Ohai everyone, it’s time for another of my waffly writeups! This time, it’s about the good ol’ shooin’ and lootin’, Borderlands, a game and a franchise which, like Tomb Raider, holds a very special place in my heart.
I was first introduced to the franchise sometime in mid-2013 by my good friend Lauren who was practically begging me to buy this little game called Borderlands 2 on the Xbox 360. We were always looking for another game to play together! At the time, I remember eventually giving in and looking in the local Tesco by our college (it’s MASSIVE) and there was the game sitting there on the shelf in their entertainment section (I love a good entertainment section!). I got home that afternoon, loaded up my 360 (which nowadays gathers a bit of dust downstairs, it’s been well loved!) and one of us ended up inviting the other to the party chat. I’ll tell you something now, I do NOT miss the ridiculously long cables that came with my old Turtle Beach headset, the fuckers were like, a mile long ans knowing me, I’d somehow manage to almost always trip over it.
Anyways!!!! enough about the damn headset. Let’s talk about the game which was pretty much my first online co-op experience and some good memories with my friend. I’ll say it now, Borderlands 2 is my favourite in the franchise and not just because it was the first one I played — I barely remember the first game I played not that long after (more on that later) and just DON’T talk to me about The Pre-Sequel. Oh, and I enjoyed Telltale’s (RIP) Tales from the Borderlands so much that I somehow ended up buying the season pass for both my Xbox One and 360 (all about those achievements!).
As with the original Borderlands, The Pre-Sequel, and Tales, the game starts with Marcus the gun merchant telling us another story about a group of Vault Hunters and the loot within the vault they wished to seek. Oh, and of course, all that five minutes later ends up with us being (temporarily) stuck on a frozen wasteland/hell (I’ll let you choose!) with Claptrap, everybody’s favourite robot you can’t help but roll your eyes at whenever he speaks (but you secretly love him for it.. ssh!) even though he’s trying to help you by leaving said frozen hell. Oh, and we meet Handsome Jack who’s definitely the coolest baddie ever because it’s just so sarcastic and sassy… (NOT DROOLING!)
I remember Borderlands 2 not being like anything I’ve ever played before. What I love most about the franchise is things like the characters, story and the gameplay mechanics. Now, as I’m writing this, I have recently completed the game in its entirety twice this year. This means all of the the main story, DLC campgains and side missions completed — apart from one or two timed missions which I’ve never been able to do, but we’ll let that slide, right?
Twice being, on stream (which took longer than expected because 2019 happened) via Xbox and off-stream on the Nintendo Switch. Oh god, if we get me started on what I like to call “True Portable Pandora”, we’ll be here forever.
Actually, sod it… I’ll happily tell you all that the Nintendo Switch version of the game (released as ‘Borderlands: Legendary Collection’) that was released earlier this year, makes up for the absolute, earth-shattering heartbreak I felt back in 2014 when the game was released on the PS Vita (which was my main reason for buying one. Also, uni bursary! hooray!) which to be quite honest, should not have been a thing. The graphics looked like they’d been copy/pasted in by a child who’s just learnt how to use Microsoft Paint (to be honest, they could’ve done better!) and the frame-rate was so bad, I cried every time it loaded — my 4GB memory card cried too. God bless you, Nintendo.
The day the game got released on the Switch was one of the happiest days of my life. So much so, I lovingly christened it, “Switcherlands.” However, I wasn’t too happy that when delivering it, Royal Mail decided to hide it behind our bins when it could’ve easily gone through the letterbox, but hey! that’s 2020!
I’m yet to try The Pre-Sequel (UGH!!) on there, but I did attempt Borderlands on a recent stream I did on my Twitch channel (twitch.tv/mskieriot) and will be resuming it as soon as I get TPS finished on stream. I guess I should mention that now!
Earlier this year, I decided that once I’d finished BL2 on stream I’d play TPS on there too to see if it was as terrible as I remember, having not played it properly since its release back in 2014. To make things worse, I’m playing the game as Claptrap — or Fragtrap, as our annoying, playable robot’s known in this, and I’ve christened the streams as my “Punishment Playthrough.”
I’ve been on/off with it, but at the time of writing this, I’m very close to the end. It’s that damn RK5 (clearly a rip-off of the BNK3R from BL2) I’m struggling with now, like I did originally — just get me a decent corrosive weapon and some levelling up, it’ll sort. I just remember not liking the game as it felt more like a parody of Borderlands, maybe I just missed Pandora too much? Who knows!
I’m sure that load of chaos will be finished soon and we’ll never speak of the time I kept getting brutally slaughtered by Zarpedon because I’d been thick by not upgrading my weapons and hadn’t levelled up enough. Classic me.
I’m also hoping as a little one-off for BL3’s first anniversary to play the new DLC, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck very soon too!
Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed me waffling on/fangirling. If you’ve played the Borderlands games let me know your favourite moments anytime on Twitter (twitter.com/mskieriot) or come say hello/watch me suffer on Twitch (twitch.tv/mskieriot — most Thursdays from 7pm UK time)!
