Recent reviews by pixelgoo

Game of 2022 for sure. Such a masterpiece puzzle adventure.

Underappreciated game. One of a kind.

+ Immersive gameplay with very fluid movement mechanics. It's 2023 but I still yet to see better movement and parkour than in Mirror's Edge.
+ Open world city with fantastic level design and setting.
+ Good art direction, each part of the city has very distinctive visual and music theme. Story missions are also well designed.
+ Many various activities and collectables around the city.
+ Easy to learn, hard to master. You can run through main story and be done with it, but there are also many side mission dashes and collectables that would require knowing the city and movement tricks.
+ Social features are quite nice. Nothing better than running through the city and then founding my own Beat L.E. from 5 years ago walkthrouh. Brings tear to the eye.

A very refreshing storytale with simple, but engaging combat. World and visuals reckon some ideas from Alice: Madness Returns and Barton movies, nevertheless game has its own unique touch. I'm on the Two-Town now and game keeps being fresh and surprising!

A classic. One of the best games of its decade, a perfect sequel and the best game in a looter-shooter genre.

Being 11+ years old, Borderlands 2 holds up very well for simple reasons — timeless visual style, fantastic writing and carefully crafted gameplay loop that bursts dopamine into your bloodstream every few minutes as you level up, find new shiny guns and participate in mayhem combat.

The story by itself never gets old and famous villain Handsome Jack is probably a single reason to play the game at least once. But even ignoring that, there are 6 classes to play, tons of missions, locations, characters, and hundreds of weapons. With all DLCs there is enough content to play for 300+ hours. Base game campaign can be finished in around 20 if you just want to see the story and what is all the fuss about. But it's a big game and if you like the core gameplay, you're in for a long journey.

Compared to Borderlands 1, developers improved every aspect and multiplied all the best parts of the original game by ten. Variety of loot is immeasurable and characters have many playstyles and skills. The world of Borderlands is not just empty deserts now, and even those were brought to life — every bandit camp has small story, secret chest or just some fun detail to discover. The lore about Eridians, Vaults and greedy corporations really starts to shine here (and peaks in Borderlands 3). And all of that is expanded even more in great DLCs (one of which became its own franchise as Tiny Tina's Wonderlands).

6 playable characters/classes are really fun to explore and level up, to discover with them new strategies, builds and gear synergies. Even 10 years later you can find many active content creators and online community. They share best builds, find new interactions and glitches, and create game changing mods.

The gameplay takes place in semi-open world where you're free to run or drive around, pick quests, kill enemies and do what you want. Locations are filled with chests, loot and secrets to discover. This make playing the game fun and different on your each walkthrough. With one character you can do these and those side quests, and next time you can try other, then you can do stuff like "allegiance" runs where you can use only gear of particular manufacturer, and so on. In that regard the game is like big sandbox for you to have fun as you like.

Cannot ignore the coop -- particular aspects of the game are tailored to group gameplay, such as skills impacting teammates, or vehicles that have driver and shooter seats. However, game can be 100% enjoyed and finished alone, and without screaming friends you might actually appreciate quest dialogues and world building better.

All in all, Borderlands 2 is amazing game and I would definitely recommend to play it for everyone.

It's basically Endless Legend 2. You can imagine instead human historical cultures Auriga's one's easily, going to be the same vibe.

Which is nothing bad at all. I'm sure Amplitude fans will find themselves right at home and newcomers from Civilization games will be pleasantly surprised - it's very engaging and unique 4X strategy.

Fun class, well-suited for solo play

+ Interesting character (Timothy Lawrence) that plays big role in Handsome Jackpot Borderlands 3 DLC, it's nice to play as him here
+ One of the most unique skill trees that is based on weapon swapping mechanics and weapon manufacturers bonuses
+ Powerful action skill that can be improved by making us and our clones tanky and long lasting, or vice versa, making clones disposable and getting bonuses based on how many of them died

- Half of voice lines really do not fit and feel out of place (it's hard to put Jack's double into the story to not make it sound weird)
- Is actually overpowered, can get a little boring on a first walk through, but gets normal on the TVH mode and further on

My favourite class in Borderlands franchise

+ Well-written and intricate character with interesting voice lines; is nice to play after/before Borderlands 3 where Aurelia plays bigger role in the main plot
+ Well-thought skill trees with many interesting mechanics
+ Arguably best sniper in Borderlands franchise with very specific and satisfying skill tree for sniping
+ Starts with a lot of money and good weapons straight away

- Third skill tree is useful mostly only when playing in coop, which is sad for solo players like me
- Is mostly glass cannon character and requires good play in late-game to not die and snipe enemies from afar
- Unlike some other classes, her skills do not really shine until 20+ levels when the synergy between skills kicks in, she starts to really shine only on TVHM and further on

Overall I think it's the best class to enjoy The Pre-Sequel

The most underrated Borderlands game, but it's my old favourite to comeback to from time to time.

It's a classic Borderlands formula with more stuff to shake the gameplay - gravity, oxygen, jumpads, laser weapons, cryo elemental damage and other minor additions. For seasoned Borderlands fans it's more good stuff - Oz kits have various bonuses based on vacuum/atmosphere/amount of oxygen, and gravity makes combat much more fun with vertical layers, flying enemies and acrobatics in space. It's really hard to go back to slower Borderlands 2 after playing this one.

The game is great for everyone - killing enemies, trying new guns and levelling is always fun no matter what character you pick and how familiar you are with the Borderlands, the game has fantastic playable classes and their skill trees are arguably the best in the series (even better than in Borderlands 3). Compared to Borderlands 2 classes here are much stronger and they're just better designed - skill trees have much more synergies between skills, and you have more skill expression in how you fight. In Borderlands 2 maybe only Krieg was like that, here it's almost everyone. Unlike in Borderlands 2, characters also talk, react in dialogues and overall have more personality.

Both main campaign and side quests are great. It's amazing to see how all of the Borderlands 2 world elements were created, and players who pay attention will appreciate the story of Hyperion robots, moonshot cannon, skags, and, of course, the story of Jack himself! I really like moral dilemmas in the plot here, because you can see how "bad guys" in Borderlands universe is a relative term - depending on who tells a story.

In-game locations are beautiful and well designed for new gameplay elements. From big moon landscapes and deep mysterious caverns to Hyperion space station halls and research facilities. There are various points of interest and side quests to do, a lot of hidden chests and challenges to complete.

From technical standpoint, just like Borderlands 2, the game looks great even nowadays, a whole decade later. Mostly because of timeless art style and solid choice of engine - UE3 never gets old. Another highlight is PhysX - a great tech, undeservingly forgotten, carries visuals with various fluids and particles effects, adding more "oopmph" to the scenes and combat.

A separate honourable mention goes to the soundtrack - it's a chef kiss. Beautiful ambient exploration themes are changing to some pumpy electronics.

There is just something so special about visuals and soundtrack that Pre-Sequel will always stand out to me as a shooter - and Borderlands - game. Clearly very talented (and Australian!) team worked on the game, and it's a shame they were disbanded before they manage to add more DLC.

But, what we got is great nevertheless. IMO considering all factors, this might be the best Borderlands game to date.

I actually refunded the game a few years ago but with 1.0 release decided to try it out again. There aren't that many titles in the genre and nobody can deny that Last Epoch is one of the few landmark releases of the past years.

Going through the campaign, reaching level 50 with my Falconer girl while wearing fancy feather hat and juicy legendary bow so far is pure fun. Developers improved A LOT of things during early access, much work was put into polishing and brushing the experience, it shows.

Last Epoch doesn't hold your hand -- after short intro animation you're thrown right into action of confusing world of time travel without explaining anything. However, the progression turns out nicely curved and steady. In that sense the game is closer to Diablo or Wolcen than Grim Dawn or Path of Exile -- i.e. it has more casual, chill pace. You have plenty of opportunity to slowly learn the game during the campaign without a risk of doing something bad to your character.

Last Epoch so far has the most balanced complexity/fun ratio I've seen in the genre. Unlike Path of Exile, you don't really need PhD in passive tree and affixes. Detailed description of each stat and extensive in-game guide help to understand most of the game mechanics. They're complex in its nature, but very intuitive and approachable. I think it's part of the reason for game's success. Wolcen, for example, had very similar mechanics of ailments and skill trees for each skill -- but unfortunately devs never managed to properly put info about how everything works into the game AND everything was bugged. In Last Epoch, except maybe very few weird moments, everything can be learnt from the game itself and it actually works when you try something. If you're experienced ARPG player you won't ever need any third party tutorials or "builds" to follow.

Most complicated parts of the game are skill trees -- yes, each skill has its own skill tree, and you also have 4 skill trees for each class... However they're cleverly split into manageable windows and you will gradually get access to more trees during levelling, it never feels overwhelming. Each skill tree basically allows you to focus on particular aspect of the skill or change the style of its application. I.e. Shadow Bomb a-la ninja style can be built around damage, defence, control or movement -- depending on your taste. Cherry on top are some unique nodes that reference other skills allowing to create various combos -- really fun stuff and I don't think I've seen something similar in any game of the genre.

There are some cons, of course.

While combat and character building is fun, some visuals and exploration elements were ignored or rushed. Last Epoch has fantastic lore and story (and you can really appreciate it playing second time), but it's covered by shallow presentation and, unfortunately, i'ts not even finished yet -- we're to expect 3 more chapters. Maps could use more hand-made polishing, hidden secrets, lore scrolls and unique events like in Grim Dawn or Wolcen. Some of the combat animations and sounds could really be refreshed. Small things, but in the game that is all about being in combat all time, killing enemies and running around dungeons, all these things have to be done the best they can.

The graphics and technical side of the game are great though. Nothing spectacular for 2024, but also good enough to look fresh and juicy. Some of the maps are just wonderful, for example underwater halls or Divine Era grass hills, they're aeons ahead grey boring designs of some other ARPGs.

Developers are constantly pushing updates that fix issues and add quality of life features. I'm sure we will see more goodies sooner than later, including last 3 chapters. As for now, I already itch to start new character and explore the game more, and I haven't even got to the end-game. That's very good sign in my book.

I wish in real life friends could be made as easy as in this game.

It's amazing how much experience can a short journey give compared to most of modern games that can't accomplish something even close in hundreds of hours.