Borderlands 2 Preview

It seems as if we’re seeing a new Borderlands 2 preview every day or two, and bit-tech.net have added their own to the ever-growing pile.  Surprisingly, it’s actually a little bit on the negative side, as the author stresses the quality of the game’s quirky humor and other presentation aspects, but he also devotes time to chewing out Gearbox for the fact that underneath that presentation, Borderlands 2 is still basically all about fetch quests. 

Whether the dripfeed of fetch quests feels worth it depends on the reward as much as the escapade, of course – the destination should be worth as much as the journey. Here Borderlands 2 falls over on familiar mistakes however, as the only rewards it seems prepared to offer are dynamically levelled, mostly randomised guns.

That’s not unexpected, but the transparency of it disappointing nonetheless.

Now, I’m not saying that this flagrant gun-porn isn’t weirdly more-ish and fun on some base level. There are some really fascinating weapons and combinations to uncover. One SMG I found, for example, was discarded like a live grenade when you reloaded – after which an undamaged version would re-materialise in your hand.

What I am saying though is that the idea of collecting these weapons quickly starts to feel banal and boring, even though specific examples might be individually exciting.

We’ll have to wait until September to find out for ourselves, but it’s perhaps a more candid look into the game than some other sites have provided so far.