100 Hours After the Fact

Let me first start by apologizing to my readers for being absent over the last few weeks. I ran into some technical issues over the last 14 or so days with my computer, she hasn't been really up to gaming much since my secondary video card's Graphics Processing Unit burned up and I recently moved to a Solid State Disk, so I've got to take the good with the bad.

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Recently I rolled over to the 100 hour mark in Borderlands 2 and I am still not bored of it. There is this strange sense of zen to the game, this balance in running around simply collecting loot and doing the most basic and fundamental tasks a game can really ask of it’s players. Something that, logically should have gotten boring well before I hit 100 hours of gameplay, yet it hasn’t. I still look forward to signing into the game and playing with friends a few times a week, regardless of what character I 
have; though I much prefer my Assassin.

It’s not like the formula for BL2 changed drastically from the first game, hell you could even argue that it didn’t change at all. The scope may have; it’s definitely a much larger game than the original, but the gameplay is almost exactly the same as it’s predecessor. A real “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke,” scenario. Yet the improvements that exist in BL2 are solid steps forward. Sure the design of the guns and the companies that make them in the game are drasticly different compared to regular old Borderlands, but you’re still just cruising around, popping open chests and robbing from the recently deceased. It’s a Hoarder’s paradise, at least until you run out of inventory space.

It’s like the developers over at 2K games have successfully hacked the human condition. Bigger, better (faster, stronger?) RPGs have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Sure, there is a story to play through and in most cases droves of NPCs to speak with. Not to mention articles, scrolls and books to read within these worlds, but at a very base level all you’re doing is grabbing gear and leveling up your character. While Borderlands and Borderlands 2 lack the character and NPC depth of your average RPG, the game makes up for it with unique and utterly batshit crazy NPCs. Even after sitting through the cut scenes a few times each they are still entertaining and witty in their own fucked up sort of way. The characters in the Borderlands series thus far can best be described as Looney Tunes characters for adults. Take Tiny Tina for instance, she’s like Wile E. Coyote of Borderlands without the Road Runner. While a lot of these characters don’t have any real development and serve at the heart of it all  as only mouthpieces for objectives, they do it rather hysterically. It’s good to play a sequel that expands it’s depth of a world without trying to be something it is not, and I think that’s where the charm comes from; for me at least.

Admittedly, the beginning of the game can get tedious. Though, I am not sure if that’s because it is, or if it’s simply because I’ve played the beginning of the game so much. With that said, after the first 3 hours or so the game opens up and really allows you to randomly wander the previously barren wastelands of Pandora. Even after 100 hours I still find stuff to check out, looking through nooks and crannies or small shanties I haven’t explored before. The face-lift that Pandora got between the two games has also not gotten stale for me.

I think the real brilliance of the game is there really isn’t much to it. Even with clipping issues and the geometry that exist in the game the problems can be easily overlooked. There is nothing like getting hung up on... well, nothing while you’re being chased by a level 39 Bad Ass The weapons are still fresh after all the time I’ve put into it and all the DLC that has been released for it is impressive. There is also a new round of DLC coming as 2K is supposedly thinking about releasing a Season 2 pass, which would imply at least one new character class (Whom we already know a bit about,) with a few new areas to explore. We’ve already been treated to a new Mechromancer class as it is and I’ve been finding items for about two weeks that will only be usable by a new Psycho class whose name is Krieg with an officially released on May 14th. It’s good to see that the developers are continuing the tradition of a robust DLC catalog from the first game and just running with it.

Not to spoil anything, but the way the game ends opens it up to an infinite number of possibilities as this franchise seems to grow. Borderlands 2 has me continually impressed with it’s content and seemingly “worth-it” DLC extras. I am curious to see where it’s all going to go from here. Even as a simple stream-of-conciousness play-style and it’s straight forward smash and grab mechanics 2K and Gearbox have something good going here and with the increased focus on cooperative play it almost looks like they could be gearing up for a “Borderlands Universe” MMO. While I would be incredibly cautious about such a thing and certainly have my reservations about it, that does seem to be the direction things are headed. As long as I am able to group up and play with friends I really can’t complain about what’s coming next and all I can really do, like anyone else is speculate about the next game and the future of the series. It sounds like it’s going to be a ways off anyway, since the development team seems to be gearing up for even more content in the future!