BORDERLANDS - like Fallout 3 but with cars and MAXIMUM PWNAGE OMGWTFLOLNEWB FPS combat

ohhhhhhhh shit i forgot about the convert cans to health thing, i should definitely switch back to that

a propos of nothing, cryo-ing scavs out of the sky really does not get old

Flailed around for an hour trying to get my third party Xbox 360 controller working for Mac in BL2. Plugged in a PS3 controller and it worked fine :/

Finally beat the first game this weekend (which was ultimately intensely fun for long stretches between the "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW" moments of frustration) and started Zombie Island of Dr. Ned last night. Which I didn't realize was so emphatically Halloween-themed, so that was a happy coincidence.

Just binged my way through BL2 despite a lot of groans and/or outright discomfort at some of the content/themes. But man, does it look good. I plunked down twelve bucks for this thing mainly because I liked the idea of blowing stuff up in a cool comic book looking world instead of a gray gritty hideous world, and it basically delivered on that even if certain things started to get same-y by the end.

Was kinda stoked to put it behind me, but now I'm hooked and have found myself starting to poke around in True Vault Hunter mode, which is crazy since I just played through all this crap. OTOH, the gameplay itself is satisfying, and for the first time in ages the difficulty curve seems not completely out of gear. I found in the main game that pursuing the side quests, which seems like an obvious thing to do, tended to make me so powerful that the main quest was pointlessly easy, especially right around the time that you have to go meet the Slabs, and again at the end, with the big final assault/confrontation being trivial rather than satisfying.

Oh, but: I'm kinda thinking about checking out the DLC. Never done this kinda thing before so my main worry is making sure I'm logged in as myself so my roommate's XBox account doesn't get charged or something - but, my character is under his ...login? ID? ...so will it work? i realize this is probably like a Yahoo Answers level of dumb question from a newb. Also it seems like you can really only get the $30 'season pass' with all the DLC missions, or no? From discussion upthread it seems like they range in quality a bit. Since it's more than twice what I paid for the thing, and it's already taken up a ridiculous amount of my time, maybe I should take a long hard look and walk away.

the only really necessary DLC is Tiny Tina but it's worth thirty bucks all by itself

The Tiny Tina DLC is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

agreed

Damn! Those are some strong endorsements, all right, maybe I'll cave. Looked at just a little bit of material about it online (trying to avoid spoilers) and I liked what I saw - seems like a totally different flavor than the rest of the game, rather than just being more of it.

in fairness the torque DLC is pretty good too but Tiny Tina is next level

Torgue goddam autocorrect

flailed around the first several hours about a month ago, keep meaning to go back...

It got a lot better for me once I got out of the first few areas, into the main plot, and comfortable with the interface. The super bare bones manual slowed this down a bit - it was ages before I realized you could lightly tap to just pick something up, rather than it swapping for your currently equipped weapon. In the end the only thing I was really hurting for was a way to pick something up while marking it 'for resale,' would have saved a lot of shuffling and re-testing of gear at the shops.

They fixed that in the presequel, kind of; you can mark things as favorites and then do a "sell all but favorites" at vendors

ok, that would help A LOT

one of the weak points of the game (esp. multiplayer) is all the halting to unload inventory. it's not really fun, not sure why they keep it in

I must admit I was playing BL2 on PS3, which I didn't quite finish, but I binged through the Pre Sequel over the holidays and it was lots of fun. Somehow I didn't do the side quest to get the talking shotgun, but I was helping a friend yesterday and she was using it and... wow, that bogan shotgun yells a lot

Also, for anyone playing the Pre Sequel, that stupid SHiFT code thing is worthwhile. I'm assuming it's Gearbox making you create another account so that they can market to you later, but the gear is prob worth it.

Basically on twitter, facebook, and around the web they've been giving out keys (they look like the registration codes of old) and you punch them into that terminal in Concordia. That gives you gold keys, which unlock the weapon chest in the same town, and each time you open it, it gives you gear that is at your current level (!) and it's almost all purples.

I think after entering codes I had about 80 keys.

You can mark favorites and trash in BL2, but it'd be great to be able to do it on pickup. Not enough buttons, I guess. The other thing I didn't realize until I was just dozens of hours into the thing is that there's a run button, which, yeah. Woulda been cool to weave that into the rather brisk tutorial phase ("Okay, minion! Let's make sure those legs aren't frozen! Try running!"). Oh well.

discovering the 'mark for sale' feature made inventory management (which is a huge part of the game imo) so much more efficient, i think i was fully half-way through before i figured it out

rolling through alts in the presequel these days when we can't line up DJP/EZ/JJJ late night murderfests. The Jack Doppleganger is pretty overpowered but holy crap does the game go lifeless if you play him as a single player, it kind of feels like they just didn't do most of the individualized character stuff with him. Fragtrap is awesome for the exploration/SP side, but multiple fragtraps is just all chaos all the time and not really in a fun way.

I have been playing as Wilhelm, who should I go for next?

do Wilhelm again

(I'm playing Wilhelm, he rules)

Claptrap is hilariously goofy in single player and his specials range from fantastic to SUPER SUPER ANNOYING (yes I'm looking at the Psycho melee one, hate when that pops up)

Nisha seems fun, most interested in trying her next (after Claptrap and Jack)

ive been doing the main collabo runthrough with the gunslinger lady. Paige? once you get used to spamming her special, she's great. not kidding about the special though, shes designed for that (super fast cooldown, autotargeting bullet storm, rinse repeat). Haven't used her solo. If you like the fallout wacky wasteland sorta vibe, i think a solo play with fragtrap would be pretty damn fun.

jack is probably the closest to the wilhelm vibe thanks to the two digijacks or whatever. if we want to get super nerdy we can talk about skill trees

also i just discovered that certain claptrap .exes only seem to spawn in singleplayer, and holy crap, the rubber ducky one is worth the price of admission alone

singleplayer as claptrap is like the main reason i am interested in the pre sequel, i do kinda love the wacky wasteland vibe

biggest thing in favor of SP claptrap is that he's a robot so he doesn't need oxygen, so you get to meander wherever w/o having to run back to air bubbles or internal structures. he also seems to jump further/higher than any of the other characters.

EZ and I found a genuinely AMAZING easter egg last night, but are sworn to secrecy until we can get DJP there

hints plz!

i've found two very elaborate easter eggs involving classic movies and games, but this sounds different?

Wilhelm's ability to explode when he's about to die is sooo much fun

ha we might have found the same easter eggs. obelisk and tubes ring some bells?

tubular bells

just gonna assume there's an Exorcist/2001 crossover zone where grunting scavs through bones at you then vomit corrosive gore at you and hump crucifixes

ugh THROW long meetings suck

I don't remember who was chiming in during the narration on the first time through, but is it just me or is it now Tiny Tina hearing the story instead? With all her commentary!

omg, so somewhere in the process of purchasing the 'season pass' on xbox live, i managed to log out of the default sign-in account on this xbox, in such a way that it no longer default signs-in when you turn on the console, and that's the account that has my level 42 commando save, and nobody in the house actually knows the password for that account

down to just hoping it magically comes back of its own volition, soon. it has in the past.

Does X-Box Live not have a website from which you can manage yr account/reset yr password?

I think we'd need access to the email associated with the account, and nobody has that either, if the email address really exists. Kind of a mess.

I found it very easy to over-write or just lose characters I had spent time developing in Borderlands 2, the character management system is flaky in the extreme.

I may have found a way back in here, disconnecting the Xbox from the network, logging into the profile, and resetting it to be the default sign-in. We can't get it back to Xbox Live in that profile, but I'm not sure it ever was on there. Downloading the add-ons in my other profile as we speak, hope this works, o boy o boy!

I found and picked up Excalibastard (the gun in the stone, as it is) at level 29 not realizing it never respawns, even in harder difficulties :/

Yeah, I would scratch my comments above and say that the biggest things the game should make clear to newbies are: 1) the value of unique items from quests - work with them even if their stats initially seem low, and know that their level is pinned to the level of the quest when you start it, and 2) that the level of a mission is set when you ACCEPT the mission. So if you, say, show up in Sanctuary and get excited about all the exclamation marks and accept six missions at once (which the game seems to invite you to do) you're actually screwing yourself out of the chance to manage difficulty as well as rewards. No wonder the story missions always seemed like a breeze once I got back to them, they were the first thing I accepted and the last thing I'd do in a given "chapter." I'm being choosier on second playthrough and the difficulty and rewards curves feel much more natural.

I began True Vault Hunter mode probably a bit early (be level 30!) but you can go to the Select Character screen and go back to normal mode as the same character. I did so to help a friend through part of the game and it helped.

Also, I ended up getting the DLC pass and thought I'd go peek at the Holodome and everything there was level 46 minimum so it was INSTADEATH

OMG, ten minutes into the Hammerlock add-on and you're fighting ooga-booga savages. Nooooooooooooooooooooo thank you.

"ooga-booga savages" is a true ongoing mainstay of so much of gaming; lack of direct representation as "African" or "South American" but simple quasi-racial caricatures makes it hard to mobilize a thoughtful response beyond simply being icky i guess?