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The exclamation mark clinging to the title of this Borderlands spin-off - on its box, if not on this website - makes a promise that the game itself sadly can't quite keep. This is a series that has always tipped towards zany characters and anarchic cartoon energy, yet for all its excitable punctuation, there's a noticeable shortage of those elements in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.This is a game set before Borderlands 2, yet narrated in flashback after the events of that game. This time, the quartet of playable characters is drawn from the ranks of previous enemy bosses. There's Athena, from The Secret Armory of General Knoxx expansion, who uses a shield in much the same way as Captain America. There's Nisha, sheriff of Lynchtown, whose abilities are based on gunplay. There's Wilhelm, whose abilities centre on cyborg implants and a pair of remote drones which attack enemies and heal the player. Finally, there's comedy robot Claptrap, whose VaultHunter.EXE ability causes random effects based on the situation. Sometimes they involve dancing or meat unicycles.
All are working on behalf of Handsome Jack, the villain of Borderlands 2. Much of the plot is spent establishing the origins of characters and plot threads from the last game, making it difficult to recommend to newcomers. If you're not familiar with the role that the Helios space station is destined to play, or the robot army that Jack relied on, many of the missions here will feel disconnected.
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