So, let me start off by saying, fuck gearbox and fuck borderlands 2.
I didn't hate borderlands 2, it was a good game, it just wasn't a very good LOOT game, and it wasn't a very good borderlands game.
Gearbox let the success of borderlands 1 go to their head, and in the process they completely missed why everyone loved borderlands 1. It was the ridiculous fucking weapons and the ridiculous fucking loot. It was being incredibly overpowered, and being able to constantly find new shinies to play with. It had a very "ooh what does this do!" feel to it, and they tossed that all out of the window in borderlands 2.
In borderlands 2, every gun manufacture makes specific weapons, and their weapons follow a theme. For a RPG-Shooter hybrid, this is fantastic; for a loot game, this is fucking terrible. Instead of picking up a new shiny and going "OOH WHAT THIS DO" you go "oh, this is Jakobs, so it's going to be single action (one shot per trigger pull)." It's like.. oh wow, I found a badass machine gun, awesome! Oh wait it's jakobs so it's inherently useless. Wonderful.
Now, borderlands 1 suffered from every gun being samey.. minor appearance modifications with stat variations, but a lot of shit the guns did was fucking bonkers. Which brings me to my next point, legendaries are fucking RARE in Borderlands 2.
I cleared the game with 2 characters, both at max level and max playthroughs, and only ended up with maybe 2 legendaries, tops. "But rares are supposed to be rare!" Yes, they are, but they're not supposed to be a fucking needle in an empire state building sized haystack. It was fucking boring just finding minor upgrades for the same guns I was using, farming the one boss over and over thousands of times, and eventually giving up, because I just couldn't find any FUN guns because of the stupid theme, and all the legendaries were too fucking rare.
It was fucking ridiculous.
Then, we get to the final part of why borderlands 2 is not as good as borderlands 1; it wasn't "homegrown" feeling. It was like they tried too hard to polish the game, they tried too hard to deliver an over the top cinematic experience, but it just wasn't the same as borderlands 1. Borderlands 1 things were broken and stupid and everything was fucking.. amazing. It was a very "indie" feeling shooter. You were overpowered as fuck, the story didn't make a lot of sense, and it was ridiculous, but it was so good. The sidequests were funny, everything about it was just so good.
Borderlands 2 on the otherhand came off feeling very stale; like "here you go guys, here's that borderlands experience you wanted, all nice and hollywooded up for ya!" and it's like no, I wanted a summer film festival borderlands, not hollywood borderlands.
So, borderlands the pre-sequel.
They haven't even shown me a goddamn thing about the game yet, and it's already better than borderlands 2 in every way.
They let you play as 2 of the most cried for characters (atleast pre-release) in the game. Claptrap and Athena.
People swore up and down you'd play as Athena in borderlands 2, they SWORE it. It just had to happen.. and then we got Maya. Maya isn't bad, but she's no Athena, let me tell ya. So already, having Athena is just, YES, YES YES! to a lot of fans.
Claptrap? Overkill. Overkillx1000, just too good. Any borderlands fan will HAVE to pick up the pre-sequel just to play as claptrap. How can you not? You can't. You have to.
Then, there's the new guns. Laser guns. Ice bullets. Over-the-top stupid bullshit that makes borderlands borderlands! Pitchford even said, the 2k Australia guys gave no fucks, and had none of the stupid rules they have in-house about the borderlands universe. It's a free for all, and THE GAME IS GOING TO BE MUCH BETTER FOR IT!
I'm looking forward to the Pre-Sequel very much so now, just to see what this smaller studio will be able to do. They'll be able to deliver that summer film festival borderlands experience, and hopefully, they'll get to work on Borderlands 3 as well, because of it.
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