Borderlands 2 Previews

We have rounded up a few more hands-on previews for Borderlands 2 coming out of PAX East, starting with this piece from Platform Nation:

Some other changes included considerably more on screen effects; getting hit with acid damage could, at times, complete cover your screen, rendering it impossible to see anything for a few moments. I felt that this really forced you to be evasive for more than just avoiding damage, as it was a severely debilitating effect. Also, revive times seemed much slower: the few times my Gunzerker partner went down, I would get halfway through a revive (after about 5 or 6 seconds) before either having to back off, or getting dropped myself. The AI on the enemies seemed to be much more aggressive towards people reviving others. Of course, the ability for Second Wind carries over, so if you manage to kill something (or, as I found out, level up while downed), you will get back up. As I played, I was unlocking all sorts of challenges, and your progress towards those challenges is flashed on the screen as you perform them, keeping you engaged with those activities. A new persistent mini-map in the top right corner also helped keep me focused on where I was supposed to be going. This map highlighted nearby enemies and nearby terrain, as well as waypoint and mission markers. Finally, you have the ability to trade directly with other players, which is an improvement over the (drop guns on the ground) method of item distribution in the original. Absent from this demo was any character interaction, so I can’t comment on whether the trademark humor from the first carried over, but based on how much attention was put into keeping things familiar, I’d be shocked if it didn’t (there were a few character quips during battle that seemed to indicate the level of humor is on par with the first).

Then we move on to The Escapist:

Combat is similar to the first, but new, slight variations between weapons and enemy types have been added to spice things up. The bug-like enemies we fought for our preview, for example, often had weak spots, requiring a small sequence of actions to defeat: a “shoot the hot-spot, bust up the armor, and take it down” sort of thing. There will be some other tricks at work in the final game, too. For example, some enemies will buzz around for a bit, but enter a cocoon that makes them more difficult to kill if you didn’t prioritize toasting them in their initial, more larval state.

Guns employ the same addition of unique quirks, and while Borderland’s weapons have always been known for their variety, this time the manufacturing brand (Atlus, Hyperion, and the like) matters. Each gunsmith has a wholly different look and feel, boons and drawbacks. These variations, combined with the different styles of enemies, has created a combat system that, while very similar to the first Borderlands, somehow feels more active and involved.

And we finish with Examiner:

The first thing I noticed when playing was that the game’s graphics are remarkably sharper and the game itself looks cleaner when compared to its predecessor. The environment is much more open and explorable as well. Also a bonus, players will no longer have to button-mash to pick up money, ammo, etc. dropped by defeated foes. Simply walking over the exposed pile of goodies is enough to collect it.

These things are obviously noteworthy, but after the ridiculous amount of new guns and associated options, the most talked about aspect of Borderlands 2 has to be Salvador (perhaps better known as “The Gunzerker”), a new class with the special ability to “gunzerk” (duel-wield weapons for a limited amount of time)