Why I am still playing Borderlands.

Flashback to October of 2009. We were just a few weeks away from the largest game launch in Video Game history, and not much attention was paid to anything else in anticipation of Modern Warfare 2. And then one of my friends picked up a copy of Borderlands, and convinced me to drop on it too. I was rather hesitant at first, because I really wasn't in the mood to drop sixty bucks 2 weeks before I was about to spend seventy, but it turned out to be a pretty damn good investment in the end. The game was played pretty much non stop until that Veteran's Day week.

We are now into the second week of May, and I was up until three in the morning last night playing Borderlands. Granted there were three DLC packs that I was looking to complete which has extended the life of the game, but there are a good combination of things that keep me coming back and a few of my friends that have never left.

Clearance Boddicker Said It Best: "Guns, Guns, Guns". There are tons of 'em, and there is quite a variety. We here in 'Merica love to hold our guns in our cold dead hands, and when you come across a stash of weapons that you can meticulously sift through, the search for the perfect weapon can be down right addicting. Take the "Armory of General Knoxx" downloadable add-on pack. You can go through the mother lode of all mother lodes of weapons. You can also kill a nearly invincible enemy that literally scatters goodies like a mutated piñata. I'm currently at the level 61 cap with my main character, with tons of pimp weapons with heavy damage, and I'm still not satisfied. I'm convinced that the greatest weapon ever is still out there, waiting for me to discover and lay waste to all the other inhabitants of this outworld wasteland.

The Call of Duty control scheme is in tact. This may be as petty as petty can be, but the Modern Warfare games pretty much laid the groundwork for the best FPS control scheme around: Shooting is the right trigger, and aiming is the left trigger. Couch is B button, Jump is A. All the controls you use the most are in the four most conveniently accessible spots for your hands. I hate HATE games like Halo and Bad Company 2 that make almost no use of th B button, but something like zooming in or crouching requires one to click the right thumbsick. 

Borderlands is still FUNNY. "Don't hurt your girl parts" still gets me. Also the ending of Dr. Ned's Zombie island campaign pretty much had me rolling. Very brilliantly executed, Gearbox never really took this game so serious, and that is what is best when you inject subtle humor whether it be something an NPC character says or background chatter when you're in co-op. Also, Nine Toes has three balls. I laughed for like 5 minutes after that animation.

Four Player jump-in jump-out Co-Op. This really needs to become standard; no "special Co-Op mode" *cough*SplinterCellConviction*cough*. You can play on your own, but also if you see a buddy hop on, you can save, go into multiplayer, continue right where you left off, and have a buddy join in. No problems, just enjoy a night of gaming. The more people in your party, the more difficult the bad guys are. You can also have your friends help you level up much faster. My friend starts a level 1 Siren, I can take him up to the last level of the main game on the second play-though and he is level 25 in 10 minutes. I don't even think that is cheap, I think that adds to the fun of the games. I don't mind helping a friend level up, or complete quests, or help kill General Knoxx, Dr. Ned, or Crawermax.

More Expansion is Possible. In the four months after the release of the initial game, Gearbox released three Downloadable Add-On packs, in which two were downright entertaining, and one was decent. I had a lot of fun with Dr. Ned's Zombie Island, which you actually get a quest requiring you to collect a ridiculous amount of zombie brains. I've Armory of General Knoxx for weeks now and have provided hours upon hours of entertainment, even though I've played through some sections over again to help friends get their quests completed, its still fun. Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot is a little tedious, but allows you access to a bank in which you can store all your kickass finds. 

Back in March, Take Two's CEO said that more DLC is possible for this game. You can go in so many directions, you don't even have to adhere to a main storyline. Borderlands in space. Borderlands on a Battleship. Its been hours upon hours of fun, and there, and each little vignette can be its own search for elite weaponry. 

Borderlands is something that completely took me by surprise to be one of the best games of 2009, and the game from last year I am playing the most. You should do the same (although if you read this blog, you likely already are). 

TL;DR - Humorous, control friendly, Weapon-whoring that all your friends can enjoy.