For me, Borderlands was the ultimate ‘don’t know it til you try it’ game of the generation. Leading up to its release, nothing about it sounded like something I wanted to play. However, after all of the positive buzz, I figured that I should get around to it eventually for academic purposes. By the end of my 100-plus-hour run, I might as well have been rewarded with a Ph.D, as I explored every nook and cranny of that game.
As the oldest child on my mom’s side of the family, I learned very quickly that I would have an influence on my younger siblings and relatives wheter I consciously tried to or not. Before my younger brother could ever get into playing toys, he got a hold of a Gameboy and a Super Nintendo controller and never looked back. At the time, I figured it was just the kid thing to do, but those early days of playing Super Mario World really did change his life.
After my initial lukewarm impressions to The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, I wasn’t sure what I would be getting into the next time I played it. I was hoping that having reached level 51 would at least get me past the initial difficulty curve and the rest of the experience would be smooth sailing.
Nope.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx just hit XBOX Live and PSN and I was quick to purchase this Borderlands add-on. Unlike the other pieces of Borderlands DLC, this one brought with it a number of additions, including new zones, new guns, new vehicles, new bad guys, a bunch of new quests and most importantly, a raised level cap. With 11 more levels for my soldier to grow, I was eager to shoot more dudes and collect more guns. I’ve only played just over an hour of it so far, but I thought I’d share my initial impressions.
I thought I could separate myself from Borderlands the moment I beat it. Sure, I only beat it on playthrough 1, and my character had only reached level 35, but I had basically seen everything there was to do in the game. All that was left was playthrough 2, which is the exact same quest, with tougher enemies and more awesome guns. I figured now was the time to move onto the next game in my backlog.
And yet, here I am, still playing this game.I took a few days off to chip away at my backlog, but one lazy Sunday playing co-op on playthrough 2 with my brother was enough to reel me back in. My usual nightly routine of late has been to play a few missions in Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes From Liberty City followed by Borderlands.
The other night, i could sense that I was close to beating Borderlands. When I get that feeling, I can’t stop and leave that game until I beat it. In spite of the game’s flaws, I was having a ton of fun with the game. However, Borderlands suffers from a problem that has plagued video games since games were designed with a clear progression from beginning to end: a crappy endgame experience. I ended my Borderlands experience with a bad taste in my mouth, feeling like the extra time I could have dedicated to sleep that evening were wasted on a poor endgame experience.
This game has been a huge surprise to me. Nothing about the game’s pre-launch hype grabbed me at all. I didn’t care that there were 17 million guns in it. I didn’t care that it was sort of a mix of Fallout 3 and Diablo. I didn’t care much for the cell-shaded art style either. It’s pretty, but it doesn’t make my jaw drop or anything like that.
In Third Person 