Falterfire said:
Not surprised here. Borderlands 2 is very much Borderlands 1 but more, so if you didn't like 1, you won't like 2.
You know, people keep saying that, but I'm not seeing it...
I hated the first Borderlands. The game had a cool quirky setting, but didn't do anything with it and the plot pretty much didn't exist. The central mechanic (Diablo-style loot in an FPS) sounded good on paper, but the difference between the various guns was miniscule and it essentially boiled down to slight variations of maybe a dozen guns. Finally, the enemy variety was appalingly bad (the whole "Killing Jason Vorhees over and over and over again" thing). All this resulted in a game with no plot, a boring central mechanic and gameplay that got insanely repetitive very fast.
On the other hand, Borderlands 2 takes all the good ideas and actually does them right. The quirky setting is put to better use, with the various characters interacting with you more, there's a proper plot and it's not even bad, there's an actual villain now and he's one of the more memorable antagonists in recent years. All of it made me want to play just to see what happens next, to hear the jokes, to find out how it plays out.
The guns were improved, with more variety between the manufacturers meaning that the promise from the first game was finally realized - dozens of notably different guns to pick and choose from. There was actual choice now and this made the looting process more fun.
Finally, the enemy variety was increased. Jason got a ton of new friends (like the Nomads and the Goliaths), there are several new enemy sets (the Rats, the Robots, Hyperion Personell) and the combat is more varried overall.
So the lack of plot was replaced with a solid plot and interesting characters, the weak central mechanic was elaborated upon and made interesting and the lack of variety in combat was remedied with, well, variety.
All this resulted in me loving Borderlands 2. I never even finished the first game (got to about 2/3 of the way once by forcing myself) but the sequel kept me playing happily through and I'll be doing my NG+ as soon as I'm done with Torchlight 2.