Borderlands . . . IN SPACE!!! - The Games I've Played

It's here again, another Borderlands game. The good and bad about it is the simple summary that it is exactly like Borderlands 2.

That's a good thing, but a bad thing all at the same time. Between Borderlands 1 and 2, there were changes in the game. The engine looked different, the story line was updated, weapons systems were created that had never existed before, driving mechanics were polished, and things got better all around the board. Between 2 and the pre-sequel. . . the best that you've got is that it's IN SPACE.

The unfortunate thing is that instead of adding to the fun and chaos that is Borderlands, the space element of the entire thing only ruined it for me. With the space deal, you have to contsantly worry about your oxygen levels. If you don't keep an eye out for it as you're jumping around trying to find where to head next, you can run out of O2 and start dying, which is always a great element of any game, not allowing you to run around and get lost and punishing you for not going where you're not supposed to be. The weird part about this is that some places have atmosphere, where others don't. It's sort of hit and miss. There's some places that you wouldn't expect to have an atmosphere have a solid one, but other places don't have a lick of air. You start jumping in and out of air bubbles so often that you stop worrying about it at some points, and just when you start to enjoy the game and stop worrying about the ever decreasing air bar, your air putters out and you start dying for no other reason than you started to focus on something else besides constantly dying.

Then comes the problem with low gravity. Gravity in space makes your jumps super bouncy. It makes sense. You jump on the moon, you jump further than you would on Earth. Logical, works well, and then you do it in a first person shooter that has monsters, items and everything else in this low, floaty, bouncy gravity. Then, on top of that bouncy gravity, you have booster pads (thank you Mario Kart and every racing game for making those part of our lives for no real reason).

Boosterpads, low gravity, double jumps . . . and a boss.

Just think about that one and all of the bouncy fun you run yourself into. Just when you get the boss in your sight, he drops off of one of the six levels that you're having to jump between, or hits a booster pad that launches him into the sky up to the top level. He's bouncing around like a mad pinball who is always able to locate you no matter where you run to, while you're sitting there trying to understand where each of the jump pads leads to, and by the time you randomly manage to catch a pad that gets you to the same level that he's on, he decides to jump off the ledge and disapear for another four minutes.

With the annoying things out of the way, the story, for some reason, just didn't seem to catch my attention this go around. It was a pre-sequel, which means that it's taking place in that time between the two major stories, and so I knew exactly where it was headed. I knew what Jack was going to become, I knew exactly where things were headed, and the only thing that even seemed slightly interesting was the very last scene after you save the day and someone who you do not expect to be there shows up.

The story is also a quick jaunt through areas, with each map having two or three sidequests in them. Compared to the dozens upon dozens of quests that would come with each area in Borderlands 1 & 2, this made the entire world that it was set in seem bleaker than normal because there was nothing to do. I remember back to Borderlands 2 when I would have a list of 10+ sidequests that I would have to do and I could completly forget about the main story elements for a long period of time as I froliced through the levels doing whatever else was around me that had nothing to do with the actual story, for this one there's never that moment.

The final thing that irks me in a wrong way, was that in Borderlands 1 (and to an extent in 2) there were some minor Easter eggs that were interesting to run into, but most of the "optional" bosses and big things that were out there, were all parts of quests and sub events that you could find at a quest board. They were 'secret' but the game was still nice enough to tell you where they were and give you the option of hunting them down and killing them. Remember back in Borderlands 1 the giant Mothra boss battle? Totally options, totally optional, but at least the game told you about it and tried to add it into the story of the world around you. In this game, the secret bosses are 100% secret. There's nothing that talks about them, nothing that points you in the right direction, and nothing that could tell you that they are there. Without the internet, there is no way that you should ever run into one of the hardest bosses in the game.

You never hear about Iwajira, you don't know he exists, and he's actually hidden in THE FIRST map. He's not even hidden later, or on his own map, or in a weird circumstance like some of the optional bosses that you run into in 1 & 2.At least you knew you were about to get your face wrecked when you were headed on your way to Terramorphous.

Not to mention it's a short game. Compared to it's predecessors, the pre-sequel is a small game. I was about to get angry at it and write it off as just a glorified expansion pack that they wanted you to pay a lot of money for, but then new game plus came in.

The basis for the game is that Athena (remember her?) is trying to tell a story to Lilith (we all remember her) about why she did what she did. You get done with the game, Athena tells her story, and then the best thing ever happens. Brick and Tiny Tina, together again!

The most violent meat head of a man with the most psychotic 12 year old come together, and start to ask Athena questions about her story, and as we learned from Tina's expansion D&D pack in Borderlands 2, everything has to be like it was before, but more awesome.

The entire new game plus is explained by Athena telling the same story to Brick and Tina, but exaggerating the entire thing so that they will like it. In true Brick and Tiny Tina fashion, they love it, but they can't help but interrupt, comment on, and general ruin Athena's story with their side comments.

Just when I was thinking it was going to be a grind to play through the game again (even though a short grind) Brick and Tina show up and tell me to tell the story again, and it's better the second time because I have them to help comment and talk about the story. It's like playing the game with a really weird director's commentary on the entire time.

And then this one gives you some of the good lines from the duo. But that duo makes the game at least 20 times better. It was sort of a lame game, an attempt to add on to some games that are pretty high up on my respected games list that failed, but then it redeemed itself by strapping on the second play through and giving me Brick and Tiny Tina as the voices in my head as the story tries to progress.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game. I'm working on my second play through right now, and I'm trying to 100% the entire thing because I don't want to miss a single thing in this game, but compared to the awesome games that were 1 & 2, it just doesn't quite measure up to the creative, amazing bar that was set before it.