I live on Pandora – part III

Feel free to catch up on Part I for the stats and Part II for the buildup first. Today I get to delve deeper into the various ways I got us blowed up real good.

HERE BE MORE THAN 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 ;)

This rant is a little late since a December 11th patch fixed many of the issues I faced on the 360. Auto-aim was a pain when you were trying to lead a shot and the crosshairs would pull to the left or right. I never felt the need to exploit the Hunter bug and spawn multiple Bloodwings since one directionally impaired bird was more than enough. Thankfully I never ran into the broken quests and progression issues since I played in marathon sessions. Never having to join a quest in progress saved me from that fate. Oh, I would have been so pissed to lose character data or have to hunt down someone online on the same quest(s). The one bug I loudly protested was the achievement one. I’m still slightly bitter at Ghostbusters for not fixing, well, anything, nor planning out their multiplayer rooms very well. Gearbox proved me wrong and patched the game so my Siren triggered the Pandora-Dog Millionaire achievement the second she logged in again. Woo. Now all I need to do is hit level 40 and 50 (definitely going to happen) and then kick some butt on The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. My brother is coming home again for Christmas and told me not to level without him so we can rock some undead and go to town on playthrough 2. This could be made more difficult if I luck into some cool games for Christmas but that’s unlikely this year. Wish list: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Demon’s Souls. Hopefully there will be some sweet Boxing Day sales to take advantage of! We now return to our regularly scheduled recollection of scattered playthrough 1 events.

WHY DO YOU JUMP?!?

There has been no other game to date where I have been stuck in the scenery so many times with alarming regularity. I must confess that I do jump, sometimes unnecessarily, but it’s not like I’m trying to bunny-hop through the game. This isn’t Counter-Strike (I kid, I kid). I’d often land on smaller rocks and get stuck. Very stuck. Melee hits, trying to blow myself up with rocket launchers or grenade, bleeding out followed by being brought back by a teammate had zero effect. Respawning isn’t an issue but it was annoying when I had to run back to where I was, only to get stuck again less than thirty minutes later. Eventually I did stop jumping unless it was to ‘cheat’ and grab scavenger items the easy way. I did return to my jumping ways for the last boss but that will be discussed shortly.

Heads Up: Scavenger missions are scattered throughout Pandora from the various Bounty Boards. You could find the long way around and maneuver yourself until you are practically standing on top of the pieces, there’s nothing wrong with that. I chose to find a decent enough vantage point to see the items in question and then I’d get reasonably close to them from the ground, jump, and then target properly to grab it in the air. Voila! I found this much faster but your experience may vary.

You actually planned it that way?!?

It was more of a ‘plan’, I would say. But, yes, yes I did. My brother’s soldier was under heavy fire from two brutes and there were several incoming Psychos. He dropped his turret, which may or may not have finished them off (we’ll never know now), and crouched behind it on the left while the enemies on the right were whaling on it. I decided that further action was needed. I had my Explosive MIRV grenades, aimed, took my running start and launched it. Why a running start? I get to stay well back and snipe. It’s a good system. I was proud of my plan since all the enemies went down instantly thanks to the previous damage from turret and my finishing move. While I wasn’t expecting a medal for my achievement even though it was a super sweet toss from that distance and perfectly landed slightly to the right of the target crowd, my brother only stares incredulously at me.

“What? I planned it perfectly! I wiped out all of them and only hit you a little.”
“You ‘planned’ to hit me only a little?”
“You’ve got all your fingers and toes, they died in itty bitty pieces. I fail to see the issue here.”
“I can’t believe you actually thought about it and THAT was what you came up with.”
“It’s not like I could trust my retarded bird to do anything about it, corrosive as he is.”
“Yet you took the grenade as the preferable option to the bird that, at the very least, cannot hit me.”
“So… different tactics next time?”
“Please.”

He would only carry Transfusion grenades and generally forget that he had any at all. He didn’t even buy the storage upgrades for them! Thus, I do not think he gets to judge my grenade strategy ;)

We don’t need no stinkin’ supplies!

We went for a non-existent Iron Man achievement by not returning to town at any point once we re-activated the ECHO console. Through the entire Descent and Eridian Promontory we relied exclusively on dropped ammo and chests. I was stocked with medkits the entire game since I’d always give the best shield to the front line soldier. This brings me to another beef I have with the game. I got waaaaaaaaaaaay better drops playing solo with my Siren. The game was supposed to cough up better loot with more players but I ended up raiding my Siren’s inventory for the best weapons. There are supposed to be some cool drops in the DLC so we’ll see if there’s good stuff for both of us so it doesn’t come to blows. Anyway, I knew how long of a walk it was through these two zones but it was much easier with two people. I had a not-super-great shock sniper rifle that I made sure to keep on hand since it drops the Sera Guardians with 2 shots. I picked them out of the air from acres away or blasted other distant (and stupid enough to stand still) foes with one of my several Eridian Cannons.

Heads Up: Eridian weapons have infinite ammo, since they are energy based, but even with the slow fire rate you will drain the energy bar before it can recharge if you keep shooting. In solo play, however, it is easily possible to get an infinite number of continuous Eridian shots. Since the game pauses when you enter the menu in single player, all you have to do is switch out the cannon from the directional hotkeys for any other weapons and then re-equip the cannon. Boom. Instant energy refill and you aren’t getting shot in the process. I haven’t tested this in co-op since I was a little busy at the time.

My brother whipped through Crimson Lance and Arch Guardians like tissue paper thanks to a sweet corrosive revolver, of all things. Neither of us used pistols much throughout the game but this one, one that even my Siren had carried yet neglected, had the Gives Sick modifier with only a 2 bullet magazine but a sweet, sweet bonus to reload time. This modifier meant that every single bullet would add corrosive damage. I tried to explain that he didn’t have to keep shooting people to finish them off, let the damage over time take care of it for ammo considerations, but these warnings went unheeded. We also each carried the plain vanilla version of The Dove, just in case. We’re both glad we never had to whip that out.

Facing off against The Destroyer, the big baddie of the Vault, was no big deal. I had been here before. I knew where to stand. I knew to JUMP on the box behind the rock on the left and laugh while picking off purple tentacles so I could just smack that sucker in the eye with my two most damaging weapons until he died. My brother, thinking that I was the fool, got knocked off the edge of the cliff once or twice. Neener neener ;) I was running out of ammo and I didn’t want to use my cannon(s) or The Dove but we got through. The Destroyer has a ton of health but it’s really not a hard fight so long as you are patient about it. I think I went through sniping, combat rifle, SMG, and my own pistol. Remember that we did no supply runs so we were pretty happy with our progress and that we didn’t have to melee him to death. I assume it’s a him. Who can really tell? Now, since I haven’t spoiled enough of the game, let’s talk about the end.

Seriously, wtf. We did ALL THAT WORK* for the angel lady and got squat from her except many prompts to hurry up and a mere thank you. We did ALL THAT WORK* for the barely rooted in reality Tannis and we got pocket change. Chump change! Even if you bought just about every item ever, ignoring that drops usually beat vending machines by miles, you’d still be rich by the end. A lousy 200k-ish is not a reward. Booooo. None of that actually impacted my enjoyment of the game since every game ever these days ends ambiguously in the hopes that there will be a sequel. As I said back in Part II: If you are playing for the story, you are doing it wrong. Next up, headshotting zombies over Christmas. Maybe this can be a new holiday tradition!

*Don’t worry. The game felt like play, not work :)

Tagged as: 360, fps, gaming