The quests are rarely anything other than fetch quests and janitor work. Talking to one character after another, fulfilling a task, and then going back and forth across bland environments to collect the rewards becomes tedious. The quest system, the majority of the game, is a chore. Port or no, Borderlands 2 gets tiresome, as it doesn't excel at either of the genres it combines. Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. ( Read our editorial mission.) Otherwise, you're on your own and that's not the ideal way to get through this repetitive grind. Instead of four-player online co-op, you can only play two, and that's if you're lucky enough to connect to Sony's finicky PlayStation Network.
It's commendable that Iron Galaxy managed to squeeze all the content of Borderlands 2, including its expansion campaigns and two DLC characters, into a portable version, but it did so at the expense of the visuals, the controls, and the co-operative multiplayer.
The aim of the game is to collect all this "loot," upgrade your character, and shoot your way through psychos and madmen.īut you won't want to do that on this poorly optimized, ill-conceived port. Basically, you're a treasure hunter, and the place is littered with boxes, lockers, and nooks where you find guns. A hybrid of the first-person shooter and RPG genres, Borderlands 2 casts you as a Vault Hunter on the planet Pandora. This time it's Borderlands 2, a game that's been available on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 for a couple of years now. Yet another port lands on Sony's PlayStation Vita.
The “limitations of hardware” excuse just doesn’t apply here. Even during rare stretches where it maintains a constant framerate, it’s well south of 30, and it hitches at random like playing an MMO on dial-up. At its best, Borderlands 2 on Vita plays like your Vault Hunter is fighting underwater with dumbbells strapped to their ankles at its worst, it’s a nearly unplayable slideshow. Borderlands 2 has never been about visual splendor, but about fluidly placing bullets or blades between the eyes of all manner of monsters and bandits.
These compromises are the least of this port’s worries though.
Cross-Save functionality is a boon to be sure, as is the ability to play online, though the drop to two players from four is another example of the watering down that had to be done to make portable Borderlands a reality. Even on the Vita’s beautiful screen, Borderlands 2 lacks the color and crispness of both its console brethren, and more importantly, other games on the platform. Of course, corners have been noticeably cut in order to make that happen – sound has been compressed, and many textures and effects have been simplified to make weight as well. Few games have had a longer train of substantial DLC add-ons than Borderlands 2 has, and getting it all crammed onto the Vita is an impressive feat by any measurement.