I've been a fan of Borderlands since about when the first game launched. Despite this being out for about a year, I've only recently bought it in the last Steam sale about 3 weeks ago, and almost keeled over at the 100 GB install size. (I guess I haven't been keeping up with current generation games.) Although I've heard the drama around this game, I will not be reviewing that. I also heard that it was not as good as Borderlands 2. I agree, so as the foremost Borderlands expert writing for this blog, let me lovingly pick it apart.
Lest I be caught in the past, I have played some modern games on my modern PC. So while I was signing up for the Borderlands 2 Loot Hunt, I noticed that by linking that SHiFT account with my Steam account, I suddenly got another Golden Key. Yesterday, I was digging around to find out when (as in, what level) is the best time to use a key.
Sequels. In every form of media, there are sequels. Generally, the more of them there are in a series, the worse it is. Even the first sequel can come with numerous problems that make the original still hold value. Borderlands 2 is not one of them.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is a peculiar game. It fills an uninteresting gap between Borderlands (after its DLC) and its sequel. By playing Borderlands 2, you kinda know how it's going to end up, but this game fills in the details. The game is set on Elpis, the moon of Pandora (the planet where you've been fighting for the last two games). Because 2K Australia made The Pre-Sequel, Elpis is inhabited by people with Australian accents.
Borderlands 3 has been out for almost a year, but I haven't bought it yet. Yes, I'm aware that it's on Steam these days, but I haven't been that enthused about it. I'll probably get it in the next Steam sale, along with the Halo collection (because I threatened a long time ago to buy it if it came to Steam). I intended to play through all the Telltale games in order of release before I got to Tales from the Borderlands (and all that before Borderlands 3), but that hasn't happened. Even without that, I recognized lots of tropes of the latter Telltale games (Walking Dead and afterwards) that I've heard told over the years. I'm pretty sure that there's no kind of continuity to spoil by not playing through them in order of release.
It's about time that I went back and replayed a game I had, but play it differently. Recently, I realized that I had bought the DLC for the original Borderlands at some point, and decided that I should probably get to playing that. Even though the sequel has been out for some time, it's not that old of a game.
Like most games anymore, Borderlands 2 has DLC. It is overflowing with it. Some games sort of give up; others have less but more substantial installments. I do not have all of the DLC for Borderlands 2, but I have most of the main points. It seems that most of the DLC centers around some character.
Since I have better hardware, I've revisited Borderlands 3 as planned. The existence of a second season pass disappoints me, but that doesn't look like it has much, and that's after the meager offering of this first one. Unfortunately, NPCs will nag you now for missions only available in the second one every time you go back to Sanctuary (the game's main mission hub). As Gearbox mentioned, no DLCs add additional playable characters.
Hey, look! I just played Borderlands again! But wait! If I continued to play right now, I would get to the DLC! Which I did. They all had their own pace and personality. These are larger bits, sort of like mini-expansions, more along the lines of Dawnguard or Dragonborn than your usual map pack or me-too type quests. I played through half of these before I got really going in the main quest, so I'll try to recall this as straight as I can. I did that in order to level up ahead of the enemies encountered, so everything should be a little easier. And was it ever! It was really nice to have started a new character, since it is enjoyable to have enemies that aren't always at least a level above you. I will also go over these in order of story, not order played (which differs).
Hi! You probably just read a message telling you to not preorder games. The following is an incomplete list of games that were terrible on release, and many who preordered them regretted it. You might have been one of them. Thanks to patch culture, some of these might be OK now, but you should not count on that for future releases. You already gave The Man your money, so why should he care? To him, you're just another sale in the quarter. So in the interest of learning from the past, let me remind you in chronological order:
Once upon a time, I played Rage. It was a competent FPS, but forgettable. So forgettable that I forgot that it had a sequel. Looking through my Epic Game Store collection, it escaped me that I acquired it at some point. It must have been a freebie once. Judging by the fact I hurried my way through it in 5 days and had fun, Rage 2 is not forgettable, and is, in fact, quite enjoyable.
Hello and welcome to my blog. If you've been here before, things might look a little different, especially if you came in through the homepage. I have implemented a few things I have gathered by doing research for my podcast, and several hours of toying around.
In a far future of the past, a man walks across the platform of a darkened auditorium. Having cleared the Veteran's Hall of its mutated inhabitants, this man decides to give the speech he was supposed to centuries ago. He steps behind the podium. "War. War never changes." The scars across this man's face tell that war is something he knows well. He helped liberate Anchorage, and watched the Great War erase his world with a mushroom cloud.
Two days after dissecting Borderlands 3, the time had come. In all my life, I had played a grand total of about 5 minutes of the entire Halo series (in Halo 3, probably). After making a threat to buy it over 5 years ago, Halo: The Master Chief Collection has come to Steam, which I bought in the last sale. Selecting it in Steam, I hesitated clicking the play button as I contemplated the gravity of the situation. Although Halo was on PC shortly from the start, the series became something different in my eyes, as it became an Xbox icon. As a member of the PC Master Race, I see Master Chief as a horseman of the PC gaming apocalypse. Even after a generation, the Halo scar is still tender. But Halo isn't what it used to be, and from all accounts, is coming back to PC. All of it; even the new stuff. Still, it felt like I was about to betray my values and violate something deeply sacred. I gulped and clicked.
It's been almost 5 years since I made any major changes to my main rig. I'm still rocking that Ryzen 1800x, and that surround sound system. I upgraded from 32 GB to 64 GB RAM soon after building it, so it's ready for serious server things, and playing with RAM drives is fun sometimes. I recently got a breathtaking MSI RX 6800 Gaming X Trio 16GB. My old Acer monitors were still going fine, but 4K is the hot new stuff. I have the mindset that if I'm computing but not looking at a monitor, I'm computing wrong, so monitors are important. (That's why I despise RGB LEDs on literally anything, why I use black monolithic computer cases, and why I use unlabeled, unlit keyboards.) So should I go 4K, or go high refresh rate? Why not both?
Do you remember Darksiders? I remember having a lot of fun playing Darksiders. What about Darksiders 2? I have that one. In fact, it's been on my "I want to play this for Halloween" list for years. I've recently played through and finished it. I know that it's nowhere near October, and I'm way behind on everything, but better late than never, right? I know it's been a while since I've done one of these, so let's blow off the dust, and see what I remember from the original.
