Borderlands is in the wonderful business of providing goods and guns to insatiable looters. Dubbed the best-selling game in publisher 2K's history, Borderlands 2 refines a gaming bear trap of Diablo-esque questing and shooting, sending up to four friends across the craggy planet of Pandora in search of treasure, weapons and mightier bosses to topple. It's the perfect platform for more, more, more, and Gearbox Software has delivered big and small expansions breathlessly.

Some level of self-awareness has always pervaded Borderland's sense of humor, but the title of the newest game, developed in collaboration between 2K Australia and Gearbox, is the strongest instance of it yet. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! - exclamation and all - is a laughing deflection of whatever criticisms you might have in the quiver. It's not quite as big as Borderlands 2, no. It's not rethinking the franchise. It's the same engine on the same ol' Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. It's filling in the backstory between games. But, y'know, it's not like Randy Pitchford's been calling it Borderlands 3! (He hasn't, honest.)

I get the sense that fans are still getting more than the game's pre-emptive modesty implies, and that even a basic plan of "more Borderlands" grew into something slightly more ambitious. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes players to the low-gravity environment of the moon and the Hyperion space base that's watched over them on Pandora, and it finally lets them see things (and shoot things) as a short, eccentric robot - Claptrap.