Game Review: Borderlands the Presequel

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is a first person shooter set on the moon of the distant world of Pandora. Although this is the third game in the series, it is set before Borderlands 2 - hence the title. 

As in previous games, you select one of four characters and battle your way across Pandora’s moon slaughtering bandits, nutters and the local curious wildlife in the process. 

The game play is very similar to previous incarnations of Borderlands but the biggest change is the jump mechanic. Being on a moon and in lower gravity you can jump very high and over long distances while enjoying slow fall time. 

If you’ve picked one of the three human characters (Athena, Nisha or Wilheim) you will also have to frequently refill your air canister or risk suffocation. If you select Claptrap - the robot - this isn’t a problem. Jumping doesn’t cost you air but the extra jump does - so watch out. 

 

As for the story, you are trying to help a man named Jack regain control of a space station belonging to the Hyperion Corporation that has been taken over by a military group called the Lost Legion. 

For those who have not played the series, Jack is the villain in Borderlands 2 and this is the story of how he became such an a***hole. 

As usual the game isn’t heavily story-driven and focuses more on the game play than anything else. Sighting targets with weapons is as good as it’s ever been and so are the rest of the controls. There is also a nice new selection of weapons to try out as well. 

But while the game stays true to its core mechanics, graphics and humour, there is a lack of anything big and new. 

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel gets 6/10.

Bioshock Infinite Review

It’s time to review another video game (no groaning). Anyway, I am probably the last person in the entire world to review this game - since everyone else did it within five minutes of its release but not all of us can get advance copies of these things. 

So today we are taking a look at Bioshock Infinite, one of the most anticipated games of the last two years. If you are not familiar with the series, I will fill you in. It’s a first person shooter series. The previous two games were set in an underwater city where you had to fight your way through a population of genetically-enhanced townies. 

The genetic enhancements were a core part of the game play and have of course winged their way to Bioshock Infinite. These genetic enhancements give your character superpowers, including fire, water and an earthquake move called Bucking Bronco, amongst a host of others. 

But that is where the similarities between Infinite and its predecessors end. The new game is set in the cloud city of Columbia. Who play Booker Dewitt, a grizzled former Pinkerton agent sent to rescue a girl - Elizabeth, in exchange for wiping away all his gambling debt. If you have played the previous games, you will not be wrong expecting a big twist at the end. 

Moving on to game play, the controls in Infinite handle like a dream. There is no auto-lock on enemies when shooting but the manual controls are very smooth and fluid so lining up shots when you are being hammered in a war zone from all angles is not a fiddle. 

Also jumping has been moved to the A button. Again, if you have played the second game in the series, you will remember that jump was signed to Y on the Xbox controller. I know this is a petit gripe but most people instinctively press A when trying to jump in a game thanks to being raised on Super Mario games. So the re-assigning of jump to the correct and expected button is something that wins a thumbs up from me. 

Graphically speaking Infinite is dazzling. The detail and scenery is breathtaking and is something the developers are keen to show off at certain points in the game. Although the same cannot be said about the characters, I felt their heads looked a bit like cardboard boxes but again, this is merely a petit gripe.

I was also not that taken by the enemies. For a large part of the game early on you are just shooting at angry policemen, more angry policemen and then yet more angry policemen in slightly different uniforms. More variety turn-up later on but I missed the Big Daddies and variety of Splicers from the previous games. 

From a story standpoint Infinite is well-paced and good. Like I said earlier, the ending does come as a surprise but overall I was disappointed with it (but I will not spoil it here).

Bioshock Infinite gets 9/10