Breakin' my own rules with Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 came out at midnight, and although it goes against my strict criteria for which games I'm allowed to buy, I am chomping at my mangled little bit to play it.

Lets watch the trailer to get all excited:

There was something so incredibly satisfying about the first Borderlands game. The RPG elements were spot on and innovative. Selecting the online mode and dropping effortlessly into a four player mashup within seconds was one of the most badass experiences Xbox Live has ever given me (ignoring that one time I worked out how to stream porn from it, no lie).

This looks like much of the same, only with better looking characters and more imaginative guns.

The characters are kinda based around the schmucks that went vault hunting in the first game but with some worthwhile differences. 

First up we got Roland Axton, a no messing commando that drops turrets to take on enemies. He looks a bit too much like Corporal Hicks from Aliens for me to take seriously.

(Axton)

(Hicks)

He's also a little too similar to Roland from Borderlands 1 for me to care that much about. If I wanted to play the same character in a different skin I'd just hold select and roll blue Blanka.

(Do I make a ginger joke or a gurning joke here? Blanka you so cray-cray)

It's good to see the over-the-top violence has been toned down for the sequel. Nah just fucking with you, one of Axton's high level talents is a 'small nuclear blast' attached to his Sabre turret because fuck subtlety.

Next up, we got the one that's most likely to be my numero uno, Zero. She's the assassin character. She does this kickass trick where she throws out a decoy and turns invisible until she attacks, meaning you can hop around the screen like the fucking Predator or a rogue from WoW and shank people in the kidneys with your blue sword. 

(Judging from baldy's expression, that blue sword just hit his pink one)

The third char is Gimli the dwarf, except hairier and called Salvador. Fuck me sideways, is he meant to be Latin American? I figured he was just a cross between a bull and a tree stump. Is that what Latin American's look like to the games designers? 

His class is the stupidly named Gunzerker which I can only assume was invented by the games developer's kid cos that little shit just would not shut the fuck up about being part of the game. He's got the ability to dual weld guns and I remember when Halo introduced that shit and people practically came in their pants. 

Not sure if this will have the same effect, but the big loud bangs of the Borderlands universe always welcomes another gun. 

(Not pictured: Subtlety)

And the final playable character that's rolling into town is the bang tidy Maya. Like Lilith, the girl character from the first game, Maya is a Siren and uses all freaking elemental shit to toss bad guys around like rag dolls and freeze them in place. Unfortunately for the advertising team at developer Gearbox Software this ability kinda just makes it look like she's doing some aggressive pointing when displayed in stills.

(It's like the explosion went off out of sympathy)

I liked the Siren char from the first game, and I'm hoping for big things from Maya. I'm aware that of the four chars I've admitted a preference to playing the two female ones, but hey, MMORPG. 

Sadly, I won't be buying the game until it gets knocked down in price at my local GamesMaster due to my stupid rules that I have to stupidly live by, but I will sure as fuck be watching plenty of YouTube vids in preparation.