we've come to expect since the first game. You get a bunch of twists and turns on the road through Jack's inevitable downward spiral. It's all fun and mostly funny. Not everything reaches its hilarious potential. Davis Pickle is a bit of clunky misstep, the Artful Dodger thing raised a smile for a moment and then I started rolling my eyes when he explained every...bit...of...fucking...rhyming...slang**. That aside the story bobs along and we're introduced to the Australian-themed moon with all the cultural nods and winks that entails. I'm sure there are some American-baffling Home and Away and Neighbours references buried in it, fortunately I haven't seen those, and I'd be too embarrassed to admit I had – fucking soap operas. I giggled a lot at the wider cultural references and, of course, Mr Torgue.
Also to put in the 'cool' category we actually get to hear what the vault hunters think of all the crazy shit that's going on. Their reactions lend some humanity and, at times, hilarity to the narrative and its nice not to be in control of a voiceless cypher. Especially as there's the sense that these are supposed to be independent characters and not faceless clay to be moulded like in any number of RPGs. Some of the dialogue can get tiresome, though, especially if you're playing the game for an extended time. For the most part it works and is an extension of what was done with the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep campaign expansion. And including different voice overs for the two (current, because after the implementation of Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode in Borderlands 2 I'd be surprised if it didn't make a return here) playthroughs was a great choice as well.
The game feels like Borderlands 2 and the characters and weapons handle in much the same way. The addition of lower gravity and air-poverty are cool. The need for oxygen in large parts of the game isn't as terribly intrusive as people feared and it's a lot of fun to use it to soar over Elpis and slam down on...I would say unwitting, because some enemies seem to be fucking clairvoyant...foes. The enemies are still almost mindlessly aggressive, so you have situations where they are trying to shoot at you through walls, which is frankly weird. The new cryo element is another great addition and much better than slag.
Now, we come to the segue-way from me being purely complimentary to me being critical. Loot is still a problem in this game. Mostly, you can charge through with the weapons you pick up, get from the golden chest or missions†. What if you want the rarest of the loot? The legendaries. There are a bunch in this game, some of which return from Borderlands 2 or look exactly like ones in Borderlands 2, which was a bit disappointing in itself, but not awful and gave a little extra bit of familiarity and a link to the games nominally bracketing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The drop rates are still an issue, one-in-thirty from sometimes quite challenging enemies still feels mocking. It's even worse, now that I know that legendaries, skins and heads are all linked to the one pool. Character customisation shouldn't have to come at the expense of hours upon hours of grinding and legendary equipment shouldn't be made even harder to get because those same customisations push them out. You shouldn't need to fight a raid boss thirty times to get a single legendary, if anything it should have a high chance to drop multiple legendaries. It all goes back to what I said before about the difference between frustration and fun, dudes. There have been people who defend this policy, often with empirical data, but the act of playing a game isn't quantifiable with numbers, it's a lot more about how a player feels and if we feel like we're getting a bit screwed (whether we are or not) it's going to impact our enjoyment and whether we pick up another one of your games. Here's a wee, hastily thought out suggestion for those with the numbers mind: have a sliding scale dependent on the type of boss. Mini-bosses will have a one-in-twenty chance to drop their legendaries, main bosses have one-in-ten or -twelve and raid bosses have one-in-five for one, one-in-ten for an extra and one-in-thirty for a third. Raids should never drop anything lower than blue, either. That would make raid bosses more rewarding and rewarding is what this is all about, right? I'm sure I'm right.
This neatly moves me onto the other great frustration about the game and that's the non-respawning enemies with assigned loot-drops. Why have an enemy, with a legendary that has that horrible drop rate, that you can't get to go after again? It beggars logic and it's ruler-across-the-knuckles mean. I can see a vague argument that it's in keeping with Borderlands, but why add such an unfair feature? There are plenty of call-backs to the first game and that's one of the shittier ones. It's a bizarre decision, but then Gearbox seem to enjoy their bizarre design and gameplay-tweaking decisions. The most recent of which was lessening the drop rate of a grenade from an uncommon enemy, when most players hadn't seen the drop. I think it comes from a bunch of people saying they'd seen this item drop a few times. This was a tiny percentage of a community that, has been said time and again, is a tiny percentage of the overall player base. It's nice that Gearbox pay attention to the community, but this is just silly – it wasn't game-breaking and the item dropped isn't that great, so why mess with it?
Admittedly, the legendary problem has been mitigated by the addition of the Grinder, into which you can throw items you don't want and possibly get items of better quality. That's a fucking cool feature, I have to admit. They've also boosted the quality of the equipment you can buy from vendors, so that legendaries have a good chance to appear in the items of the day. And it's even better when you can afford them, and it means money actually has value again in a Borderlands game. Those are design decisions I can approve of. However, not everyone wants to play that way, they might be weird and messed-up‡, but some people like to farm allocated drop sources for their stuff. These people don't want to stand at the grinder hoping to get the item they want, they want to go out and find a high-powered enemy and make them PAY! Reducing so many enemies to single-instance encounters robs the players of end-game experience. And we want end-game experience, we want to play this for ages. Choice is a big part of the Borderlands experience and the choice to get equipment in different ways will extend the life of the game more than making enemies bullet sponges.
And that's the problem, and a problem I understand Borderlands 2 suffered from early on, too, there's not that much to do once you've completed the game a few times. The single raid boss isn't enough to sate most players. There is more content to come and that's good. There is a single campaign add-on advertised. I really hope this is groaning with content. An absolute ideal is something that's as long as Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! main game. That's unlikely, but it would be wonderful if it happened. Regular events would be another fantastic way of boosting the life of the game. Things like scaled-down versions of last year's Loot Hunt event would be fantastic, with a weekend or a week of an item or two getting a drop boost. We've already had the Jack-o'-Cannon in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! for Halloween and it was a great bonus. You have the power to make us want more, Gearbox! You know, by giving.
So those are my thoughts on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel after over a month playing it. It's a great game and, with a few tweaks, can be a terrific game. I'll be playing it for some time to come. Shooting insane arseholes in the face is surprisingly addictive.
* And you can read all about that creeping insanity: here (part one) and here (part two), if you're so inclined. The first one caused a tiny (not being ironic, it really was barely visible) stir on the Gearbox forums, but hardly anyone read the second. Maybe I got gun shy after the first. Some people got quite aggressive and unpleasant and it didn't encourage me to want to discuss the matter on the forum further. A needless explanation there, for people who didn't care. And unexpected poetry!
** His sister, the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady-inspired, Eliza does the same. Now, she's a character that deserves the hate Pickle gets on the Gearbox community forum. In a game full of nasty sociopaths, she is one of the worst: screwing people over and leaving others for dead is all par for the course in Borderlands, but we're expected to like Eliza. Problem is there's nothing about her that is likeable. Even Handsome Jack's funny. Eliza is just a monster and it feels off, even for Borderlands, to let her go about her dastardly business.
† Admittedly, the mission rewards are still some of the best in the game.
‡ Okay, okay, it is fun to go off and shoot a baddie in the face until he tearfully hands over the legendary you've been after. Within a reasonable time-frame, not three days.
Will
P.S. Gearbox, gies a writing job. I can write good!
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