Needs random Gamecenter co-op, otherwise a great game that works well on a Macbook Air

As stated above, you can only play co-op with Game Center friends. If you want access to co-op with random people online, you will need to purchase the Steam edition. I understand cross platform multiplayer with Steam is not possible with the Mac Appstore edition, but random matching online with Game Center users would be highly appreciated. If this were to be implimented, I would give this app a 5 star rating. Despite the lack of an accesible co-op mode, the single player more than makes up for this. Playing solo makes you feel like a pioneer traversing an unsettled foreign land. Unlike Borderlands GOTY, Borderlands 2 contains different enviornments ranging from a desert, a plains surrounded by mountains, and a tundra. It’s not completely open world, but rather divided into many seperate areas that can be accesed via a transportation device, though I never felt boxed into the game world. The large vistas made the game feel much more open.

Besides the stellar enviornments, the game’s mission hub, a town name Sanctuary, gave the game much more life. It was nice to have an area where I was not required to kill enemies for a change. It made the game world feel more plausible and full of life. The side characters also provide great company and humor, especially your robotic companion “claptrap”. The great characters, environments, and millions of weapons/customization options really give Borderlands 2 a lot of life even though the game consists mostly of grinding.

It’s also worth mentioning how well this game runs on lower-end macs. I am running this game with detail settings on high with a 2014 i5 processor 4 GB Ram Macbook Air. With a simple guide online, I was able to tweak the GameEngine.ini file to make this game run smoothly on my Mac. With the .ini file tweaks, turning off unneccesary features like dynamic shadows, lowering the resolution to 1280 x 720, and capping the frame rate at 30 fps; I was able to play Borderlands 2 on high details without the fan kicking up for long play sessions. I am really impressed with this port’s optimization!

Lastly, it should be known that you do not need any of the DLC to enjoy this game. The base game is leagues better than the DLC. Tiny Tina’s Assult on Dragon Keep was a great expansion worth buying during Aspyr’s many $1.99 DLC sales. The rest are kind of shallow and quick campaigns revolving around a side character.

Salsander about Borderlands 2