If Borderlands 2 doesn’t excite you, then you NEED help. This game WILL be EPIC. The undeniably hypnotic nature of dubstep (new electronic/techno-ish genre, nicknamed “wub wub”) never fails to draw people in whether it’s with gun pictures or new Borderlands 2 trailer…but there’s only one problem. Borderlands 2 DOESN’T have dubstep! I’m still getting over it, so taking a repeated look at gameplay videos help. If you’ve had a chance to drool over the gun models yet, no doubt you’ve thought something along the lines of, “wait…is that a Maliwan..? Or wait..maybe that’s a Dahl! Err no…wait.” With the insanely cool futuristic vibe of the new guns in the soon-to-be (follow-up) shoot&loot hit, I decided it’s about time to take a deeper look. I’ll cover all brands, but will be doing so in segments.

Unlike my rival game-bloggers, I resisted the urge to post about the new Loot Chest Collector’s Edition for pre-purchase like the 300 idiots others. Instead, today we’ll be looking at which guns in which videos are from which manufacturers. A good amount of information you should already have encountered if you’ve kept up with developments, so not everything will be new. And yesss, there are pictures.

Tediore: Tediore in Borderlands 1 was nothing short of a joke. This isn’t to say all the guns sucked or even that they didn’t have some cool ones, but when I think about Tediore, I think of nothing at all. Ok, I lied. I think of that matte-grey, plastic look. They had great reload, but that was it. In short, Tediore is known for bargain basement prices and mediocre stats “anyone can afford.” It’s funny because in a previous Borderlands 2 video, one of the reps commented how Tediore is like the “Wal-Mart” of guns. They’re build quality is so crappy you can just throw them away prior to reload because they’re liable to explode any minute. As you probably know, the more ammo left in the clip, the more damage an explosion will do. Don’t get it twisted though…Tediore aren’t designed to serve as grenade replacement. Instead of say, elemental damage from a Maliwan, Tediore gets their numbers from additional mini-explosions.

Of course, the reason you can throw them away is because of the digistruct technology you briefly interact with in the first game. As long as you have a gun’s “plans,” then you can carry as many as your virtual inventory will allow. I’m sure most of you noticed this is where your guns materialize from if you watch another player switch weapons. Moving on, the designs of the “new” Tediore, still match that same matte plastic ascetic with carbon fiber plating occasionally. At least it looks like carbon fiber. Guns will have plenty of rounded polygonal shapes. Either way, the new Tediore guns will be a blast to play.

Bandit Brand: As mentioned in a couple demos, the bandit brand often consists of weapons made from everyday parts. A bottle might take place of a standard scope, while the sight is compromised from a nut and bolt. Make no mistake though, not all Bandit weapons will look like this. Obviously, I haven’t seen all the guns, but the giveaways are supposed to be more screws and bolts. If the sight has a prominent amount of screws around it, most likely, it’s been made by the bandits. In other words, not all these guns are made of screws and duct tape, but a good amount of them are. So if the word “badass” is in your vocabulary, undoubtedly, the Bandit weapons will have a special place in your heart…or maybe one of their bullets in someone else’s heart if you know what I mean! S&S Munitions have been replaced by Bandits and retain the huge ammo capacity, so don’t worry about ridiculously giant-clipped yellow guns floating around. Personally, I’m glad S&S is gone because I rarely used their weapons. Besides the obscene amount of bullets you could spray, they didn’t have any redeeming qualities. It’s good Gearbox took the time to fix that.

Jakobs: When I took a look at one of the interviews, someone said Jakobs fire as fast as the trigger (or mouse in this instance) is depressed. I couldn’t help but think that’s kind of irrelevant. Unless talking about a 30+ frame (.5 seconds) difference in firing time, I don’t know why they mentioned it. Perhaps the other SMG and pistols have a slight delay to make Jakobs a bit more unique. In the original Borderlands, all guns fired “as soon as the trigger was pressed.” Besides having increased trigger response, Jakobs has a really western feel to them. Especially the snipers & revolvers. In general, many of their productions don gold, wood, and/or intricate silver designs. Apparently, in the Borderlands universe, wood is hard to come by. Damage-wise, Jakobs never have elemental effects and only make snipers, revolvers, and shotguns. Due to increased weight from better build quality, they usually handle recoil pretty well too. Though on the flip side, they’re firing rate is horrific — which accounts for the raw power.

For those who were lucky to get his or her hands on a pearlescent sniper, it was the most powerful weapon in the game stat-wise. Majority of Jakobs’ revolvers (or weapons period) weren’t to my liking, but it seems they’ve been given a substantial visual upgrade along with the other guns. As you probably guessed, when it comes to straight up POWER, Jakobs will be its posterboy. Again, I’m not a fan of Jakobs, but maybe I’m just not a fan yet.

Alright, that concludes the first spotlight! Which weapons should i cover next? What’s YOUR Favorite!?