For those of us who love to play video games, it can often be a struggle to find a great split screen game. Well look no further! Borderlands 2 has everything you could want in a "loot and shoot" game. From the hilarious characters, extensive skill trees, huge maps with loads of side missions, BL2 has something for everyone!

Borderlands is the first shooting game that I've ever played, I was always a bit intimidated by them. I saw my fiancé playing them with people online and I never really liked the idea of playing a game with so little story (besides ROCKET LEAGUE!!) It always seemed fun, but being so inexperienced I wanted to play one with a great and extensive story offline to get more acquainted with first person shooters. So we got it from Gamefly and gave it a whirl. Little did I know that I would fall in love with this game!

The story of Borderlands is about a world at the edge of human colonization in the distant future, called Pandora. It's a rough and wild place, comparable to the American Wild West. One of the things that gives it such a stylized flare is the presence of exotic alien creatures. There is a large variety of them, all very strange and deadly. From the dog like Skags and the giant mutated insectoid Spider Ants to the massive ape-like four armed Bully-mongs and sneaky teleporting Stalkers, all life on Pandora is vibrant and very, very lethal. There are quite a few missions all revolving around the wildlife of the planet, be it hunting the rarest mutations for sport, rescuing from lab experiments, or assisting the various human populations in surviving in the hostile landscapes.

In a rough land where everyone and anyone can be out to kill, one vicious, nasty and charmingly sarcastic man rules the roost. Handsome Jack is the perfect villain that you love to hate. He's so overwhelmingly successful in his conquest of Pandora that the citizens have lost all hope in beating him. You are a vault hunter, the most desperate loose canons in the galaxy, on Pandora to search for the mythical Vaults buried across the planet. With Handsome Jack quickly taking over the planet, and on the verge of claiming every possible vault as his own, you are there to stop him.

You can choose from many characters, all having their own skill trees and special effects. You can really specialize the type of player you want to be. Each character has a set of 3 skill trees to choose from, or mix and match. There are so many interesting side characters as well. They are all hilarious and each have their own wacky personalities and offer tons of side missions to add to the game. And unlike many split screen games, the text is large enough to see from a reasonable distance.

Borderlands 2 is a first person shooter that focuses heavily on the use of different guns. There are SMGs, assault rifles, snipers, shot guns, pistols and even rocket launchers! The guns also have a variety of special effects, such as Shock, Fire, Corrosive, and Slag. Each one has different effects. Shock and fire are pretty self explanatory, you use shock to damage shields and fire to burn your human enemies. Corrosive is used for hurting robots and machinery, while Slag can be used on any enemy, making them glow purple and take extra damage. My personal favorite is electrocute damage, as it causes enemies to have lightning shooting off them. There are also many kinds of grenades, shields, class mods and relics to help further customize your character. Lastly, there is no fall damage, so it's easier to get around a map.

In conclusion, Borderlands 2 has a lot of replay value, as you can change characters and have a completely different experience. The maps are large, it has dark humor, and has everything that I would want in a game. GearBox Software has just announced that they're starting production on Borderlands 3 and I'm super excited! It'll be hard to top their great work in Borderlands 2!

Thanks for reading!