Quick Look: Borderlands 2 with PhysX Effects

Borderlands 2 came out last week and delivered, without a doubt, an impressive experience both in terms of gameplay or story, but also in terms of visuals, as the team at Gearbox has revisited the gorgeous cel-shaded style used by the original title and refined it in a variety of ways.

While the game looks good on consoles, Borderlands 2 truly shines on the PC, as Gearbox Software was determined to include a variety of enhancements for the platform, in order to reward the loyal user base.

As such, if you meet the recommended system requirements, then you’re in for a truly impressive time.

If you want to experience the absolute best, however, you’d better get an Nvidia graphics card, as Gearbox has implemented extended support for the company’s PhysX technology in the new game.

From waving flags to realistic liquid and debris flying everywhere, this support takes the Borderlands 2 experience to a whole new level.

In order to accurately show this off, we have made a special video with the game when played with the PhysX effects set to high.

The most noticeable change when playing in this mode is that there are lots of flags decorating buildings and various other locations. While that may not seem like much, you can interact with these flags and even shoot them, in case you get tired of gunning down actual enemies.

Another change is the way liquid works in the game. From the blood of enemies to the sewage spewing from toilets, to the different other substances that are present in the universe, everything behaves much more realistically and, at least at first, may seem a bit awkward.

Once you get used to it, however, going back to other games is quite hard, as in most titles nowadays physics effects are handled by the CPU, instead of an Nvidia GPU.

By far the biggest change when playing Borderlands 2 with PhysX relates to debris, ranging from bullet casings to rocks or sparks. Everything jumps around and, once you get an incendiary weapon, sparks truly fly all around you, as you can see towards the end of the video.

While Borderlands 2 is certainly an adequate game in its standard version, every PC gamer owes it to himself to try it out with PhysX turned up to the maximum setting. In case you don’t believe us, check out the video above.