Since none of you duders came to my aid, I just went ahead and ploughed through this lovable little scamp of a video game by myself. And good golly, isn’t that just a jolly little FPS to romp around in? Coming back to it after a couple of years away from the Xbox 360 version of the game, and getting down to the juicy PC version (it ain’t that terrible, despite what many people say about the UI, as it happens, you should be using a Xbox 360 controller anyway) was a great experience. The amalgamation of blasting through half remembered parts of that game along with experiencing the new sights and sounds proffered by the DLC that I had missed out on the first time around (namely, Claptrap's New Robot Revolution) was really quite a good bit of fun.
The instantly familiar heft and weight of the weaponry was somehow soothing to my ailing digits, the tried and true left trigger/right trigger combination of firing a scoped combat rifle into the squishy heads of distant enemies was like a warm comforting blanket around my shoulders. In fact, this familiarity was fed by more than just these feeble human feelings, but also due to the fact that I was still using the same wired Xbox 360 controller that I had bought in October 2008, and which I had originally played Borderlands with back in 2009. There is a small story to this particular controller (and in particular, the particular parts that make up this particular controller) that maybe, someday, I’ll be able to share with you all. If you’re good, and don’t leave any of this homemade content on your plate.
What a crock of shit all that was, maybe I should write about why I thought this was an awesome game in 2009, and why I think it’s still pretty not bad today, or whatever day I post this edition on (yeah...that’s right, these posts are called ‘editions’...bringing back that magazine terminology for twenty does). Here we go.
I started a completely new game on a completely new platform, but I still choose to roll with the only class that I had ever poured any serious amount of time into, the soldier. It’s not as if I’d not tried out the other patrons of punishment during my first go-around with the game, but the time I spent with the other four characters probably totalled something in the region of a dozen hours or so. The primary reasons for picking the same guy once again are that I really like having a deployable turret with homing missiles, team ammo regen, grenade regen, huge magazine sizes on scoped combat rifles, along with grenades and bullets that heal my whole team. All of these little features packed into the soldier really suit my style of gameplay, at least in this game, which is to usually stay out of way of enemies and put about 500 corrosive rounds into their skulls from outside of their effective range. Now, Mordecai and his affinity for sniper rifles could of course reach out and touch those distant enemies with great ease, but those rifles tend to be semi automatic and have small magazines. I like to be able to go from burst fire to fully automatic as and when the situation demands.
I’ve not forgotten that all of the classes can indeed make use of all of the weapon types, but the way I tend to play is to stick with the favoured weapon of that particular class, I find I can make the most of class mods and proficiency levels that way. Speaking of class mods, and their interaction with your skill points (oh yeah, this game includes some RPG elements...hmm...), did you know that even though you can only have five points assigned to any one skill in your skill tree, any bonuses applied by class mods invisibly stack above and beyond that ‘maximum’ number, all the way up to nine points in total, made up from five points from the tree and four points from a mod. Huh, that’s not a thing that’s ever mentioned or explained at any point in the game, ever. Which is a shame, at least for the ghost of past me, because I never knew that the first time around. I rectified this by making damn sure that I exploited this functionality throughout my recent playthrough.
My faithful soldier is called Walter White, and I can role play him. Wait, no, that’s not really what I mean, let me try and explain what I’m getting at. As we all know, Borderlands has a light sprinkling of RPG Parmigiano-Reggiano all over its meaty FPS lasagne base. Now it clearly isn’t a RPG in the same way as Fallout or The Witcher or Baldur’s Gate is, but it does have those flavourful crunchy nuggets of RPG elements mixed up in there. I, however, am not talking about functionality or mechanics, loot tables or the levelling up that is bestowed unto the player by these associated RPG elements. What I mean by role playing in this case is that, more than any other single player/co-op FPS game that I can care to remember, you are being constantly encouraged and rewarded by the effect you are having upon both your enemies and your teammates. The role that you are playing. Not through dialogue choices or a colour-coded morality wheel, but through the weapons and abilities that you bring to bear on your opponents, and the well-defined niche that you are filling inside of the team dynamic. More words coming at you in the next paragraph...
In a 4 player co-op campaign game of Halo 3 (which is great fun, by the way), you have a ‘role’ as part of the team in relation to the weapons that you are carrying, which in turn probably comes from your skill and ability with those said weapons. There are certain people who are expert snipers, and will never pick up a hammer or a sword, then there will be those people that prefer to stick with plasma weapons in order to effectively rip through enemy shields and so and so forth. Due to the weapon balancing that Bungie does in its Halo games you are actively encouraged to change weapons as the situation demands it, you cannot physically reach out to an opponent who is 300 feet away with a shotgun, so you must switch up or scavenge up something else to deal with the threat. Ideally, your teammates will be aware that you are holding the sole shotgun among your group, and therefore target the enemies that you can not...ideally...
Now, these roles as defined by balance of player ability and weapon limitation in Halo 3 are morphed into something quite refreshing when we look at how Borderlands handles things, at least in my gorgeous watery blue eyes. You have quick access to any one of four weapons (not quite from the beginning of the game, but still early in the grand scheme of things), with no restrictions as to what kind of weapon you are able to use at any particular time. Unlike what we find in the Halo games, where every weapon behaves in the same way every time, you are able to supplement and upgrade the effectiveness of your armaments in Borderlands. This, of course ties into those scrummy RPG elements mentioned earlier, upgrading and levelling up and whatnot. But what I feel that Borderlands is giving me here is a continual feedback loop where I become more and more invested in using a weapon, along with the feeling that I'm playing into the role that the combat rifle is best suited to.
I’ve just spent all that time just rambling about how I think the combat rifles in Borderlands feel rewarding to use.
I THINK WE’LL END THIS TRAINWRECK THERE FOR NOW THANKS!?
I'll sit quietly and think about what I done, and try to form actual real boy thoughts about this game and talk about other goods things that are on the inside of it, suffice it to say that it's still a great game overall and it remains as enjoyable as ever. And except for the slight inconvenience caused by the lack of warp points inside of the DLC levels, I have learnt to love it all over again. The warp points are just a minor issue that I’m sure Randy has personally fixed for Borderlands 2, which will drop into my gaping British computer machine in 45 days time.
Some of the numbers related to me playing this game:
First played: 21 July, 2012
Last played: 4 August, 2012
36.7 total hours on record
51 of 80 (64%) achievements earned
First achievement earned: And They'll Tell Two Friends (21 July, 2012)
Last achievement earned: It's so realistic! (4 August, 2012)
Level 44
Level 30 combat rifle proficiency
34 items purchased
72863 total shots fired
573 kills from critical hits
2411 combat rifle kills
437 sniper rifle kills
149 pistol kills
10 rocket launcher kills
9 SMG kills
0 shotgun kills
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