Thank you, Gearbox, for Borderlands 2

This is a love letter to the developers at Gearbox who created one of the best experiences on the planet.  I’ve spent my fair share of time, energy, and money searching for ways to relax with friends, and bring smiles to all of our faces, and the Borderlands franchise has hit the mark time and time again.  Gearbox has recently announced its final DLC pack, Borderlands 2: Son of Crawmerax releasing April 15, 2014.  I wanted to take an opportunity to thank everyone involved in the project for their effort and energy, and list some of the things that I have loved about Borderlands 2 since its release a year and a half ago.

Excellent Writing: Humor at every turn is a component that makes this game far better than its competitors.  Entire articles have been written about our love for the new set of NPCs, from our beloved Ellie to Mr. McShootyFace, and that human connection is because every aspect of the universe is designed to entertain.  Some games have stumbled upon funny gameplay, enemies (from beasts, to badasses, to major villains), hero dialogue, NPC dialogue, mission objectives, sound effects, etc. – but Borderlands is the first that I’ve seen infuse comedy into all of these facets and more.  I’ll be honest, not all of the DLC dialogue was amusing to me, but I appreciated the gameplay and enemy design, and loved that comedy was still high on the list of development priorities throughout the entirety of the project, and that no design choice undermined the story(s).  

Visual and Auditory Aesthetics: The “hand-drawn” look of the characters, vehicles, and buildings allowed for greater visual appeal while likely making it easier for the programmers to build and populate the world on polygon frames, while allowing for greater depth and detail (not that building a game world is easy, of course).  The sights and sounds of the universe matched, including volume based on distance, intercom distortion of voices, and the list goes on.  These designs are so good that they often appear invisible, allowing the player to focus on the story and gameplay.  For example, having the mission dialogue continue after the player walks away is an ingenious move, so that the story (and comedy) is heard as the player heads back to the action.  I missed some of the dialogue the first time through, with my multi-player party snatching up missions in sanctuary and having the audio cut off by another mission, but thankfully most of the missions were designed to replay that audio when the mission was selected again.  This kind of care was given to so many aspects of the game that it rises above the rest.

Game Engine and Mechanics: This game produced user-friendly controls with mechanics that were enjoyable to repeat for hours.  The mission goals which were clearly signified, and a tutorial-ish first few missions allowed the player to get accustomed to the feel of the universe.  I’ve heard a few comments through blogs about the cars for Borderlands 2, but I don’t really understand their complaints.  For the most part, the cars were used for optional missions, and were incredibly fun to use as a one-player-per-car, and the teleport to car ability allowed a group to easily stay together.  The only way to smooth out the passenger shooting experience for combat is to drive extremely slow alongside the enemy, or put the player in a parasail…which, now that I’ve said it, sounds kinda awesome.  I wish that were possible.

Cooperative Play: The desktop co-op experience was extremely enjoyable, both for long and short sessions.  So enjoyable, in fact, that I would recommend Borderlands 3 be produced with an A.I. sidekick during solo play (one of the main characters as A.I. or a stock NPC like Deathtrap).  It’s worked well for other games to better scale difficulty for co-op, and I hope it is worth the effort to develop that portion of the game.  Yes, I know that Borderlands 3 is not in development, but if there’s a vote to have the franchise continue, count me in.  Can I vote twice?

Dynamic Gameplay Instead of Puzzles: There were a few puzzles which needed a minute or two to solve, such as the giant ramp into the buzzard’s nest in the dust, or a set of tricky levers needed to open a door, but most of the puzzling were on optional missions or an optional part of a required mission.  Other games spend large amounts of money developing intricate puzzles for their gameplay, but they often lose their appeal after the first time through, and have a lot of difficulty scaling to multiplayer.  It was intelligent planning leaving the heavy puzzling to Metroid and Zelda; it made Borderlands 2 easier to pick up and set down than their puzzling counterparts.  Borderlands 2 chose to continue focusing on dynamic game play, with a diverse group of enemies, each with their own movement and attack patterns, in order to keep the players engaged.  It worked.

Mission Choice: Borderlands 2 offered so many wonderful optional missions that it made the experience change with each play through of the game.  My first visit to the caustic caverns was awe inspiring, as it lent insight to the main story, and created a complex and challenging set of enemies to battle in a multitude of environmental obstacle courses.  I wish that the mission menu included more than two icons to label the missions; the gear and vault symbol do well to differentiate between story and optional missions, but as a party leader, I would have loved to have a few additional icons to give more information: whether it is a car-focused, puzzle-focused, or shoot-em-up style mission icons, or even just a “recommended” optional mission for when the party needs to level before proceeding back to the story.