Borderlands 3: The Sword and the Gunslinger

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

The next key pieces are on the planet Promethea, home of the Atlas corporation, but it too is under attack by both Maliwan and COV who are in clear alliance. Fortunately, Lilith knows of allies here as well, the first being Mad Moxxi who distracts most of the COV by participating and winning the galaxy wide broadcast of "Who wants to bang a bazillionaire" in nearby Lectra City, basically an all female city wide death match with the winner being able to bang the host in front of a large audience, both broadcast and live (with much audience participation to boot).

Lilith's second ally in the area is the space ninja (warframe?) Zer0 who makes use of the Sanctuary III to assault the Maliwan orbiting death star to end the war and earn the remaining key parts that Dr. Tannis needs to finish the key.  Maya volunteers herself to open said vault where she defeats the impressive guardian monster within only to then encounter the Calypso twins. While Tyreen absorbs the power of the defeated monster, Troy absorbs and disintegrates Maya herself.

While they replay her snuff film on a loop, Dr. Tannis discovers that this vault seems to be linked to another on Eden-6, the swampy home world of the Jakobs family who are also in conflict with the COV. They hire a trusty gunslinger squire named Clay - the lone merc who didn't simply take Calypso money and leave like a whore.

Borderlands 2: Gaming is Training

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

And so we arrive in a desolate land plagued by skelemen and upon reaching the nearby town we find it filled with familiar faces. DL protects tavern owner Moxxi from some rowdy drunks, I chase down some crumpet thieves, and Jim explodes some of the town's scout blimps for Mister "Gatekeeper" Torque before we are allowed to move on to the Forest of Being Eaten Alive by Trees... THIS GAME IS GREAT!

The forest is home not only to angry ents, but also formidable orcs and scary looking spiders. Deeper in we even have to beat up some other adventurers who are camping a boss monster and save a crestfallen player from the invader "n00bkiller" before running into Roland "the White Knight" who is totally OK that Jim shot down the scouting blimp he was on.

Such a dork souls moment!

As recompense we help him retrieve a magic sword from a giant golem and as a reward each get a totally awesome SWORDSPLOSION shotgun which shoots a sword that explodes into more exploding swords! Thank you Mr. Torque! After fighting past dragons and giant skelemen kings we then enter the Mines of Avarice to forge an alliance with the dwarves who all look like Jim!

Everything goes smoothly until I "accidentally" explode the face of the dwarven king turning all the dwarves and their golems hostile. The little bastards even seal us in, but we find the wandering wizard Claptrap nearby willing to help us out... after we forge him a mighty beard taken from dead dwarves and power up his wand by inserting it into a number of magical creatures, before killing them. I DO ALL THE INSERTING!

Insight: Ents are weak to fire while knights are weak to corrosive but I like skelemen best as they're weak against melee!

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Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about a person/s or thing/s that has greatly influenced you." -Chestnut

My very patient wife! She has me expanding my palate and perfecting another language.

Borderlands 2: Invincible Comeback

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Lucky of us, a sponsor has recently been kidnapped in the region by Pyro Pete (Rank #4). Unlucky for him I have a fire-proof shield and beat him down in under half a minute. The sponsor turns out to be Mad Moxxi who sends us to our new trainer... Tiny Tina? WUT?

After some shenanigans with cookies, Tina sends us to participate in the DEATH RACE to train for our next battle. Somehow, both Jim and DL end up letting THE PERSON WHO HATES DRIVING (me) do the driving. Well, turns out just because I don't like it doesn't mean I'm bad at it - and successfully complete the circuit three times in a slow Bandit Technical - winning the last run by a second! I am ELATED!

Tina sends us to do a few more training missions such as getting an autograph from a serial killer and walking her dog giant flaming skag, before letting us face the overweight, cannibalistic bike rider Motor Mamma (#3) in the arena. Her arsenal manages to knock Jim down, but once her bike is destroyed she's mince meat for MY AXE! Mince meat I save for tasty snacks later. Nnnhnhnhhnnyeeesss!

With Motor Mama packed away it's time to hunt for the Rank #2 dude, "Flyboy", guarded by robots and all things flying - but Piston (Rank #1) flips the script and explodes Flyboy from his blimp before our fight can start! Piston tries to bombard us too but DL's turret and sniping skills defeat his balloon and send him crashing to the arena.

There the fight continues against his next vehicle, a monster Badassasaurus truck that Jim explodes with his dual lazers. Finally on foot, I give Piston a face full of buzz axe - splitting his face into two. IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

It's a pretty cool vehicle!

Unfortunately we don't get to keep the #1 ranking for long since Pyro Pete makes a comeback, having trained up significantly to become Pyro Pete the Invincible! What is it with everyone gaining invincibility? He's now a really tough nugget to crack and while not as impossible as Master Gee, is still enough to force the three of us to retreat!

Insight: Multiplayer can probably cheese the race by having a person wait at each checkpoint, but I did it properly meaning use the boost (F key on keyboard) during the straights, and jumping the ramp to the sky bridge also saves some time.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us 5 facts about yourself." -Jen Thorpe

I'm married, I like (trying to) sing, I make diaries of most games I play, I like cooperative board games, and I dislike money grabbing/gambling lock boxes in all their forms.

Borderlands 2: Get that Booty!

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Concerned about future attacks, Firehawk asks our team to go gather funds to strengthen Sanctuary - and what better funds to look for than some lost treasure?! PIRATE TREASURE! ARRRRRRH!

The three of us head to the town of Oasis to begin the search where Jim finds an amazing Fastball grenade mod that features a tiny explosion but can be thrown far and insta-kills most regular enemies. Once DL repairs a nearby hovercraft it becomes really easy to murderize all the sand worms and pirate themed enemies in our way.

It's not long before another pirate - Captain Scarlett, invites us to her ship for a parley. She too is looking for the lost treasure, and is willing to split it with us if we help her find it. Since she's kinda hot despite missing more than a few body pieces, we say "Aye!"

She's the only one other than Moxxi who has "shrines" dedicated to her.

We need to assemble a lens that will reveal where the treasure is buried and she saves us time by simply giving us the first piece. We get the next two easily from the Pirate Union (flying their own hovercrafts) and a Hyperion convoy guarded by loader bots - easy prey for ramming. The next one is given to us by some old coot at the rustyards, but since it's in a locked chest - DL shoots it open and damages the part! LOL WHUUUUT? Thus begins a long trek to a refinery full of pirate-bots (obviously) to repair it.

Finally, with the lens complete - we head up to a really high lighthouse as per Captain Scarlett's instructions and use it to show to the world where the great treasure is buried. It's at this point she sends her crew to kill us while she herself races to the loot. Why Scarlett? WHYYYY! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENNNDS....

Insight: Unlike the previous vehicles the hovercraft is a freaking tank which more than makes up for the weaker arsenal they can carry. To this end, it's faster to ram everything to death (where possible) instead of shooting them.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about your physical creative space, and how it influences your content creation." -Krikket

My desk is full of loose papers which act as the diary for various games I play. Each side is titled and numbered so I know what they link to and having them in front of me encourages me to continue the notations.

Borderlands 2: Just Take It

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

While the leaders of Sanctuary plan a counter attack, we three amigos first go to distant Lynchwood in search of a "cursed gun", which Jim finds is really cursed since it prevents movement while drawn. Lynchwood is home to the bunny bandit army though, with respawning bad guys regularly -pooping- popping out from every shack. They are definitely allied with Hyperion too so we blow up their train and railroad, rob their bank and kill their female sheriff!

Turns out she was Handsome Jack's girlfriend so he's not very happy that I put a rocket in her mouth. He's even less happy when we go to the site of his nearly complete utopian city "Opportunity" and wreck the place for fun - destroying his statues, flooding build sites, exploding construction equipment and oh yeah... murder all his laborer bots and engineers!

The size of said rocket.

Since we're already in the process of destroying his hopes and dreams we then join the Sanctuary army to take the fight to their main base and assisted by Slab buzzard air support, battle through the soldiers, destroy their flying bunker and kill his evil suicidal bitch siren daughter! Just as we are about to take the artifact like taking a baby from their candy, Roland and Firehawk show up and make a mess of things, getting killed and abducted in that order. Uh, I mean, respectively! Yeah.

So Jack gets away with everything and we are left with nothing. While Slabby and Mordecai the birdless plan the next move, we kill some time hunting a giant skag, fighting in Moxxi's Ore Chasmic arena (against Hyperion), and nearly falling for Jack's traps by going to check on his grandma as well as nearly jumping off a cliff for money. He's a sly one this Jack fella. Good thing DL and Jim managed to hold me back!

Finally Slabby gives us a mission to get some supplies (and by supplies I mean bombs) from another gang called the Sawtooth. Shouldn't it be Sawteeth? Well it doesn't matter. They don't have teeth or eyes or bombs anymore. We took em. We took em ALLLLLL!

Insight: The most upstairs part of the flying bunker fight (just before the water) is a good spot to fight as the structure there provides a lot of cover.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about some of your favorite protagonist(s) and explain why. Or talk about characters in which you can recognize yourself or parts of yourself." -Endalia

John Constantine, because he gets things done often via the hard choice even at the expense of his friends. Not seen so much with the Keanu Reeves movie version but every iteration voiced or played by Matt Ryan does this. Also, Batman because even if he keeps people alive, most of his allies end up disliking/hating him since "the mission" comes first. I don't have their gear nor talent, but if it comes down to sacrificing popularity or people for my own goals - you bet!

Borderlands 2: Trainwreck 2 - the Wreckening

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Before going to steal the key to save the planet kinda deal, we opt to have some R&R first - delivering pizza to ungrateful lab rats, winning live grenades at the slot machines in Moxxi's bar (owie), and re-purposing a robot AI into a gun. A really cool, sentient gun.

Mmm that's some sexy pizza!

It's then off to the Tundra to hunt varkids (giant bugs) and meet with 13 year old bomb maker Tina. Varkid hunting is kinda slow thanks to local sniper Mordecai kill stealing all our shit. Anyway, Tina wants us to collect both bomb parts and tea party guests to help us steal the key, tasks that are pretty easy until an inebriated Jim murderizes the last tea party guest. Hah, and I thought I was the psycho!

Good thing Tina still makes us the rocket bombs, casually dressed as bunny dolls which we use to derail one of Jack's trains which was supposed to have his key. Of course, it's a trap. There is no key, just metal and circuits and bullets and rockets in robot shapes that we dismantle. At the same time Roland tells us that Sanctuary has come under heavy attack, and using some special gizmo Scooter rigged plus Firehawk's magic - gets the entire city airborne and teleports it of there. Our next job is simply to catch up!

Have you ever chased a flying, teleporting city before? There's a lot of ground to traverse. Ground slick with blood of the things in our way. Especially those annoying cloaking mini-dragon things. I like to hit them with corrosive bullets since the acid remains visible, even if they don't.

Insight: Letting the varkids coccoon and hatch into stronger versions is a good way to get loot.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What is a favorite Quote/s, and tell us why." -Wilhelm Arcturus

"Happy wife, happy life." because it's true! :P

Borderlands 2: Firehawk - Ashes and Dust

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

On a quest to save Princess Roland, we three heroes find ourselves in pyromaniac valley - home of all things spicy, hot and burninating to find "the Firehawk" who supposedly knows which closet Roland is being held in. She certainly fits the bill.

Thinking with our fun heads, we mutually save each other from a massive attack by a rival gang - the Bloodshots. She says that Roland is in their castle, no doubt experiencing whatever it is Princess Peach feels while a prisoner to Bowser. But before we go rescue him the Firehawk wants us to check up on her cultists... they are actually really fun guys who seem only focused on setting themselves on fire. This is great as we get to help them burn. Win/win! They do go a bit far when they kidnap a few villagers for roasting though so upon Firehawk's command we ice them for good.

One of the best missions ever!

Then its off to rescue Princess Roland at the Bloodshot Castle Dam but they ain't stupid enough to open the gates for a random looking car so we have to drive all the way out to the Dust where we meet Ellie in her junkyard who offers to make us a "bandit technical" vehicle if we bring her the parts - which is really easy since we destroyed like ten of these cars before reaching her.

When asked why she's all the way out here and not in Sanctuary she says its to get away from her overbearing mom, Moxxi, and her creepy ex Scooter who also happens to be her step-brother. Yikes.

Insight: While in Gunzerking mode, Jim (Gunzerker) constantly regenerates health and ammo!

---

Blaugust Bonus: "What are some key sources of media (games/movies/etc) that have shaped your worldview?" -Mailvaltar

Ultima Online showed me early on both how evil some people can be as well as how awesome it is to work cooperatively. Hence I now always strongly prefer cooperative endeavors rather than competitive ones.

Borderlands 2: The Evil H

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Claptrap docks the boat at some non-snowy wasteland and after murdering and dismembering politely asking the local banditry, we activate a catch-a-ride garage that can spit out cars like bubblegum!

Naturally, DL is great at driving. Takes Jim a few goes to get the hang of it though, especially with one hand in a bag of chips and the other on his beer. Gunner ports are the best fun for me. Run over some yetis and skag dogs while collecting power cells as a welcoming gift for Sanctuary.

The gunner seat is FUN!

Jim plugs them in just in time to power the city shields as the giant, floating H commences planetary bombardment... to no effect! Take that, you evil letter! Inside, Sanctuary is full of familiar feces. I mean faces. Mad Moxxi owns the bar, the unlicensed Dr. Zed practices in the clinic, Scooter tinkers in the garage, Marcus sells guns in person, and Dr. Patricia Tannis runs the Crimson Lance Raider HQ.

The only thing missing is its leader, Roland, so obviously us new guys are sent to find him. Oh, and to kill a bunch of assassins hiding in the nearby waterworks facility first. Those assassins are tough SOBs and have many, many friends. At least they are carrying shineys. As I often say "I like my treasure like I like my baby steaks, raaaaare..." 

Insight: You can deploy two vehicles at once and one of the customization options is the main gun. Generally things that go boom are preferred as the driver can always use the forward machine gun.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What is some popular piece of content/media that seems to be universally loved that you have never been able to understand?" -Dragonray

Lock boxes and basically anything that you pay money for to get a random return - especially when the odds are highly obfuscated. I think anyone that spends money on such things are either incredibly rich and/or incredibly stupid. Also, it is definitely gambling and has no place in mediums that minors can access.

To a lesser extent, the same goes for grinding the same enemies or activities in game for a chance of an item. If I happen to be in the right spot at the right time, cool - I'll help defeat the whatever or run that instance. What I won't do is stay for hours doing the same thing all day everyday for loot. Once is enough. If I get cool gear from it, sweet. If not, too bad.

The only time I find myself repeating things these days is to practice to improve my own real life skills. Or you know, things I really, really enjoy. :P

Borderlands Pre-Sequel: Vault of Elpis

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Repairs on the Helios take some time, what with having to defend a Hyperion space supply drop from pirate space ships, getting the R&D specimens back into their cages, eliminating the plague infected worker cannibals in maintenance and dealing with a wandering alien in the trash compactor, so by the time all is back in order and I return to Concordia - Moxxi, Roland and Lilith are all long gone having stolen the coordinates for the vault I was meaning lay claim to on Elpis before the Lost Legion attacked! Fricking thieves!

I head to the location myself and make an ally in Captain Chef, some sort of space explorer claiming land for King Gril... Gilga... eh... "King Greg", but he doesn't really hang around to help fight the aliens guardians and lost legion eternals that are defending the vault. Gun loaders only help for the surface battles but deeper in it's just me and my digi-jacks that need to take care of everything - especially this four faced alien boss guy who gets HUGE for the second phase of his fight, which ironically is much easier than his first form.

The bigger they are, the easier they are to hit!

My reward for finally penetrating this vault? A silly little vault symbol that gives me flashes of future knowledge when I hold it. Of course, I only get around ten seconds with it before Lilith phasewalks in and brand-punches the symbol right into my face, promptly leaving me to get killed by the remaining aliens. Jokes on her as Captain Chef manages to pull me out and get me back to Nurse Nina at Concordia. My wounds are patched up, but I have a handsome mask made to cover the scar that Lilith bitch gave me. I am SO going to get back at her for this!

Insight: Kill eternals before they "ascend" or they will be fully healed. Also, double jump when the boss alien does a jump smash during phase 1 of his fight.

Borderlands Pre-Sequel: In Charge

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

I was expecting a few vault hunter visitors on Helios station today but not an unprovoked invasion by an entire fleet of Lost Legion marines! As expected, the maintenance loader drones and claptrap units are worthless in combat which left the station close to defenseless. Without any other option, I simply had to escape by myself to the moon called Elpis. In the rush, I kinda forgot that there is no atmosphere there but luckily a scavenger named Springs managed to save my bacon with her re-breather Oz Kits.

"Heart of Gold" always clears anything that comes before it.

In exchange for a few favors, like eliminating some competing scavengers, she also hooked me up with one of her Moon Zoomie buggies to get me the town of Concordia where I could ask for help in retaking the station. Unfortunately, everyone from the town mayor to the two vacationing vault hunters Roland and Lilith refused so I had to ask my ex-wife Moxxi instead. She's one hot and smart curvy package, and luckily I caught her on a good day!

Using some black market tech I managed to triangulate a jamming signal that was screwing with the rest of the Helios defenses... back to the mayor of Concordia! Yeah, I had to go talk to him about that and we came to an agreement. I'd get to turn it off and he'd get... a bullet to the head! I'm sure Springs can run the town much better than that ass hat.

Insight: The dots on the map are some natural oxygen vents where you can refill your tank.

Farcry 3: Memories of the Fall

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

The arena bouts were quite challenging and for the most part nothing I couldn't handle, so much so that my hostess "Mad" Moxxi began taking a liking to her new champion. After a particularly gruelling round I found her waiting for me at the infirmary where she began asking about my past, and how I got that tattoo on my arm. The surprising thing was... I could remember! Maybe I've just had my head cracked over so many times that it fixed my amnesia from before? Regardless, I've decided to write it down in my diary in case I forget once more where I came from.

In my youth, before the arrival of the Zone, I was just another everyday teen that wanted to see the world - and have crazy fun while doing so. To that end my comrades and I decided to go skydiving out to some remote island away from the busy hubs of tourists. It was all going well until we got captured by the local pirates led by this crazy man named Vaas. He even has clips on youtube.

They separated us and planned to sell us back to whoever would pay. Fortunately my brother in arms who was with me managed to break our bonds and initiate a speedy escape from the prison camp. I got away by jumping down a waterfall while evading a barrage of bullets, he on the other hand was not so lucky.

Looks like you didn't make it, hermano.

Defeating the Creator

My journal through Borderlands! You can follow the rest of the story here!

As expected the lumber yard was quite well defended and I found the empty van of the scooby gang right at the entrance. Not a good sign. Sure enough as I progressed I found each a journal for each member - their last before getting their brains munched out (or squished by a barrel). Some of the zombies were getting really tough too, with one badass tankenstien forcing me to backtrack a little into the chasing horde before being able to take him down. Fortunately I was getting very adept at evading zombie puke by this stage.

They puke a lot. :(

Eventually I bust into the mill itself where I cleaned up the last few brain eaters in the way before confronting Dr. Ned in person about his zombie making ways. He had turned the main floor into a surgery of sorts, and was not willing to stop his operation so we settled things via an old fashioned gun fight. Ofcourse he lost, but no sooner had I "killed" him that he revived into a giant laughing monstrous thing that burrowed into a cavern underneath the mill itself.

 I dropped down in pursuit and found it waiting for me in a sea of blood.  Fortunately he was not very agile and certainly not as tough as the tentacle beast from the vault, so after a few short minutes I exploded him into little disgusting giblets. With my task complete I returned to Jakob's Cove to report in then took a transport back to New Haven to clean up all this zombie puke and zombie pieces from my clothes. Eww.

A few days later while idling in town I received an invitation from someone named Moxxi. She heard I was a decent fighter and was wondering if I wanted to participate in her arena. I managed to beat everything the zone has thrown at me so far I thought to myself. Why not?