Play as one of four new vault hunters facing off against a new world of creatures, psychos and the evil mastermind, Handsome Jack. Make new friends, arm them with a gazillion weapons and fight alongside them in four-player co-op or split-screen on a relentless quest for revenge and redemption across the undiscovered and unpredictable living planet...

For those that loved the original Borderlands, Borderlands 2 offers more of the same, but the end result is a much more polished and bigger game.

You get the option to chose between one of four new "vault hunters", as with the original, each has their own unique abilities to cater for players individual gaming styles - although I'm guessing that most will pluck immediately for Salvador the Gunzerker.

The four vault hunters include Salvador, who is mean with firearms and can even dual wield weapons; Maya, a siren, who has the ability to phaselock, suspending enemies in midair; Axton, a commando, who uses turrets to cut through his enemies; and Zer0, an assassin capable of creating a decoy duplicate of himself and becoming invisible for short periods. If you've played the original game then you'll instantly recognise the class of character you've used before.

You start the game and - if you've got a save point on your console from the first game you'll instantly unlock a new skin for your character - have the ability to change your appearance. The options are pretty basic to start with, but as you progress and unlock more things, you'll be able to customise your character even more. Once again the game sees you completing quests, side quests and having to level up before you can successfully tackle some of the harder quests.

This time around Pandora feels like a real environment rather than a small, claustrophobic, collection of areas. And because of this, fast travel station are now included that let you zip to other locations you've already visited.

New in this game is a mini map that's on screen constantly (in the first game it could be a pain in the arse getting to your destination without scrolling through the options to get to the map page); also you can instantly see whether any guns you find are better or worse than the ones you are wielding.

If I had one complaint, and it's a small one, sometimes your enemies get on top of you and it's almost impossible to get out of their way and kill them. The end result is that you're dead before you realise it. However, this isn't such a problem as you respawn at the nearest revive station.

The single player campaign is great fun, but to get the most out of the game you'll need to play the co-op mode. What's great here is that you can play with friends only or open up the arena to anyone.

While this is a huge game, and will take ages to complete, it's worth exploring every nook and cranny and tackling every side mission. There's plenty of humour in this game that you won't want to miss. For starters, don't skip the opening video, and if you find that amusing then there's plenty more where that came from.

Borderlands 2 is an essential addition to your collection. There's enough replayability here that even when you've finished the game with one character you'll be compelled to start again with one of the others.

9

Darren Rea