Gadgetory

what's up internet Kevin here and today we're going to talk about Borderlands the pre-sequel this is the third entry in the borderlands franchise but is also the first one not to come from its original developer gearbox but instead 2k games Australia and at first glance this is a pretty obvious fact considering that this game looks a lot like Borderlands 2 so the big question is what does this one actually do different from its predecessor and is that enough to make it stand out as its own significant title does it do enough to warrant purchasing at a full price game so let's go ahead and talk about that and to start with let's look at how this one fits into the rest of the series as the title suggests the pre-sequel takes place before Borderlands 2 and after the first game though it's worth noting its hope from a retrospective point of view containing spoilers from events in the second game as is traditional to the series players take on the roles of one of four different vault hunters with the one interesting twist this time around being that instead of having a cast of all new characters each of these hunters have previously appeared either as an NPC or boss enemy with one particularly popular example standing out the game story revolves entirely around tues antagonist handsome Jack and how his rise to power took place helping to explain events that lead to the massive changes between Borderlands one and two as a result you as a character feel like you actually a very little agency even by the series standard as most of your missions revolve around getting Jack access to one place or another and help him achieve his goals now thanks to the fact that the part of gearboxes staff still involved in this game was the writing team a lot of the writing is consistent between this title and what happens in Borderlands 2 and there's very little in the form of plot holes or at least what you can get away with in a game whose storytelling is so over-the-top the overarching story really isn't anything too special though that's never been a huge strength in the series it does still however maintain the trademark silly dialogue referential humour and interesting new forms of cursing the pacing and flow of this game is a little bit on the wonky side missions seem awkwardly spread out and there are situations which you can easily be over levelled for the main quest yet something's only update with main quest progression which creates problems for instance it actually takes quite a bit of time for you to finally unlock your third gun slot and the fourth comes pretty quickly right after it plus there are numerous times where the main story requires you to be one level yet all the side quests unlocked alongside it are noticeably way below where you are in the game turning them into busy work just to grab an okay gun or grind out several of them to make the one or two levels you need to progress now the core mechanics of this game are very easily recognizable it all boils down right back to the same formula of except quests blow stuff up get bigger and better loot and wash rinse and repeat players level up each vault hunter customizing them through skill trees and equipment which comes in the now very familiar colorful array of rarities hoping to signify particularly cool stuff for your level while the game can be tackled single-player doing so is highly recommended against as the game's difficulty and loot drops become significantly more interesting when a team of players using different characters or at least different builds work together so if you've played any previous Borderlands games or any loop grinding games in general a lot of this is going to be very very familiar territory and as I said earlier it is very alarming at how many similarities there are between this game and borderlands 2 so let's start talking about what changes actually do exist first off most obviously are the vault hunters themselves and I'm not just talking in terms of their appearances and voices one thing I really appreciated in this entry is that the vault hunters action skills are noticeably pretty different from previous entries the cast from Borderlands 2 all featured moves that were very familiar to skills from Borderlands one and felt more like remixes than brand new moves whereas most of the action skills in pre sequel feel really unique in particular the lawbreakers ability to go into a temporary auto aim mode and claptraps EXE ability which activates one of the many different special programs offering numerous different buffs some of which are good some of which are really good some are bad and some are just plain weird on a related note character advancement in this game is also considerably faster action skills are unlocked sooner and reaching an individual talent trees final node can be achieved as early as level 25 rather than 31 weapons feature many of the same enhancements as before though elemental types have been shifted around a little bit the slack element introduced in bl2 is gone and instead there's a new cryo element giving you the ability to freeze enemies in place and deal damage over time which is really useful a new gun type has also been introduced in the form of laser cannons which come in a wide variety emulating other gun training from spread out shots and rapid fire to long-range precision rifles or even constant beings while those are basically all the changes for just the guns themselves the game has introduced one new interesting way to get new guns and that's the grinder a machine that allows you to mix three weapons of the same rarity to try and get a new one of one level higher which sounds really awesome at first but keep in mind that whatever you create matches the lowest level item you put in rather than be an average so creating up-to-date powerful weapons will still be really costly this is also a way to spend the game secondary currency moonstone which thankfully has more uses beyond just simply purchasing weapon capacity upgrades as I said it can be used to make better items using the grinding machine or can be used to purchase special drinks that give you different temporary bonuses in game now the game's largest mechanical change though is the low gravity since most of the game takes place on a moon players are able to turn this to their advantage by being able to not only jump higher but make use of a note to kit enabling them to do minor midair boosts or slam into the ground damaging enemies around them 02 kits are the new equipment slot item which not only impacts how much air you can breathe but also grants benefits to your slam attack and usually offers numerous bonuses related to in air combat the low graph does create problems sometimes with how far useful items can fly I've had a few cases where a cool drop ends up landing in the middle of a no reach zone such as in the middle of insta death hot lava but at the same time you begin to miss it rather quickly in the game's few non low grav areas as the jumping height is super useful and changes up party tactics for finding good positions now there are a couple other little minor changes new mechanics introduced in this game one of the most useful ones being the fact that you can now inspect other players to see their equipments and builds but that's basically it and while some of these changes are really appreciated it really does very little to change up the overall game itself making this feel much more like an expansion to borderlands 2 rather than a brand new standalone game that being said I still enjoyed a lot of my time with it one of the benefits of changing so little is that if the formula does work people can still enjoy it even if some get angry at the lack of innovation or change if you have a group of friends to play with and this can definitely still be worth picking up at some point but considering the number of games on the horizon and how little of a new experience the pre-sequel is definitely a game you can wait on a few price drops for which in this case is inevitable considering the series history with DLC content it is a bit of a cash grab to be sure but if you're a fan of the series then you'll definitely still find it enjoyable with a good group of friends I just think it'd also be a safe move to wait till your investment in it is something less than 60 bucks well that was my review of Borderlands the pre-sequel if you want to grab a copy for yourself I do have a link posted down below in the description along with my twitter handle if you guys enjoyed this video please hit that thumbs up button let me know as well subscribe if you haven't yet to catch some more reviews I hope to see you guys later with some more content but until then I'm Kevin Kenton and I'll see you later