The
original Borderlands
remains upon my ever-growing video game pile of shame. I like
first-person shooters, I like RPGs, and I like cooperative play; I have
no doubt that I’d enjoy a game that combines all three concepts into
one. Alas, the stark reality of working in the gaming press is that,
despite the fact that you
think our job consists of nothing but playing games all the time, we
rarely have enough time for the games we need to play for work and none
for the ones we’d like to play just for our own enjoyment.
And so, I approached a recent
hands-on demo of Borderlands sequel (which surprisingly enough is
named, simply, Borderlands
2) from a position of
unfamiliarity. My first course of action was to simply acclimate myself
to the play mechanics; being designed for co-op play first and
foremost, its rules work a little differently than your typical FPS.
That meant taking it slowly, sticking to cover, retreating when
overwhelmed, and searching every inch of ground for weapons and items
to collect. Mission prompts and waypoints helpfully indicated the
direction of my primary objective, but I cheerfully ignored them in
favor of simply seeing what I could find at my own pace.
