Welcome to Sanctuary: the beating heart of Pandora and your primary port-of-call in Borderlands 2. As you can see, Sanctuary is a sleepy mountain resort with a charming neo-Western aesthetic and all the modern conveniences a gun-toting vault-hunter could possibly desire. Boomsticks, bombs, buggies, broads, booze, and some other things that don’t begin with ‘b’ can all be found within its heavily-guarded, double-reinforced concrete walls. Keep an eye open and you might even spot a few familiar faces…

This corpulent gentleman, for example, is Marcus Kinkaid: Pandora’s premier weapons dealer and connoisseur of all things explosive. Some would call him a ruthless, amoral profiteer, whereas others would prefer not to be shot in the kneecaps with a high-powered Hyperion sniper rifle.

The regal looking fellow standing next to Marcus is Sir Hammerlock, a renowned explorer whose field notes provide essential survival tips for greenhorn vault-hunters looking to loot Pandora of its vast material wealth. (Note: Sir Hammerlock’s essential survival tips are only available to those who purchase the Loot Chest edition of Borderlands 2.)

Borderlands 2 offers a wealth of options for the fashion-conscious vault-hunter. Make your character stand out from the slovenly throng with a selection of complete costume ensembles. For example, in the above screenshot our friend the Gunzerker has coupled a traditional warrior-style beard and mohawk with an eye-searing orange t-shirt and white denim slacks. Horrid, right? But just look what happens following a brief trip to one of Pandora’s many convenient Quickchange machines…

Ta-da! The tangerine terror is now a strawberry dream. Note the lack of beard and rakish mulberry bowler hat. But what’s this-? Cockney homosexual not your style? Want something a little imposing – an outfit to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies? Well take a look at this…

We ask you: is there anything more fearsome than a blood-spattered dwarf wielding a shotgun? Look at him there with his prominent facial tattoos, bald-head, and Walter White beard: he looks he just got back from breaking faces at a Slayer concert. Total effin metal, dude.

You will notice that the Gunzerker class, like every other class in the game, has access to three distinct skill-trees. As with the first Borderlands, which skill-trees you choose to focus on – if indeed you choose to focus on one at all – can have a profound impact on the way your character plays.

Here, for example, you can see the Siren using her stasis bubble thingy that we talked about in our last hands-on preview. What we didn’t mention last time is that there are a number of ways to customise this ability to suit your particular approach to the game. You can, for example, focus on damage and select a supernova-style skill that causes the stasis bubble to explode on expiry – very handy – or if you’re more of a medic type, you can elect to have the bubble heal your team-mates and replenish your ammo.

Don’t like how your build’s going? Head on back to a Quickchange machine and, for a nominal fee, you can completely respec. Convenient!

Here we see a Commando deploying his automated turret to shoot bugs and robots. One particular skill – we can’t remember which one exactly – causes this turret to blow-up when you set it down; develop this skill enough and eventually deploying the turret will cause a small nuclear explosion that’ll wipe out almost anything within the immediate vicinity of detonation. Needless to say, it’s pretty freakin badass.

Ah, the frozen tundra: a frosty winter wonderland packed with some of Pandora’s deadliest denizens. Although you can’t see it in the screenshot, the tundra is home to a high-speed rail network, the purpose of which is not entirely clear to us (since we had to skip the quest associated with it). What we do know is that a train comes screaming through the snow at regular intervals, and if you happen to be on the tracks when it does, you’ll be promptly reduced to a blood and gizzard Slurpee. So, yeah: watch out for that.

And last but not least, we’d like to introduce a new character: Tiny Tina. Making her home on the tundra’s edge, Tiny Tina is a hyperactive 13-year-old with a taste for tea-parties and torture. If we’re being completely honest, she’s actually pretty annoying. Evidently Gearbox heard that Borderlands was “funny” and so now they’ve got it into their heads that every single character has to be a comedian and every single line of dialogue has to be wacky-wacky funtimes hilarity. Which is fine in theory, but in practice it’s more than a little exasperating.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Borderlands 2. Beautiful, accessible, addictive, and not quite as funny as it thinks it is. In a nutshell: like the original – only moreso.

Recently we sent two of Australia’s sexiest games journalists – Dan Staines and Daniel Wilks (collectively: Dans Central) – to 2K Australia’s swank Pyrmont offices to check out an early preview build of Gearbox’s much-anticipated RPG/FPS loot-em-up, Borderlands 2. After getting lost several times on the way there and almost getting run over by a bus on the way back, here’s what they returned with…

Staines: So, Borderlands 2! I guess the first thing we ought to establish, for the benefit of our beloved readers, is how we both feel about Borderlands as such. Were you a fan of the first game, Wilks?

Wilks: I was a massive fan of the first game, sinking an embarrassing number of hours into the game, crappy ending and all. As much as I like story and nuance, sometimes all I want is to kill things and watch loot explode from the falling corpses. Borderlands filled this need very well.

Staines: I liked it too, though evidently not as much as you. As I said in our Über Review way back in 2009, I very much liked the gunplay and the looting bits, but felt the RPG mechanics were a bit underwhelming. For example, I thought that character progression was muted insofar as most of the upgrades you acquired during the game were generally stat increases rather than new abilities, which I thought was a wasted opportunity.

Looking at the upgrade tree for the Siren character in Borderlands 2, it appears Gearbox has repeated that same formula, although base powers seem a lot more versatile this time round. The Siren’s “time freeze” ability, for example, seems way more useful than the phasewalk ability from the first game. How did you find the Gunzerker’s powers?

Wilks: I was a bit at a loss – I don’t usually go in for run and gun characters, so it all felt a little bit foreign to me. The Gunzerker’s class power is dual-wielding but I didn’t find it all that useful as dual-wielding negates your ability to zoom. Again, I’ll say that run and gun isn’t my usual play style, so someone used to shooting from the hip will probably find it more useful. I also felt that when compared to the Siren’s time freeze thing, the Gunzerker’s power of holding an extra gun came across as a little uninspired.

Staines: Yeah, I gotta say I wasn’t especially impressed with it either. It seems to me that a character called GUNZERKER ought to be capable of dual-wielding off the bat, but I guess that would break game balance or something.

Another thing that kind of irked me was the fact that there didn’t seem to be much scope for cooperation between our two classes. Like, it didn’t feel like we were working together so much as we were working… in tandem? If that makes sense? This could also be a function of the more expansive level-design – we did spend a fair bit of time on opposite sides of the map from each other…

Wilks: I think the feeling of not working together was more a factor of the demo than the game – the fact that we couldn’t finish the quest but didn’t know that kind of meant we just ran around at random. With proper quest structure I think the cooperative feel of the original will be back.

What did you think of the gunplay this time around? The AI definitely seems to be much more aggressive in Borderlands 2.

Staines: I loved it. The guns have a pleasant, punchy feel to them: when you shoot something you get a strong sense that you’re doing some real damage. And as you say, the AI is definitely a lot more aggressive, not to mention just generally more intelligent. Even low-level beasties like Skags work together as a cohesive pack, flanking and encircling you so as to take advantage of their superior numbers. I also like that there seems to be a much greater variety of enemies this time round, such that you’re constantly forced to change guns to exploit their inherent weaknesses.

Speaking of guns, it’s obvious that the loot treadmill is going to be as effortlessly addictive in this game as it was the first time round. I mean, we only played for… what? An hour or two? And in that time, I was already hunting for loot like a man possessed. It’s a little bit frightening, actually.

Wilks: The same style of weapon randomisation makes a welcome return, with the different elemental effects and accuracy, rate of fire and ammo capacity modifiers, but there’s an even wider variety this time around. I’m an absolute sucker for the randomised loot gamble, so hunting for chests and killing “badass” versions of monsters had that real thrill to it. I didn’t pay too much attention to the skill trees, but it looks as though there aren’t any weapon specific skills for characters, so any good weapon that drops should be a viable upgrade.

Staines: Yes and no. I think certain weapons are probably more suited to certain classes: for example, I found shotguns worked rather well with the aforementioned time freeze ability, which – I should have clarified – freezes an enemy on the spot, allowing you to unload on them at leisure. Also, I imagine the Gunzerker’s dual-wield ability works better with machine guns rather than, say, sniper-rifles.

Moving away from guns, how did you feel about the game’s presentation? Personally, I thought it looked absolutely stunning. The same comic book flair as the original, but in bigger, more detailed, more imaginative environments. Whenever I got the chance, I’d stop and just soak in it for a while – it really is that good looking.

Wilks: I thought the first one was gorgeous, but what I’ve seen of Borderlands 2 so far just leaves it for dead. There’s more of a sense of place and style about Pandora this time around, and the active day/night cycle really adds a lot to the atmosphere. Creature design looks to have been kicked up a notch as well.

Staines: Yeah, I really like loader bots: they’re so mundane, yet so menacing at the same time. A bit like the loader from Aliens, now that I think about it.

So, based on our time with it, how do you think Borderlands 2 is shaping up? I have some concerns, which I’ve already voiced, but overall I think it’s looking pretty great. I doubt I’ll be rushing out to buy it on day one, but it’s certainly something I’d like to pick up eventually – if only for four-player co-op.

Wilks: I’m far more likely to be a day one purchaser simply because I am a fiend for randomised loot. I have a few concerns about character balance, but that’s the type of stuff that is usually fixed at the last minute.

Like you, I’m also hankering for some four player co-op – if only to troll the crap out of (former games.on.net editor) Bennett Ring. Here’s a hint for anyone reading who may find themselves in a co-op game with Bennett: when you’re in a vehicle, shoot the ground immediately in front of the car so nobody can see. He loves that.

Editor’s Note: We attended the interview ready to ask as many of your questions as we could, but were then informed that Relic would not be taking questions on multiplayer aspects of the game in any capacity. Please find below the questions we were able to ask!

GON: Why did Relic choose the Eastern Front for Company of Heroes 2, and what makes it an exciting battlefield for players?

Simon Watts: It’s an interesting choice, I think. One thing that was certainly a consideration for us was, “Where did most of the action happen in World War II?” and the obvious answer there is in the Eastern Front. Germany actually lost over 80 percent of its army during that campaign, making it – arguably – the most significant front in the war. I think, in the first Company of Heroes, we covered the Western Front extensively, providing the traditional view of World War II. By switching to the Eastern Front, we’re able to tell a different kind of story – one that isn’t told very often, one that shows the sheer brutality and tremendous human sacrifice that was a part of that conflict.

GON: How did you go about conveying that sense of brutality and sacrifice in-game?

Simon Watts: Some of the battles were truly horrific, with casualties numbering in the millions, so obviously portraying that – capturing the immense brutality of these conflicts – was a difficult task for us. One thing we’ve done in the game to try and convey that is in the way we tell the story. In Company of Heroes 2 we’re actually telling the narrative through the eyes of a war journalist, so not only do you get the perspective of the commanders and high level functionaries, but also the front line troops – so you can see what it’s like for the soldiers who had to face the harsh realities of war at the ground level.

GON: Will there just be two factions, or will we be able to play as the UK or the US, or others? Will minor players in the Axis be involved at all (Romania, Italy, etc.)?

Simon Watts: The single-player campaign is the story of the Red Army vs. the Axis invaders. It’s important to point out that the Axis forces that invaded Russia was very different from the Axis army on the Western Front. They had different vehicles, different equipment, different tactics. It’s a very different Axis army than the one in the first game. We’re not talking about multiplayer just yet so I can’t go into detail about the different factions beyond that, unfortunately.

GON: Did you have any qualms about making the Red Army the heroes of your campaign? Stalin wasn’t exactly a nice guy…

Simon Watts: He wasn’t! But I think with all of the World War II conflicts, when you get down to the front-line level, when you get down to the troops, there are some real stories of heroism that transcend ideology. So, sure, Stalin wasn’t a nice guy, and neither were a lot of the political commissars who served under him, but the actual frontline troops were just the same as the frontline troops from any other nation. It’s that shared humanity, the heroism of ordinary soldiers, that we want to be the focus of our campaign.

GON: Much of the game will be fought in the freezing cold. How will that be represented mechanically in the game?

Simon Watts: One thing we’ve done is make the snow dynamic. The movement of your infantry and vehicles is affected by how much snow there is on the ground, but you can use flamethrowers to melt it or explosives to clear a path. In addition to that, your troops and vehicles will also leave permanent tracks in the snow, which theenemy can use to find you – so that’s something you have to keep an eye on.

GON: What are the chief differences between the German and Russian armies in terms of composition and technology?

Simon Watts: The German army is very much a technology-based army. Conversely, the Russian army is more about brute force in numbers, and we’ve reflected that in the game. It wouldn’t make sense for you, as the Russians, to be going toe-to-toe with the Germans with exactly the same number of troops and exactly the same vehicles because the Russians were technologically inferior for most of the war – it was only right at the very end that they started to catch up with Germany in this respect. So you’ll definitely see large numbers of troops from a Russian perspective. There are also a few other features of the Russian army that we’ll be talking about a bit later, but again they’ll add to that sense of scale.

GON: Are the differences between the armies reflected tactically? As the Russians, will we be encouraged to adopt the (often suicidal) strategies actually employed at the time?

Simon Watts: Yes, you’ll find there a bunch of abilities that the Russians have that reflect the composition of their army. On top of that, Russian troops – although not as well-equipped as the Germans – will be cheaper to produce and replace. We’ve also looked at some of the more famous Russian military doctrines, such as Order 227 whereby retreat without authorisation was punishable by death. Again, we’re really trying to emphasise the brutality of the Eastern Front, and we want that to be reflected in the kinds of tactical decisions players have to make on a regular basis.