CHENNAI: Are you looking for a game story that does not have a conscience? Do you enjoy listening to unbalanced supporting characters talk in their annoying voices continuously as you shoot monsters in the face?
With a proud opening theme saying “This ain’t no place for no hero”, Borderlands 2 tells us exactly what we should expect from the game. It has the raw, reckless combat with no consequences and draws as little of an emotion response as possible — like a comic book just sprung to life. Imagine the place setting of Mad max with a touch of humour and insanity.
You must first choose to play as one of several wacky ‘Vault Hunters’, each with specific skillset. But this doesn’t deter your ability to genocide the ugly Pandora monsters that haunt your pathway to treasure. The FPS is so focused on killing that it allows you to resurrect your declining life and health by pulling off a headshot. A game with such noisy characters, that even its TellTale version (Telltale makes games where you choose dialogues, there’s no action, so its basically like a movie) couldn’t ruin its awesomeness for us.
But it’s been four years since Borderlands 2 (although there were some unsatisfying spin-offs after that). The developer, Gearbox is known for making games in this inoffensive, badass genre. Battleborn — another one of their creations that released last year uses the same formula: with a bunch of very weird, equally insane ‘heroes’, who shoot their way to glory. Bulletstorm (2011) fits in the badass genre too — a cult classic with an extremely MadMax-esque environment.
With a volley of strong firearms with effective and ruthless killing techniques (whether it shoots fire, or zaps electricity to burn the enemy to ashes), these games also have very loud, epic rock music even in the face of supposed danger. It really sets the tone for combat. The best part is, the monsters are so horribly disgusting, that you’d spend no time in feeling sorry for them. There’ve been but rumours of a Borderlands 3 in the making, which makes me sad. Because we need games that make alternate rock music cool again.