Hands on with Borderlands 2

E3 2012 was host to many big titles coming out soon. One such title was "Borderlands 2," developer Gearbox's highly anticipated sequel to their award winning open-world role-playing game. It was playable on the show floor this year, and man did it look great.

This time around things have changed. A new antagonist has risen known as Handsome Jack and he aims to take over all of Pandora. The people of Pandora aren't taking this lying down and have risen against the would-be tyrant. This means there are new characters and new classes to play as. I was only able to play as the Siren, Maya, and the Assassin, Zero, and they differ entirely from their counterparts from "Borderlands."

Maya is a Siren.

When the demo started, I was given 20 skill points to level up my characters with, and this gave me a chance to see the new menu and skill trees.  The menus are more fluid and have better presentation than past ones. Guns were easy to select, and managing items was way easier. The skill tree itself has been expanded greatly so no two classes are ever the same - even if it is the same character.

Mayas skill tree was varied between either being a healer and buffer of sorts or being focused on her new phase-lock ability. Zero's was centered on being a stealthy ninja with his sword or dealing out all sorts of elemental damage.

Both characters have there own individual ability which is unique to each character. Zero's is that he'll create a hologram of himself and turn invisible to enemies so he can sneak around and surprise melee them with his sword to cause huge damage, while Maya can lift her enemies into the air and hold them there for a few moments to cause serious mid-air damage. One thing I noticed is that both characters' abilities cool down times were shortened immensely, so now they can be more streamlined into the combat unlike the previous iteration in which players would have to wait quite a while for powers to be available again. Once I finished off my leveling up, I quit the menu and started the mission.

Makes you wanna scream "mommy," huh?

The objective I had was to find and destroy four Handsome Jack statues around a city to get rid of his influence. Once I found one, I opened fire on it only to realize my shots were ineffective. I was then told by our old familiar friend Claptrap to find a decommissioned overseer (a big beetle-like robot with the ability to fire a laser) and reactivate it to take down the statues.

As my appointed partner and I searched for it, we were caught up in a fire fight, and this is were I got to see the bread and butter of the game.  As I ran for cover I noticed that the more damage I took, the more shield buildup there was on screen and then when my shield finally went down it crumbled straight off the screen.

One thing to note is how much faster the game is than the original "Borderlands." The framerate has been bumped up and it leads to a way better looking game.

 As I reached cover, I noticed that robots were the main force of Handsome Jacks army, but these weren't your normal Claptrap robots. The robots varied from simple mechs to overseers to giant mechs that just make you want to scream and run away, and all are tough adversaries. This just shows the players are going to be in for a good fight this time around.

The first set of enemies was a good chance to show off the new weapons in the game. It has been shown in trailers that there will be an absurd amount of guns in "Borderlands 2," all of which will have very different attributes and styles. I only got a taste of this in the demo but from what I saw the number of weapons is staggering. Defeated enemies dropped guns like it was going out of style.

There were at least 30 different guns to find in the demo alone, each varying in damage style, class, etc. My favorite gun of the demo was a rocket launcher that never had to reload because after expending all the rockets my character would throw the weapon towards the enemy, exploding on contact before respawning in my hand ready to fire again. It seems as if Gearbox is really stepping up their game (pun definitely intended) this time around.

From left to right: Axton, Maya, Zero, and Salvador.

After destroying all of the statues, I was treated to Claptrap telling me to make the giant overseer robot dance by pushing a button on its side. It self -destructed from boogie fever.

It seems there will be no lack of humor in "Borderlands 2," which is alright with me. Soon after the explosion, a giant mech shot down in front of us and started to attack us. This caught us off guard and we were wiped out. "Borderlands 2" drops on Sept 18, so be ready for all the crazy, jokes, guns and powers.