Hello and welcome to our third and last instalment from the Borderlands franchise until the grand release of Borderlands 3. This also means its only one sleep until Insomnia 65 (pfft, no I’m not excited you’re excited…shut up!). So here is the low down on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.
This edition to the franchise is set between the events of Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Where the vault hunters are actually pals with good ol’ Jack…to start with anyway. What is different about this game is the narrative, unlike the last two, it is past-tense and told as a story by Athena to past vault hunters Lilith, Mordecai and Brick.
Standard game-play is the same, shoot em and loot em is still very much a key principle, but due to surroundings, there are new challenges to face like oxygen power and zero gravity. DONT FORGET THE COOL NEW VEHICLES, you can spawn a hoverbike from a hoverbike (pretty sick, and very much convenient!).
We start the game on our way to Hyperions Helios space station, where the mean Colonel Zarpedon and her army of Dahl marines gate-crash the party and capture the station. The vault hunters are then subsequently sent to Elpis, on Jacks orders and thrust into the game set on pandoras moon, in hopes of reclaiming it. From here the vault hunters meet new friends and foes, fight grand battles and kick the moondust of their shoes.
To get back to Helios, the vault hunters have to work with Jack to find an AI that they load up into a constructor bot to allow Jack to create his endless army of subservient robots. With his oil buckets in tow, the gang head back to Helios to source help from Moxxi, Roland and Lilith. They defeat the Colonel together and the truth about the eye of Helios is revealed which is when Moxxi, Roland and Lilith destroy the eye to stop Jack from being an all-powerful jackass. Being a little bit miffed, he plots revenge and travels back with the vault hunters where they find the vault INSERT MASSIVE RAID BATTLE.
When the battle is over Jack walks into the vault and sees a symbol which shows him the future through a vision, and the big ass monster which he could use to take over pandora, Jack gets greedy as we all know he can be and attempts to touch the symbol and Lilith punches him which knocks him into it, subsequently burning his face (which is how ‘handsome’ Jack is born), the game then snaps back into current time, Lilith orders death upon Athena but a guardian swoops down and warns them about a great danger coming. This is bad news but the events lead us straight into Borderlands 2 so buckle up warriors!
Featured Characters:
- Athena – The Gladiator
- Action Skill – Kinetic Aspis: equipped with her shield of awesome, this formal lance Assasin packs and punch through using her shield to deflect oncoming damage and when her action skill time has cooled she throws the shield at an enemy to add bonus damage!
- Willhelm – The Enforcer
- Action Skill – Wolf and Saint: Willhelm has two drones which he can recall when he wants, as you level up his skills they come with cool upgrades.
- Nisha – The Lawbringer
- Action Skill – Showdown: Nisha’s skill allows her to auto-target enemies. She also has increased damage while her action skill is active.
- Claptrap – The Fragtrap
- Action Skill – Experimental software: An annoying clap-trap robot which is kitted out with different skills, when action skill is activated you gain a short time of a randomly generated skill, for example; constantly shooting, dancing clap-trap decoy and invisibility.
The Pre-Sequel DLC Character Features:
- Jack – The Doppelganger
- Action Skill – Expendable Assets – Jack has the ability to summon ‘Digi-Jacks’ who will fight for him in battle. When upgrading his action skill, you can modify the Digi copies to give them shotgun lasers and even make them into badasses.
- Aurelia – The Baroness
- Action Skill – Cold As Ice – Aurelia is the very rich sister of Sir Hammerlock, as a result, you start off with some extra pennies which is a handy thing. Her ability involves throwing a Frost Diadem Shard which can home in on enemies. If the bad guy dies it will then move onto the next enemy.
Overall this game is pretty much what it says on the tin, but per our own opinion, it is lacking the charm of its predecessors. Game-play is still interesting and killing bad guys is still as good, but we feel the ability to lose hours of our lives playing is just not the same.
It is a good addition which fills the gaps between games as we see Jacks dissolve into power-hungry Handsome Jack as he looks to take over the Hyperion Corporation by making a robot army.
Tomorrow we will be playing Borderlands 3 at Insomnia 65 for the first time, this is exciting, well amazing, well awesome… I guess it’s ok. We will be right back here to tell you all about it and a little bit about what else we get up to at Insomnia….. PEACE OUT RAIDERS!
To check out our other Borderlands related content click HERE.