Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 ranks among the most ambitious ports ever to appear on PlayStation Vita, since it squeezed a full, sprawling shooter with dozens of hours of content and endless weapon generation into your pocket. The game takes place on the harsh planet Pandora, where four mercenary vault hunters fight against the corporate tyrant Handsome Jack, whose caustic commentary accompanies the whole journey. Its foundation blends shooter and RPG: characters level up, develop skill trees, and above all collect weapons that the game randomly assembles from different parts, so every chest might hide something slightly different. On top of that comes a comic-book art style with bold outlines that stays clear and colorful even on a smaller display.

The move to a handheld required compromises. The frame rate is lower than on home consoles, detail density in the open plains dropped, and co-op was limited to two players instead of four, turning the chaotic shared firefights into a more intimate experience. On the other hand, the release included the extra characters and part of the expansions, so the sheer volume of content remained staggering, and the touchscreen took over the map, inventory, and quick weapon swapping, which made managing the enormous collection much easier.

Contemporary reviews were split: critics praised the sheer nerve of bringing a game this big to a portable console, and the fact that the fun loop of collecting and shooting still worked here, but the technical side was frequently criticized. With hindsight, the Vita version is interesting mainly as proof that the looter shooter is a genre practically made for playing in short bursts: a few missions in the evening, an interesting new weapon part, and the urge to come back tomorrow. Anyone unfamiliar with Pandora gets one of the most wittily written shooters of its time, along with a distinctive soundscape full of one-liners and a desert guitar atmosphere. It was precisely that humor and stylization that set the series apart from the competition and helped define the whole loot-shooter genre that many later games built on.