Borderlands 2 gameplay revealed at PAX East 2012

When Borderlands was released in 2009, it more or less slipped under the radar, but would slowly rise in popularity amongst players familiar to the first-person shooter (FPS) genre of games. Gearbox Software (Half-Life, Brothers in Arms, Duke Nukem Forever) offered up something different than the soon to become stale modern-era military shooters. Combining FPS elements with those of the time-tested role-playing game (RPG), Borderlands was a game that became difficult to put down.

The game’s sequel is one of the most anticipated games this year, bringing with it a similar cell-shaded style and feel, but with all new characters, classes, enemies, gameplay features, and LOTS of new weapons. Gearbox boasts, “Millions upon millions of possible weapons means tons of new and innovative ways to engage foes on Pandora. Fire, electricity, corrosive acid, and more will all be at your disposal. It’s not just guns on Pandora, you will lust after procedurally generated shields, grenades, alien artifacts, class mods and much, much more.” At this year’s PAX East, the Borderlands 2 exhibit was arguably the busiest throughout the three-day expo. A long line of fans and journalists alike wrapped around the installation, broke off at the walkway for passerby’s, continued in an amusement park-like zigzag fashion until reaching capacity, and then those waiting to get in the line to wait to play the game sat patiently at nearby tables. From table to controller, the wait time was approximately two to two and a half hours.

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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). Other playable classes include:

  1. Commando (Special Ability: Deploy Scorpio Turret 2.0 to gun down enemies).
  2. Assassin (Special Ability: Deploy holographic decoy and vanish for a brief moment).
  3. Siren (Special Ability: Phase enemies into other dimensions). 

More powerful character classes and weapon combinations naturally means more ruthless enemies including but not limited to Bandits and Night Stalkers, but the demo at PAX East was relatively short and not nearly enough time to cover a fraction of the game (which is still in development anyway). Luckily, Borderlands 2 is marked on my calendar for a September 18, 2012 release. Screenshots and the game trailer have been made available through 2K Games, which are able to be viewed on the left.


The author of this article is a Video Game Examiner in the Greater Boston, MA area. Read more of his articles right here on Examiner.com.

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