Borderlands: The Pre-sequel

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I've been playing Borderlands: The Pre-sequel since its release in October with a co-op partner.  This past weekend, we finally finished the main game, and now have gone back again in True Vault Hunter Mode to see what that has in store for us.

We've been having a lot of fun with the game.  The game does not have a lot of big UI or engine differences from Borderlands 2, except for four, and those range from pretty fun to really fun.

The Additions
First, they've introduced cryo as an element type: after you freeze then melee-shatter your first enemy, you'll be hooked too.

Second, a large areas of the game are low gravity, which means your character can jump a long, long way.  In combination with the Oz kits (oxygen kits for breathing in those areas without air), the low gravity also allows for double-jumps (for extra floaty spacetime fun) and for gravity slams (which everyone really calls "butt slams"), where you power your character downward from a low-gravity jump by releasing oxygen from their kit and then slam into the ground, knocking back any nearby enemies.  (Oz Kits also come with elemental modifications so you can do, for example, electrical or corrosive butt slams.)

Looking out at Serenity's Waste
with my new favorite laser.

Third, they've included a new weapon type: lasers.  Lasers vary anywhere from single-shot and burst-shot varieties into a full, continuous beam mode I like to call "firehose mode", which can be a great deal of fun, too — just point and spray damage at your enemies.

Fourth, but not least, there is a new vehicle — the Stingray.  There is the standard two-person, four-wheeled vehicle which, in B:TPS, is called the Moon Buggy (or the Moon Zoomy). but the Stingray is a single-person hovercraft that can jump and slam; think of it like a space bike.

To quote Stig, "Don't tell me we get to use the space bikes!"

The Characters and Classes
There are four classes to play in the base game; as they introduce them, we have Athena as the Gladiator, Wilhelm as the Enforcer, Nisha as the Lawbringer, and Claptrap as a Mistake.

Athena's customization screen

Athena you may remember as an NPC from The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC.  Athena's skills focus on shotgun and SMG, with her special ability being the Aspis, a shield that absorbs damage coming from in front of her and can be thrown to deal damage — in fact, this shield is why her preferred weapons are the point-and-shoot variety rather than the precise-aiming variety since, with the Aspis out, she cannot zoom in for a scoped shot.

Wilhelm you may recall as an NPC from Borderlands 2 where he was the first major boss faced by the Vault Hunters in that game.  Wilhelm's skills focus on heavy weapons, especially lasers (but he's pretty good with all guns).  His special ability is Wolf and Saint: Wolf is an aggressive attack drone and Saint is a passive support drone, and they can get quite powerful.

Nisha may be remembered as the Sheriff of Lynchwood in Borderlands 2.  Her general focus is on pistols, and her special ability, Showdown, puts her in an auto-aim mode that drastically increases her gun damage, fire rate, accuracy, reload speed, and bullet speed.  Her skill tree allows her to dual wield pistols, as well, though she does loose the right-mouse aim mode when doing this.

Finally, there's CL4P-TP, who needs really no introduction as Claptrap.  Except he's actually FR4G-TP — the same Claptrap as the Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap from the Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC.  Was he meant as a serious character and class?  It's hard to say but do note that in choosing Claptrap as your character, you have to confirm  more than once that this is what you really want to do.  Claptrap's special ability is VaultHunter.EXE, a somewhat random collection of things that occur when the ability is triggered — some may be quite effective, others humorous, and some potentially disastrous.  His skill tree is equally ludicrous, with specializations of "Boomtrap" (explosive damage and guns), "I Love You Guys!" (support), and "Fragmented Fragtrap" (rewarding versatility and adaptability as his strengths and weaknesses periodically change).

The Milieu
B:TPS takes place on Pandora's moon, Elpis, and on the Hyperion space station that you can see in the sky in the other Borderlands games (you know, that giant H-shaped satellite by the moon).  Time-wise, the story takes place between Borderlands and Borderlands 2 — in playing B:TPS you get to find out what happened to Brick, Mordecai, Lilith, and Roland from the original game in the immediate aftermath of the Vault's opening, and what made Handsome Jack (and Wilhelm and Nisha) into the characters you meet in Borderlands 2.  Some old favorites make appearances as well — Moxxi in particular shows up as the proprietor of Moxxi's Up Over (a pub on the moon).  It can be a little confusing at first, though, because the story you're experiencing is actually being told to Lilith by Athena after the events of Borderlands 2.

While the bulk of Pandora's denizens in the first two games are voiced with American accents, Elpis is, apparently, Pandora's Oceania.  A good many of the accents are Australian, and a lot of the jokes and references are Australian, too.  This is fairly pervasive, from the O² kits being called "Oz Kits", place names such as Burraburra, and "Springy Shiela" grenade mods, to talk of billabongs, jumbucks, and tuckerbags, and a roving enemy known as the Swagman.  While some people seem to really hate this aspect of the voice acting and find the thick Aussie accents distracting or annoying, I find it pretty charming and a nice change from the North American hicks and rednecks of Borderlands and Borderlands 2.

One of the many (many many) references to Australia.

The Game
The game itself seemed a little short to me, but not so short that it's "just another DLC" as some complain.  It can actually take a lot of time to do all the side quests and to work on challenges and achievements, if you're a die-hard completionist like me.  The extra game features and four new classes add enough that it's definitely a whole new game in the franchise.  I think the "too short" impression mostly comes about because the writing in the latter third or fourth of the game seems rushed and a little disjointed, and those story missions are prone to push, push, push you through too quickly if you let their intense urgency get to you.

There are some annoying aspects.  There are bugs that really should've been worked out by now, and by this I primarily mean mobs clipping into walls where they can shoot your character but not, apparently, be shot by your toon.  And it's bad that it's so damned easy to fall through the scenery and die that I've done it at least a dozen times just in the course of normal hunt-for-Vault-symbols style exploration.  Yesterday my co-op partner and I took down one of the "secret" boss mobs only to find that it was bugged, and didn't spawn the exit it was supposed to, and so our characters had to die to get out of its lair which shouldn't happen.  My co-op partner and I also found a too-large number of Challenges that could only be triggered by one character in the zone (we had to reload the zone for the other of us to be able to get it) and at least one that I have not been able to complete even though he got the completion on it when my character picked up the fifth of the five necessary items.

Still, if you like the Borderlands series, this is more of the same and you will enjoy it, and it's a very fun ride to boot.