*** There are no Borderlands spoilers in this post, just a lot of stats. This is the first of several posts and I will make sure to note any future spoilers carefully and obviously for those who like to be surprised. ***

You’d think I did for how much time I have spent on it this week! My brother was over and instead of picking up and playing through Modern Warfare 2, as planned, he was interested in checking out this game that I always seemed to be playing. With the option to co-op the entire way through is such a huge plus that the lure was irresistible. He’s also a Cage The Elephant fan so the opening song, Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked, caught his ear. In case anyone needs more information on the game, the Borderlands Wikia is extremely thorough and fantastic. Mad props to all the contributors.

I completed playthrough 1 shortly before he arrived with a Siren and slowly improved my aiming with a controller from spray-and-pray to sniping headshots from acres back. I had also started a Beserker but progressed just far enough to get the achievement for action skill kills. Ditto for a Soldier. Here’s what my Siren looked like after beating the game.

My Siren Stats
– level 37, Time of 1:14:31:13 —
You can see my specific build here and just add Corrosive Return Level 3 (“Causes a corrosive explosion entrance/exit when Phasewalking”) with a Firefly Class Mod: +44% Ignite Damage, +3 Spark Skill, +2 Phoenix Skills, +2 Diva Skill. I never bothered to respec and play around with different builds since I was happy and because I just wanted to keep going and have more fun!

Weapon Proficiencies
Pistol: 6
SMG: 8
Shotgun: 8 (ok, this surprises me. I had no idea I used them so much the first time through!)
Combat Rifle: 4
Sniper Rifle: 15
Rocket Launcher: 5
Eridian Weapons: 8

Once it was go time my brother picked a Soldier, the turret action skill interested him, and I figured it was time to start a Hunter. Thanks to my newfound joy in sniping I think I like my Hunter more than my Siren! More stats time!

My Hunter Stats
– level 36, just shy of 37, Time of 1:02:09:36 —
My build is certainly geared toward distance combat. While being able to send out Bloodwing, my pet, to hit people seems like a good idea, I rarely remembered to use it since he was pretty lost. He’d be unable to find targets with many to choose from and would just keep bouncing off the roof if used indoors. Funny? Absolutely. It’s just not that useful to me :)

Weapon Proficiencies
Pistol: 2
SMG: 12
Shotgun: 1
Combat Rifle: 9 (found an awesome rifle at the end. This skill will go up much more!)
Sniper Rifle: 15
Rocket Launcher: 2
Eridian Weapons: 3

On to the after action report! As much as I loved the single player, co-op was even better. Co-op in the same room was so much fun that Borderlands would have been a bargain at double the price. Attention people for the 360 Ghostbusters sequel: co-op ftw!! Even the Wii one let me bring a buddy. I wasn’t sure the quests were going to hold my interest as I did every single possible one during my first playthrough and now I knew where everything was and the cheap way to beat all the bosses. My poor brother. He might end up playing again with a shooter friend of his and he’ll be lost for parts of it since I drove everywhere and did all the scavenger missions in seconds flat. Protip: don’t always beat your brains out trying to figure out how to get on a platform. Most times I’d stand on the ground in the area and then target the item while jumping and grabbing it that way. Much less work. We still did every possible quest this time around and I’m a little surprised that the play times are really consistent despite my Siren blindly wandering about a lot more.

My next Borderlands post will contain random recollections from our co-op campaign along with the sad (to me) tale of how I was the awesomest damage dealer in town until he grew in power throughout the game and started mowing down people before I’d get a shot! Jerk ;)