Added to my journal.

Borderlands 2.

And here is one of my favorite games; I replayed it the other day. I got acquainted with the series quite a long time ago—ah, how soulful it was back then, on cold winter evenings, blowing bandits' heads off with a revolver. All that was in the first part, which differs greatly from the second. I'd say that overall I like the first one more—it's "lampy," the general style is more interesting, and for me personally, the mechanics are more pleasant. But maybe I'll talk about it some other time; but for now: BUZZING AXES BLOOD CANNIBALISM MUTANTS FIRE ACID ELECTRICITY HEADSHOTS BANDITS MEAT MOTORCYCLES FOR TWO AND MUCH MORE!

Let's start, as usual, with the technical parameters:
The game's genre is a First-Person Shooter—shooting people, non-people, vehicles, and gasoline barrels from various weapons. Well, you know, like Crucis, hehe, or like Minecraft, but without squares and without crafting. And without let's players with cerebral palsy.
The graphics here can be characterized as "drawn." For me personally, this is a plus, as I love everything drawn, and specifically this style is just heartfelt. Despite the lack of some super-realism (for obvious reasons), everything is done very beautifully; it fascinates, strikes to the depths of the soul, provides sincere visual pleasure, and eats up a lot of PC resources. The general concept of the game—the madness happening across the expanses of Pandora—perfectly matches the artist's brush: dust, acid, burnt metal, blood, wonderful.
Well anyway, let's not talk about the fleeting. Better I'll say that in the game, heroes gain levels and level up! And for a level, you can take certain skills, just like in the blessed Diablo Two. This is what the skill trees look like:

Generally, the lower down, the stronger the skills are, and at the very bottom there's an ultimate—it only levels up to 1 (others up to 5 units) and hits hard. Level also affects damage/defense relative to enemies; low-level enemies will deal less dammage and take more. So, running straight to the end of the game to fight bosses is unlikely to work.

Just like in the god-like Diablo Dew, there are several characters here:

Axton, The Commando - An experienced soldier, formerly a sergeant in the DAHL corporation's military forces. He can throw his big gun in enemies' faces, which under certain circumstances illuminates the nearby area with a nuclear mushroom cloud. Throws many grenades if he wants to. Runs fast! Shoots fast! Doesn't die! A true fighter.
Maya, The Siren - A cutie possessing a special power; there are only six of them IN THE UNIVERSE and you can learn about the others as you progress through the plot; specifically, Maya can create various chaos, pulling enemies into corrosive clouds, binding them in her sparkling purple sphere, burning their little bodies with fire. A good girl.
Salvador, The Gunzerker - Takes two guns in his hands, runs forward, showering enemies with a wall of lead and foul language. A cheerful fellow (he really didn't get the height), reloads right while shooting, periodically gives enemies a chance to view his middle fingers. Shoots from two guns! THAT IS ALL HE DOES AND IT IS EXCELLENT.
Zero, The Assassin - This sneaky bastard stabs his sharp blade into enemies from invisibility. Masterfully handles the sniper rifle, runs fast, chops enemies to pieces in melee combat, throws knives with various elemental damage. One of the heroes who can complete the game almost without using guns, chopping everyone with a sword.
Gaige, The Mechromancer - An anime girl with a big-big robot that she periodically summons to the battlefield (and he ebows everyone). Can create shock damage everywhere she goes, knows how to miss at point-blank range with a shotgun, but if she suddenly hits, she takes away half of the bosses' health bars. Funny; you can build up the robot and complete the game on the first difficulty without any stress at all.
KRIEG, THE PSYCHO - LOVES TO CUT PEOPLE WITH A BUZZING AXE LOVES TO POUR GASOLINE ON HIMSELF AND SET IT ON FIRE LOVES TO HURL FIREBALLS IN RANDOM DIRECTIONS LOVES TO SHOOT INFINITELY FROM MACHINE GUNS LOVES TO SHOUT INSPIRING THINGS ABOUT MEAT MOTORCYCLES FOR TWO.
Each of the heroes has their own special ability, "Action Skill," and three branches of unique skills. You can check here.

What about guns? There are a certain number of weapon types in the game:
Assault Rifles - Fast-firing single burst like a Kalash; slower firing, but with the ability to shoot accurately while looking through a scope; huge ones that don't fire in bursts but are powerful; those that fire a lot, having a magazine five times larger than others, not very accurate.
Shotguns - Based on the double-barrel principle: boom, blew the enemy to pieces; automatic, many shots in a row without reloading, but weaker; something in between, high damage, eat several shells per shot, but have a couple or three in the magazine.
SMG (small rattle-guns like assault rifles, if anyone doesn't know) - Simpler here, they are all roughly of the same type, but those from DAHL shoot much more accurately. Shoot quickly, reload quickly.
Pistols - Unlike the first part, not as fun. Just pistols, shoot with medium accuracy and normal damage; you can get used to giving everyone headshots without a problem; automatic, shoot fast like an assault rifle but more accurate at short distances; something like revolvers, don't fire in bursts, powerful;
Snipers - Simple with these too. Ordinary ones: critical damage is extremely high, normal is extremely low; elemental ones: critical damage to the corresponding armor type is very high, normal damage to the corresponding armor type is acceptable, any other damage is around zero.
Rocket Launchers - Very strong, long reload, have few shells in the backpack, extremely effective against bosses or large clusters of enemies. Fire one or three rockets per shot.
Grenades - You just throw them and they explode)) So that's it. But they explode in dozens of different ways: split into small grenades, shower nearby enemies with fire or electricity, pull everyone toward themselves, lifesteal for the player. There are many of them.
Besides the fact that guns differ by themselves and their types, there is also the difference between manufacturers.

Each has its own features. For example, Jakobs produces only non-automatic weapons with physical damage, while Maliwan does the opposite. Torgue guns blast exploding bullets; for Tedior weapons, instead of reloading, the character simply throws it away and a second later gets a new one in their hands, already fully loaded (this is explained by the fact that manufacturing is so cheap that it's easier to use Digistruct technology, "printing" mechanisms with a magic beam of life).
Besides standard guns differing in parameters (damage, accuracy, level, reload speed, etc.), there are tons of legendary and simply unique items with their own fun mechanics.
What else can we equip our already poorly-assed character with to give them uniqueness? With things like these:
Class Mod - A thing that gives different classes various bonuses and pluses to skills. There are many, for every taste, each with its own possible bonuses.
Shield - Besides health, there is a shield bar in the game that restores after some time (depending on the characteristics of the item itself).
Grenade Mod - Essentially, your grenades. Many different ones: bouncing, flying for a million kilometers, homing.
Artifact - Grants various bonuses not tied to a specific class.
Besides ordinary physical (gun damage), there are five elements in the game: Incendiary (deals a lot of damage to enemies without shields, sets them on fire), Corrosive (dissolves armor, poisons), Shock (instantly wipes out shields), Explosive (pierces impenetrable armor elements, deals area damage), Swag Slag (coats the enemy in purple jam, which increases all other damage to them).
On the first difficulty levels, you don't even have to worry about elements, but if you want to complete the game on Hell, you'll have to use shock weapons additionally at a minimum.

Now you probably understand that the game is not an ordinary shooter like those we've been used to since the nineties (oldfag check ✓). I had never seen anything like this before, so my shock was total—my hands curled in spasms, breath knocked out of my lungs, drool flowed down my lip. Incredible! Genius! Why didn't anyone think of this before? And if they did, why didn't they do it properly? And if they did, where has it been all these years? Unthinkable to take a skill system from an action-RPG and transfer it into a shooter, thereby getting rid of many flaws of Diablo-like games.

Enough mechanics, let's talk about everything else!
Intro. After watching it, you can get some understanding, even just a little bit, of what is actually happening.

So, we are on Pandora, a planet once populated mainly by miners, scientists, various other workers, and military. Corporations flew here to dig for resources, but as it turned out, there weren't that many of them. In short, Dahl dug the most, lost the most, and eventually had problems with the Atlas corporation, which had the most advanced technologies at the time on its side. Other corporations also had their interests on Pandora, but to learn about them, you need to play other games in the series or read articles. They were digging, then, digging selflessly like square-headed schoolkids, and then suddenly a Vault—a shelter, a storehouse, whatever you prefer? Or better yet, use the skills of an excellent Russian translation and call it an Artifact Warehouse? Sounds good, especially since that's what it is in essence. People first thought that the Artifact Warehouse™ really was a warehouse of artifacts from another race, the Eridians—come, loot, get rich, dominate enemies, humiliate. But the only artifact contained in the Artifact Warehouse™ was the DESTROYER, which crawled out and started licking everything with its purple tentacles while firing lasers from its eye. Nice farming, much loot, such vault, wow. In the end, the giant eye was killed (spoiler), and it gave birth to tons of a magical purple element ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), called Eridium. This thing turned out to be very useful and expensive, so it began to be mined so intensively that half the planet turned into an industrial dump (from an ordinary dump).

I won't go into details of previous parts/events; the essence of the second part is:
The planet fell under the power of Hyperion and a new president who came to power over it through cunning manipulations. He has his own story, which you won't find out now (ha-ha), but the point is that he is the main villain of Borderlands 2.
Handsome Jack.

"See, this is what I don't get about you bad guys. You know the hero's gonna win, but you never just die quickly-- man, this one guy in New Haven, right? City's burning, people dying, blah blah blah. This guy rushes me with a spoon. A fricking spoon. And I'm just laughing. So I scoop out his eyeballs with it, and his kids are all, "aghhhhh!,” and, ah...you had to be there. Anyway, the moral is: you're a total bitch."

Russian translation power turn on, Handsome Jack... Arrrgh pain death blood.
Handsome Jack lures us (Vault Hunters™) into a trap. The train goes off the rails, we plow our faces through a couple of snowdrifts and end up at a snowy bus station, where our new friend(?) digs us out and hands us an ECHO-communicator connected to the local global network.
Claptrap.

"Allow me to introduce myself -- I am a CL4P-TP steward robot, but my friends call me Claptrap! Or they would, if any of them were still alive. Or had existed in the first place! Oh -- I’ve got something for you!"

We shoot the faces of local snow monkeys, make our way to a small town, then go shoot the faces of bandits and the bandit boss, sail by boat to our "new home," a town situated on a funny thing. It's called Sanctuary (hello Diablo))).
"Sanctuary. Built on the ruins of the Dahl corporation’s finest interplanetary mining ship, now the last refuge for thieves, murderers, and outcasts. Welcome home."
After completing a couple of missions for Roland, leader of the CRIMSON RAIDERS, we get inside, where we immediately meet other guys.
Scooter.

"Roland said we gotta have an exit strategery just in case he ever disappeared, hence all the fuel cells and whatnot. Bummer, though -- he really wanted to meet ya. Raiders ain’t gonna last without some new blood, and given how you shot them bandits up I’d say you and blood got an extra-special relationship. Like cousins takin' a bath together."

The local super-mechanic, owner of the Catch-a-Ride system, which allows you to get a brand new vehicle at any available point of its presence. He tells us that Mr. Roland is not around and it would be good to look for him (us). Let's visit the local doctor.
Dr. Zed.

"Oh, right, I was supposed to be studyin' the effects of these E-tech guns on bandits. Right now it looks like, uh…looks like if you shoot 'em a lot, they die. Did I mention I don't have a medical license?"

I hope a certain picture of what's happening has formed in your head; what do we do next? Tu-tu-ru! We follow the plot into the corridors of the bandit nest. We shoot off enemies' limbs, get stronger every minute, save the leader of the CRIMSON RAIDERS, find out that Handsome Jack found another Artifact Warehouse™, which contains a Magma Elemental from the fifth heroes called WARRIOR. We move further, kill everyone, acquire skills, grasp the intricacies of the plot (which there are none), and entertain ourselves in every way. I won't retell the plot; it's not where the whole essence lies anyway.
The essence is in the unique atmosphere immersed in the industrial chaos of the planet, the charismatic characters encountered by players throughout the game, and the excellent mechanical part that allows you to destroy legions of enemies stylishly, briskly, and craftily. The series has a decent history told across four games. Of course, it's full of assumptions and some illogical elements (completely illogical—you'll see when you play; in the first part, under Stalin, this didn't happen!), but overall, especially if you take the general concept, it's wonderfully told.
So what do we have? If you are a fan of shooters, buddy, then you will like this game. If you can't imagine yourself without leveling up your character, everything is good here too. If you love exploring a huge, practically open world, you are welcome here! Are you a casual player? Just came from the factory, hard worker—play Borderlands, low-stress and fun! Are you a hardcore nerd and not interested in these "games for casual workers"? Try completing Borderlands on all difficulties, reaching the highest level, and then kill the raid bosses, of which there are plenty here; tell me how it went. Do you love to grind gear for hours in a party of similar nerds? Great, get three more faces and go storm x4 buffed raid bosses or at least play through the x4 buffed game. Love non-standard solutions, the smartest, mommy's little inventor? Take Zero and crush everyone with a sword, take Krieg and crush everyone with an axe while screaming wildly, take anyone and invent your own super-build through whatever. Can't handle shooters at all? No matter, Commando and Mechromancer can complete the game on normal with minimal effort; go on, don't be shy, forward to adventures!

Of course, by the scribbles of a mentally retarded degenerate—which is how I've smeared the flawless whiteness of the digital papyrus of ХВ—it might not be entirely clear what this "game" actually represents. But I advise everyone to try it; sail into the cove or crawl through an underground passage to rutracker, and if you, brother-caviar-eater, are a rich kid, buy it for 800 rubles on Steam (if you're a smaller rich kid and have "Amber" processed cheese instead of caviar, wait for a sale; you'll buy it for maybe 150). Absolutely worth the effort, money, time, mental health—heartfelt.