As I browsed Kotaku and other videogame blog sites for my daily news about a week ago, there was a post that said that Best Buy was having a buy two get one free sale this weekend. Now I do not have the money for an endeavor such as that so I just passed my eyes over it and moved to the next news story. It was until a couple of hours later that I was telling my roommates about the article that I began to see the amazingness of this deal. My roommate Chad made the suggestion that we all buy Borderlands. Yes the very same Borderlands that I was bitching about all last week. We could all get Borderland for $40. It seems that the gaming gods must have heard my ranting and decided to have pity on my soul. This past Sunday, we three drove down to Nashua and went up to the Best Buy counter with three copies of the same game. I must admit that everyone was giving us strange looks. Why would you need 3 copies of the same game? The answer of course was to play one of the most highly anticipated co-op games of the year. So we gave the employees and consumers and empty smile, ran to the car pushing over children and old ladies alike, sped off and proceeded to drive two hundred miles per hour the whole way back to school.
The one pro about this Franklin Pierce Internet is that everyone is connected to the same address. So you can lan with anyone whom has an Xbox registered anywhere on campus. Since we have severe problems, we all already knew what character classes we were going to play as and were ready to start the madness right away. I guess I should slow down for a second, for those who do not know Borderlands is a first person shooter role playing game (confused yet?). Unlike most RPG like World of Warcraft, Diablo 2, or even the Final Fantasy series, you actually have you aim your shots at the enemies much like a first person shooter such as Call of Duty or Halo. In Borderlands, stats matter a lot. You cannot choose a quest (or mission) that your level character cannot handle. This is where the RPG elements come in to play. If you are a higher level then another character you will destroy them where as if they are higher, you will likely have your hands full dying again and again until you level up. Now there are much more intricacies to how the game works but you do not need to know more than that to understand the idea of the game. Oh one more thing, loot.
Loot is way you would want to play this game. The shooting is not as satisfying as Modern Warfare and the RPG elements are not as strategic as a battle in Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy. In Borderlands, you want to check every body, every chest, hell every nook in the area to find the next best gun, armor or shield for your character. It does not matter what level you are if you only have the gun you started the game with you going to run into hardships quick. On the back of the game case it says that there is over a bazillion guns in the game, which is almost true. The game has a random gun generator in it so that each gun is at least a little different that the next. You are always check the guns stats and abilities to see if they are worth keeping or selling. This element of the game is like crack. You are always combing each area hoping for a better item. You get jealous when your friends get they and your flaunt yours when you do.
But that is the key, playing with friends. If you do not intend to play this game with a friend just do not get it. It is all about bragging rights and teamwork. It benefits everyone to help out the team whenever possible for when you are playing with more people the enemies become harder. I guess I have gone on enough for now. Now that you understand the basics I will tell you about our adventures in the coming weeks.
Jeff Silva
Pierce Arrow Blogger
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