There's Axton, the Commando, who can deploy a machinegun turret with a barrel that can swivel in a 360 degree arch. There's Maya, the Siren, who is able to project a forcefield around enemies and haul them out of cover. There's Salvador, the Gunzerker, a raging slab of muscle and testosterone whose special powers is dual-wielding weapons. Like the first Borderlands, players have a choice of four character classes to pick from. In swift succession, the player finds themselves joining up with a rebel movement – led by the four characters from the original game – who want to stop Jack from unleashing some sort of unstoppable weapon upon the planet's inhabitants.
Hyperion's man on the ground is a sneering bucket of contempt and hair grease known only as Handsome Jack, who has taken it upon himself to wipe any non-Hyperion personnel – including the player – off the face of Pandora. As the game begins, Pandora is in the grip of a war between an entity known at the Hyperion Corporation and a rag-tag band of prospectors. There's a plot of sorts, but it's mainly used as a framework to hang a ton of gun battles and looting opportunities off. For example, the fact that Pandora's resident big-game hunter sports a monocle and a plummy British accent shouldn't surprise anyone, but if you could predict this character would send you on a mission that involves sifting through mounds of alien dung for voice recorders, you're a more visionary gamer than I.
Gearbox paints in broad brushstrokes, sure, but they don't rely on cardboard cut-out characters or run-of-the-mill mission structure. The planet of Pandora is equal parts Firefly and Mad Max, with all of the dialogue and plotting taken care of by the creators of South Park. The world of Borderlands 2 is a place where irreverent space-western sci-fi collides with trailer-park horrorshow hostility and all of it is shot through with rambunctious playground humour. There's a kernel of truth to that, sure, but the game's most immediate impact is made by Gearbox fleshing out the overall character of the universe they created in the first Borderlands. A rudimentary appraisal of the game is that Gearbox is simply super-sizing their 2009 sleeper-hit, giving players more – well, a super-tanker-load more – of guns to shoot, enemies to kill and trinkets to pick up. The fact that I've spent four paragraphs talking about my favourite weapons in Borderlands 2 should give you some sense of the loving care that inhabits every pixel of this title. Nope, I'm a Jakob man, through and through. And don't get me started on Tediore their guns may be effective, but their garish day-glo colours mark them out as the sort of guns you'd take to a rave. I prefer them to, say, the rockabilly blasters made by Bandit, or the hi-tech, yet soulless-looking stock of Hyperion. Not only do their guns bring the pain, as it were, but they all have a classic, wild-west-meets-steampunk look to them. Yes, it could be said that Jakob is my favourite weapons manufacturer on Pandora. Unless, of course, you score a critical hit and then you're looking at 1,345 points of damage in most instances, the target's head simply goes away. This is a sleek, beautiful instrument of death capable of putting 245 points of damage into targets at a fair distance.
Over longer range, though, it's fairly useless, which is why I have the Jakob Skookum Muckamuck sniper rife. At close range, this unassuming little handgun is capable of doling out more pain than a couple of the shotguns I have in my possession. Pull the trigger on this baby and you're rewarded with a satisfying crack, the control pad kicks in your hands and the target in front of you takes 293 points of damage. They aren't as pleasing either sonically or physically to use as assault rifles or shotguns and they usually don't cause as much damage. This is a new one for me, as I don't usually take to pistols in shooter games. The name may sound a little silly, but I tell you, it's a work of art. It's a pistol holding nine rounds with what looks like a bread knife soldered to the underside of its slender barrel. D o you know what my favourite gun is at the moment? The Jakob Ornery Law.