Back in Part I I promised to reveal some of our adventures this week so here’s Part II.

HERE BE RATHER MILD SPOILERS.

I will likely come off as someone you would never want on your team but I promise that the comedic value should make up for any perceived shortcomings ;)

Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Borderlands is a first person shooter on a desolate planet known as Pandora. Various companies and treasure seekers flocked to the planet seeking a mysterious vault that promises unimaginable wealth. Who doesn’t want wealth? My first thought, however, was why people able to spring for interplanetary travel would visit and risk getting their head blown off or eaten alive for something that may or may not exist. The answer to the question, for the curious, is to shut off your brain and enjoy the ride. If you are playing this game for the ‘story’ you’re doing it wrong. After the intro you can select one of four classes, each with three skills trees to choose from. The elevator pitch for Borderlands was likely “It’s a shooter featuring distinct classes/action abilites with World of Warcraft skill trees and Diablo’s random loot system. Oh, and there’s online and local co-op.” APPROVED! I also approve of the Second Wind system. After you lose all your shield and health you have a period of time to shoot and kill an enemy to come back to life instead of bleeding to death. Death has a new enemy in co-op play. Whether you have a teammate local or online, they will be able to revive you during the respawn period. Of course, there is a price to pay when you both blow up and the same time and there are no more enemies around to target for a Second Wind. Thankfully, death is not debilitating in Borderlands. It’ll cost you, sure, but it’s a percentage of your current wealth. The respawns will cost more as you amass a huge fortune but there will never be a point that leads to game over because you spent your money on a wicked fast recharge shield and the bullet storage upgrades.

My brother, a former hardcore Enemy Territory devotee, hadn’t played a console shooter until a friend wanted a teammate for Modern Warfare 2. I had previously played approximately thirty seconds of Halo 3 and twenty seconds of some Ghost Recon game that came with my 360. I checked out Borderlands strictly based on their strong recommendations and elevator pitch intrigued me. The game took over my life in short order and I was happy to play through the whole thing again a few days after my solo run. Once we made our way out of Fyrestone, the starting town, I was pleased to see that I could headshot people with my weak starter gun and, frankly, I carried the team through the first block of quests as he got used to the world.

Heads Up: In single player you can always pause the action through the menu and switch guns or quickly access a med pack. This is not so in co-op. You can always access the menu, sure; you’re just going to get shot a lot in the process should you attempt this in the middle of a firefight. Should a sequel come to pass I hope that Gearbox will add a quick item button to eliminate menu digging. Guns are listed at the top on the inventory screen and sorting items to bump up the kits only lasts as long as you keep the menu open.

My dominance slowly diminished with time as my brother found his comfort zone with SMGs and combat rifles through the first half of the game. We quickly meshed together well as a team. I trust this is easiest when your teammate has known you for his entire life. I began to retreat from pure damage dealing to focus more on sniping. If they were close, they were his problem. Anyone in the distance was doomed in my domain of death. I asked him about the moments that stuck out for him, the bulk of which to be revealed tomorrow, and here’s my recollection of said events.

A car becomes available for speedier transport after a few missions before you gain access to a fast travel system. More games need a fast travel system. I’m playing though the first Assassin’s Creed right now and everything that Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw has to say about AC is 200% accurate. Except that the story bores me and I want people to shut up even more than he does.

My brother had no issues with my driving skill for the first majority of the game. I knew where I was going and he enjoyed being a gunner with a rocket launcher. All that changed once we encountered Scythids. Even earlier his groans were endless when we encountered suicidal Midgets; they charge with a grenade raised about their heads in a vain attempt to wipe you out. Off the top of the campaign you can run over whatever with relative impunity. Bandits? Street pizza. Brutes? Oh, the joy derived from the crunch they make. People holding grenades or otherwise explode upon impact for considerable damage? Oops, my bad. Did that stop me? Not even slightly. Vehicles are expendable to me and I assume the developers thought so too since they conveniently placed Catch-A-Ride stations everywhere. There’s no cost to respawning vehicles — Blaster Master (red), in my case — so I thought telling him to bail when we were in the red would be sufficient. After several comebacks from second wind kills, I didn’t get to drive for a while. By the way, I have this lifelong lack of skill when it comes to reading a map. Even with his side of the screen showing the map through the menu, I’d somehow get turned around once or twice. Or more. My parents bought me a cell phone when I started driving myself to hockey games since it was inevitable that I was going to get lost in new towns. Keep in mind these were the days before ubiquitous GPS! I strongly suspect that our second playthrough and DLC adventures will see me relegated to the gunner position. I’m sure I can still find a way to destroy the ride. It’ll be a challenge! ;)

Heads Up: There is a clever trick one can employ with the Catch-A-Ride stations. At the control panel there’s the option to spawn a car, teleport to the driver’s seat, and teleport to the gunner’s seat. When we needed a new car, as we often did, I’d select the first two options and he’d go with the third. Once in a while we’d actually make it to our destination with everyone and everything intact! On these occasions, using Jaynistown/Taylortown as an example, getting blown up by a rocket launcher while your partner was pinned under cover facing some Brutes was only a minor hiccup thanks to the following steps:

1.) die
2.) respawn
3.) stock up on ammo and health (optional)
4.) use the Catch-A-Ride station
5.) teleport to car
6.) wreak terrible vengeance
7.) win

Stay tuned tomorrow when I talk about bugs (the programming kind, not the blowing up my car ones), my grenade ‘plan’, my strong dislike of outcropping rocks and branches, and the final approach to the not-so-mythical-after-all Vault.