Borderlands 2 PS Vita Review

Love guns? Love looting? Love Questing? Well do I have good news for you. Borderlands 2 is the sequel to the absolutely amazing FPS RPG Borderlands, released back in 2009, published by 2K Games and developed by Gearbox Software. Borderlands 2 was originally released on the 360, PS3, and PC back in 2012, but it has just been recently released for the PS Vita!

There are so many good things to say about this game, I could write a book about it, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. Not much has changed from the first game to this one, except for the new playable characters, and a huge new world to explore. That might sound like a big difference for two games, but trust me, it doesn’t do much to seperate it from its predecessor. Borderlands 1 had a huge number of guns, estimated around 17,750,000. But Borderlands 2 has a whopping WE DON’T KNOW!!! Really, when asked, Gearbox was honest and said they don’t even know how many there are, but it’s easily twice as many in the first game. That’s at least 35,500,000 guns! Oh, and this game holds the trophy for “My favorite bad guy in a video game award”. Handsome Jack is a man that I absolutely love to HATE!

Besides the sheer number of guns to collect,loot, buy and sell, there is so much to do in this game. Want to go on dozens upon dozens of quests? BL2 is here to quench that thirst. Want to team up with up to 3 buddies online (or just 1 on the Vita version), go right ahead! There are so many challenges to complete, 72 levels to raise through (that’s after getting all the DLC though). That brings me to the DLC. Some games have some real garbage DLC: Alternate skins, maybe some maps. What does this game give you with DLC? New characters! New Maps! New stories/quests! So much more content over all, it’s mind boggling. This brings me to one of my few grips with the game though. Season passes are sold for many games, so you can save money, while getting all of the DLC packs together. Well with Borderlands 2, they were never really clear on which packs were initially included in the Pass. This lead to a lot of confusion, and a lot of people, including me, felt a bit cheated/tricked.

Now onto this week/next week’s release of Borderlands 2 on the PS Vita. I’m loving it so far, since I got the BL2 PS Vita Slim Bundle (the stand alone game won’t be released until the 13th of this Month (May, 2014). The controls however, have decided that they want to make my experience replaying this, a living hell. Since the joy sticks on the Vita don’t have a button built into them to click down, the sprint button, and the melee button, have been binded to the Vita’s rear touchpad. Because of this layout, my big meaty hands constantly slipped and hit these buttons, causing me to flail my melee weapon around. Also, with the grenade button and ability button being binded to the front touch pads, I’ve ran into the situation of killing myself with grenades quite a few times. This is a pretty big flaw in my opinion, but none the less, I’m still having a terrific time!

Borderlands 2, along with the first game, are absolute most owns for any lovers of FPS games, or RPGs. I would, however, caution on buying the Vita version. If you have a 360 or PS3 (or a PC that can run it), then get it on one of those. Only go out of your way to get it on the Vita if you can’t get it on any other port. This game is an absolute master piece, and I can’t wait for the next 2 installments, The Pre-Sequel (taking place between 1 & 2), and Telltale Games episodic point and click game, Tales From The Borderlands.

I’m giving Borderlands 2 a strong 9/10!