Borderlands 2 Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode Review

Okay.  You can play UVHM if you beat Borderlands 2 on True vault hunter mode...but you cannot raise your experience without a 'Season pass'.  That will be $17 Canadian, please.  $15 US.  I'd like to under cut Gearbox.  If you give me $10...I will come to your residence and kick you in the nuts.  In effect producing the same relative experience...and saving you both time and money. 

The game starts off with bullymongs attacking.  They are no longer push-overs.  They are ridiculously brutal.  All those firearms that you used to be proud of back in TVHM...with numbers you agonized over?  They are all relative shit now.  Everything is relative shit.   The code monkeys went into the allocation of variables...and cranked them all up times 4.  Yeah...real technical stuff (Oh...that's cynicism).  You do get caught up in the challenge of the game.  Which is what caught me for several days.  You can no longer play the way you used to.  Having a slag weapon is a 'Must have' now rather than a 'I can't be bothered'.  There is no 'Rampage'.  You are everyone's bitch in a direct fight.  Use of cover and guerrilla fighting to keep you alive and capable of winning is a must.  Because of the degree at which the game was made harder, it forces people to group up...and form units who's members abilities must work well with the next.  For those who aren't into that degree of cooperative play...you can get a good deal into the game before all your dying and the 'Boss stat trash mobs' take their toll on your sense of logic even in denial.  I once said that this was the worst kind of 'Hard mode'.  You don't improve the AI...you just raise the hit points.  For 3 fucking years, Gearbox has been milking the shit out of Borderlands 2.  They've mostly earned their money with each expansion.  It looks like they are just getting lazy now. 

It's kind of cool that you can completely change the play of the game by manipulating a few variables...which is relatively quite simple.  I enjoyed the challenge of the game.  It was a nice feeling that, after a level had kicked you ass, that you finally came back and beat it.  It demands more from the player.  It is all it has.  When I finally awoke from my stupor of denial,  I realized that, apart from
being challenged, it wasn't the game I wanted to play.