Borderlands: The Pre Sequel is an FPSRPG that is set before the events of Borderlands 2 and takes place on and around the Pandoran moon of Elpis.
You take the role of one of four playable characters, Athena “The Gladiator” who was previously in the Borderlands DLC The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, Nisha “The Lawbringer” who made her debut in Borderlands 2 as the Sheriff of Lynchwood, Wilhelm “The Enforcer” the first major boss in Borderlands 2 and lastly everyone’s favourite character Claptrap “The Fragtrap”.
As with Borderlands 2 each character has their own special power and skills tree. Athena has a shield that can absorb any incoming damage and once the timer runs out, Athena will then throw the shield at enemy to inflict damage, Nisha’s power increases her speed, gun damage and allows her to quickly switch between various enemies. Wilhelm being the cyborg that he is has two drones, Wolf and Saint; Saint will cover Wilhelm and provide shields and health regeneration while Wolf goes out to attack enemies. However Claptraps power is totally different, when his special power VaultHunter.exe is used, it assesses the situation around him and grants Claptrap a random special power, now these powers can either be very helpful, such as the funzerker where he will wield two weapons and his ammo and health will regenerate or not so helpful Rubber Ducky, this is where you find yourself bouncing up and down all over the area reflecting damage and dropping on enemies.
The story is an insight into how Jack became Handsome Jack, you play as one of four Vault Hunters drafted in to help a Hyperion Programmer called Jack find a vault on the Pandoran moon Elpis. However during your journey to find Jack your spaceship is attacked by the Dahl Corporation led by Colonel Zarpedon which sends you crashing in to the Hyperion Moon Base Helios, where you end up fighting your way through hallways and rooms trying to rescue Jack from the Dahl Corporation’s Lost Legion. Zarpedon is trying to stop Jack from opening the vault on Elpis by attacking and shutting down the moon base. When you finally catch up with Jack he attempts to get the base defences back online only to find out that there is a jamming signal coming from the moon and orders you to take it down, in order to do this you have to take a moon-shot cannon ride down to the moon’s surface.
When you finally land on the moon you meet up with a scrap dealer Janey Springs, and at this point you find out that there’s no atmosphere on the moon, this brings in to play one of the new changes to the Borderland Franchise the inclusion of another piece of equipment called an Ozkit, now this Ozkit will provided you with a certain amount of Oxygen that will enable you to survive without Oxygen. Each Ozkit is different and has different abilities, similar to the class mods from Borderlands 2 that are also present in this game, this brings me on to the ButtSlam attack, the moon has zero gravity which allows you jump higher and with the addition of an Ozkit you can boost your jump to get to higher places above the enemies, you can then come crashing down to the surface with tremendous power and deal damage to the enemies in that area, some Ozkits will provide elemental damage to your ButtSlam attach such as explosive and corrode damage.
When you land on the moon your primary objective is to track down the jamming signal and shut it off so that Jack can regain the moon base, and this is where you really start to see Jack transform into Handsome Jack, with each main story mission Jack becomes more bitter, twisted and angry at everything. Through the course of the main story you also get to see how the Hyperion technology came to be, one of the main story missions you have to build a robot army to help Jack regain the moon base, you get to witness first-hand the evolution of the Loaders seen in Borderlands 2, these machines were once robots moving crates around and as the game progresses you see them transform in the GUN Loaders, EXP loaders and the very first Constructor. As you fight your way across Elpis you get to visit a number of locations and meet a varied selection of people. You can clearly tell that the game was developed by 2K Australia, as a lot of the new characters now have an Australian accent. Quiet a few of the characters from Borderlands 2 make an appearance in this game, Roland, Lilith and Moxxi feature throughout the games main story line, and towards the end of the game you get to find out why Handsome Jack hated them so much in Borderlands 2.
There are a few new enemies in this game; there are new creatures such as the hulking Shugguraths that launch flying Rathyds at you and the annoying Torks. There are a few new human enemies such as the Dahl soldiers and Scavs, similar to the Hyperion soldiers and Bandits from the previous game. And with new enemies to kill, comes new weapons, as your in space there are now laser weapons at your disposal, these laser weapons come in all shapes and sizes with varying fire rates and elemental damage, there is also a new weapons manufacturer call Scav, which is similar to the Bandit manufacturer in Borderlands 2 with their high rate capacity magazines and fast fire rates.
This brings me onto a wondrous new inclusion in to the game series, The Grinder, in the previous games if you picked up a weapon you didn’t like, you would trade it in for the money, but in this game you can take three weapons, Ozkits, Grenades or shields of the same class and combine them in The Grinder, there is chance that you can get a higher powered item with special abilities.
In Borderlands: The Pre Sequel Eridium is replaced with Moonstones, these can be found from slain enemies, mainly from Badass enemies, Moonstones can be traded on the black market for ammo capacity upgrades and backpack upgrades and can also be used in conjunction with The Grinder to increase the chances of a higher powered weapon.
Graphically the game is the same as Borderlands 2 but there are noticeable changes in the dialogue, in Borderlands 2 the dialogue was very generic and didn’t really change with the character, in Borderlands: The Pre Sequel the dialogue is tailored to each character, so every time you speak to Moxxi or any of the other characters when accepting or turning in mission the dialogue will be tailored to the character in your current play through.
This game is a must play for any Borderlands fan, as it expand on the Borderland universe so much and answers a lot of questions raised in Borderlands 2, and is ideally for anyone wanting to make a start in the Borderlands games.
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