characters

You follow one of six unique Vault Hunters, each with different abilities: Axton the Commando, Salvador the Gunzerker, Maya our resident Siren, Zero the assassin, the two DLC characters, Gaige the Mecromancer, and Krieg the Psycho on their quest to stop Handsome Jack. and Hyperion, find adventure and the best gear on Pandora.

Before I get into the story, I want to spend a little time with our playable characters, their different abilities, and backstories:

First there is Axton, our commando, who like Roland uses turrets. A former Dahl sergeant, dishonorably discharged for his pathfinder personal glory and sentenced to death by firing squad. His ex-wife/his commanding officer advises him not to try to escape to one of the many places beyond Dahl’s reach, which he does, then heads to Pandora after hearing one of Handsome’s announcements. Jack. Depending on the tree you use, your turret can heal you, trigger nuclear blasts, or even spawn a second turret.

Salvador, the Gunzerker, in my eyes, is the Brick of this game, using two pistols instead of his fists. Born and raised on Pandora, he loves violence (and steroids, which causes his 5’4″ height), but he did target bandits and other outlaws. However, before the events of Borderlands, he too will die from his actions, but before he does, Hyperion attempts to take over the city from him. After defeating the invaders, Salvador becomes interested in the vault, after interrogating (torturing) the last survivor.

Like I said earlier, Salvador’s ability is gunzerking, which means shooting two weapons at once, so weapon placement for him is key. A good method is to keep a slag weapon on every rotation. His skill trees vary between weapons and damage increase, extending the times of gunzerking, ammo regeneration and healing.

Zer0 is the Assassin of the game, a bit like Mordecai’s hunter with his sniper rifle skill, but without blood wings. A hitman, dealing in common and political hits, is disillusioned when his victim doesn’t fight back, even after Zer0 demands it. A bartender tells Zer0 about Pandora after he laments her lack of interest lately.

Not much is known about Zer0, even his gender may be a lie. He gets his name from the zero displayed on his faceplate. There is also a lot of debate about whether or not Zer0 is human, given his body type and lack of fingers. I’d like to think it was possibly a RAT, or genetically modified in some way, though there is speculation that Tanis knows of its origins.

Zer0’s ability is deception, creating a hologram of himself to distract enemies. His skill trees involve strengthening his sniper rifle usage and critical damage, strengthening deception and combat ability, and strengthening his melee attacks. Quite useful since his melee weapon is a sword.

Maya is one of the 6 Sirens, like Lilith, though her ability is phase blocking, enclosing an enemy in a bubble, and damaging them. She was handed over to the Order of the Gathering Storm when she was identified as Siren while she was still a baby. She was trained in secret until she revealed herself as a goddess to the followers of the orders. She later found out that she was actually being used to extort money from followers. Maya kills the monks who raised her and decides to go to Pandora to learn more about the mermaids and finally explore.

Maya’s ability can be great for co-op, playing the role of a healer. With her ability to phase lock a teammate from fighting for your life, heal them by shooting them and heal everyone by phase locking an enemy. Like the other mermaids, she can also deal elemental damage, even creating something out of thin air.

After the release of the game, we were given two DLC characters, Gaige and Krieg. Both completely new and exclusive to the game. Here is your summary.

Gaige is a high school student who made an anti-bullying robot for her science fair. While she was making the robot, she cut her arm pretty badly, so instead of healing it, she cut it off and made a cybernetic one to digest her robot, at the time called DT. She later finds out that the school bully found her blueprints for DT and sold them to the local police. Enraged, she finishes DT, with deconstructed claws and lasers, and renames him Deathtrap.

At the science fair, his bully’s father has bribed the judges, giving Gaige third place. His bully begins to gloat and push Gaige away, prompting Deathtrap to shield Gaige with his digistructor claws. When he was hit by the claws, the bully, for lack of a better word, exploded. Gaige was sent to the principal’s office, where her worst fears are confirmed, she will be thrown out and arrested. Her father creates a distraction, with a golf cart and lots of gas, and Gaige escapes to a ship headed for Pandora. She there she hopes that her intelligence can be appreciated.

Gaige uses Death Trap, his robot companion that can attack with claws, lasers, and explosions, he can also regenerate your and your teammates’ shields. That doesn’t mean Gaige can only shoot, he has a lot of unique and fun abilities. Depending on the tree you use, he can trade accuracy for damage, have bullets ricochet, and deal electrical and burn damage.

Our final character is Krieg, the psycho, basically one of the bad guys turned into a vault hunter. Not much is known about Krieg’s past, other than that he considers himself Hyperion’s property, though you can see little glimpses of the man he once was with his inner voice. Prior to the events of Borderlands 2, he roamed the wastelands in search of bandits and other combatants to get out of his bloodlust. He tries to avoid non-fighters/innocents, as his inner voice threatens to kill him if he does.

He meets Maya, his inner voice believes that she can help him, so he tries to call her, but instead she yells at him about the stern trains. Maya, thinking he is a normal psychopath, engages him in combat and fails to see the RATS sneak up behind her. Krieg’s inner voice is finally able to scream a warning to Maya, before decimating her attackers. At the end of his introduction video, he can be seen on the side of the train heading to the Windshear Waste, explaining how he got there.

His ability is The Buzz Ax Rampage, your melee damage is increased by 500%, you are fully healed on each kill, speed is increased by 33%, and you gain the ability to throw your axe. Depending on the tree you choose, you can increase your melee abilities even when you’re not rampaging, add burst damage, and deal elemental damage. Krieg’s abilities also alter the fight for your life, where he can throw a grenade and gain double experience for kills, or throw dynamite at enemies to try and recover health.

History

Our game begins when the main villain of our game, Handsome Jack, discovers that the train that transports you and your fellow vault hunters is a trap. He finds you a claptrap, from Borderlands one, who decides you’ll be his ticket out of his frozen wasteland prison. You travel through the Windshear Waste, where you meet some new additions to the Borderlands baddie team, the Bullymongs, and have your first boss fight with Knuckledragger.

Claptrap later takes you to Liar’s Berg, where you meet one of the new characters, Sir Hammerlock, where, after doing a few more quests, you finally reach the shrine, where you meet several Borderlands characters. The old vault hunters are back, and more fleshed out with some great personalities.

Compared to its predecessor, Borderlands 2 has definitely improved. From character customization, Borderlands, you can choose hair color, shirt, and pants, while in 2 you get tons of color schemes to play with and head customizations. You can get these customizations by purchasing certain missions, enemy drops, and ammo machines.

The weapons have also improved a lot, they are more accurate, brightly colored and stronger. The launchers on one were weak and did more damage to you than to you here… well if you shoot yourself it will still take a lot of your health but it could be a one hit kill on your favor too. Sadly the Atlas weapons company is gone, but in its place we have the elemental Maliwan (perfect for Maya). The rarity levels remain the same (white (most common), green, blue, (uncommon), purple (rare), orange (legendary), and light blue (pearl/mega legendary).

The main story is very immersive and you really get attached to these characters. There were several parts that really made me cry. There are so many twists, turns, and surprises that it always keeps you guessing, even if it’s the first, second (True Vault Hunter mode), or third (Ultimate Vault Hunter mode). Another fun bonus is that they brought back Catch-A-Rides and of course Scooter. You get your basic two seater racer, with a lot more color options, and a new edition, the Bandit Technical, which could even carry for players, it has a turret and you can also use your normal weapons on it, this also has a ton customizable colors.

cooperative

Co-op is great, there are no strings attached (unless your teammate has the menu open). You can complete separate quests and both get the rewards. The upside (or downside if you don’t like the difficulty) is that the more teammates (only two per system, four in your party total), the stronger the enemies and the rarer the loot. A personal recommendation: if you cooperate, have a Siren on your team, especially if you’re doing a dome of slaughter challenge, even if she gets killed she can still attack and recover health from the sidelines.

DLC

Something you might want to invest in is the game of the year edition, or all the DLC, not just Gaige and Krieg. In the GOTY set, you get both characters and four expansion sets, all after the main story, so if this is your first time playing, save those for last. The GOTY expansions are: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty, Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt, and Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. I know there are more DLCs, but I only have experience with these four. After completing each DLC, you will get an exclusive head and skin.

Captain Scarlet and her Pirate’s Booty has you searching for Captain Blade’s lost treasure. You meet Captain Scarlet just after arriving in the strange town of Oasis, where she asks you to join her on a search for lost treasure.

The second DLC, Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, introduces Mr. Torgue, of Torgue’s arms. He has found the next vault, so to decide who can open it, he organizes a brutal deathmatch tournament. In this DLC, you get a ton of Torgue gear, along with certain heads and skins.

The third campaign is Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunting. It wasn’t as well received as the other DLC, and I can see why. It starts out as a hunting trip with Hammerlock, which turns into a deal with a cult of Handsome Jack. Unfortunately, the story feels a bit lacking, with some parts being unnecessarily difficult and others ridiculously easy. Honestly, I only played it to complete it.

The fourth was Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep, my personal favorite. While our current Vault Hunters are interrogating a Hyperion spy, the originals are playing a game of Bunkers and Badasses to pass the time. The story is such a wild fantasy, and I never felt like it was dragging on, it manages to include most of the characters. Since it comes from the mind of Tiny Tina, you know that she is wild, entertaining and you never know what they will say.