Borderlands 2 - Xbox 360

Fans of Borderlands 2 may already know all about the gunzerker and the siren, but at this year’s E3 2012, I go my hands on the man who let’s his blade do all the talking for him, the Assassin.

Zer0, the ninja that wears emoticons on his face, prefers to work from the shadows with quick kills either up-close or from a distance. As I got to throw in the 12 free points given to me for the demo, I quickly ran through the tech trees to see what kind of ninja I could cobble together.

His main skill lets him go invisible while sending out a decoy. I picked up the perk that turns the decoy into a ticking bomb, so when the enemies flocked to him, they would have a nasty little shock just waiting to hit them. The two dueling ideas--distance and strike--came up time and time again as I tried to spread the love. While invisible, I could do a lot of damage up close for one shot or give myself some breathing room for a long shot from a distance.

Today’s mission took us to small city, a far cry from the flat deserts and shacks of the first game. As I explored the greenery and varied elevation of the world, troopers as well as robots poured in from all sides.

My ninja crumpled under prolonged close firefights. Liberal use of the cloaking ability gave me both a way out for my character as well as a way to get in one good kill before everyone turned their machine hate my way. As the successor to Mordecai, Zer0 seems more flexible build-wise when it comes to creating a character with a pack full of sniper rifles or one wielding a shotgun. The choice is yours.

The mission took us from the town square to the docks behind one of the buildings. Again, we saw a varying degree of environments that all added some flavor to the world around you. In order to tear down some offending statues, I needed to repair a laser bot and protected it while it cut away at each of the statues.

As my shots rang out, I started to really appreciate the enemy animation as a bullet clipping a leg or an arm really showed on the way the enemy fell and tried at times to pick itself up.

It took me awhile to get the hang of the cloaking skill as well as set a rhythm to the gameplay. Because of that, my robot friend suffered as more enemies attacked it. With his health below half, I noticed that the mission came with an optional objective to keep my buddy above half health. A better shot might have gotten the added objective as well as a bonus for accomplishing so.

As it is, I think that I’m going to keep playing around with all the classes until I find the one I like. But one thing’s for sure, Borderlands 2 is certainly a game I want to keep playing.