I started playing Borderlands 2 yesterday and so far I’m really liking it. I never played Borderlands so I can’t compare them, but this one seems pretty darn good.

The first thing I like about this is that unlike all the other shooters I’ve played like Gears of War and the Modern Warfare games this one seems more open in that there are a lot of side missions to keep things from feeling to linear. There’s no slowing things down with saving all the time since all saves are automatic respawning you at an earlier location. While this could be annoying the game doesn’t reset so if you fought your way through an area you don’t have to do it again even though you may have to run back/drive back to where you were killed. Also respawning cost you money so there is an incentive not to get killed.

I’m loving the writing and voice acting. Too bad they could get that right with Oblivion and to a lesser extent Skyrim. The near constant banter keeps things interesting, tell some of the backstory, and is often quite funny, a stark contrast to Dishonored which was very gloomy.

From the screen shots I didn’t think I would like the animation since I’ve been getting spoiled on things that try to look “real,” however it turns out It’s actually quite good. It seems to have a very “Heavy Metal” look about it and in some ways also has that sort of feel, though in more of a PG13 way (hell Heavy Metal is probably PG13 these days).

I’ve played for about 8 hours now and so far no crashes, lockups or noticeable glitches. I have a feeling that I’m going to actually enjoy this game more than Dishonored.