Borderlands 2
It was the next game I was itching to play when I wrapped up Fallout 3 most recently.
Not a series I’ve followed over the years. But I did play the first one, a lot.
I remember that well, the final achievement was glitched.
Ah well, it didn’t sour the game. Thought it was fantastic. I was playing it around the same time as my roommate, because I remember us talking about it. But I don’t think we played together, which is strange. I know we didn’t pay for internet at the time, 2010 or so. So a LAN connection would have been possible, maybe we just didn’t know about it?
But this isn’t about the first game. This is about the sequel. Borderlands 2 released in September of 2012, the 18th.
I’m playing it 9 days later apparently, but don’t ask me how. Because I don’t own the disc. Did I borrow it from someone?
That much I don’t remember. I remember playing, I don’t remember getting very far into it. If you had asked me before now, I probably would have said only a few hours.
But the achievements show otherwise, I at least got 6 main missions in and to level 10. That’s a few hours for sure. And then, that’s it.
I remember specifically telling someone “No I don’t like the second one, they clearly made it more designed for multiple people to play and now it’s too hard to play solo.”
What
Am I talking about?
I couldn’t be more wrong, the original game had multiplayer. They didn’t add that in for the second game, if anything they must have made it more prominent? Not sure. But I think back to the belief I had, the game was significantly more difficult, and I’ve had that in my head for around 13 years.
I actually did touch Borderlands 2 again back in 2018, according to the achievements, only a little and I remember playing it as part of the collection for current gen consoles. Played it with my partner at the time, but it was very little before we moved onto something else.
Skip to 2021, I played through Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Mostly a fun time, shouldn’t have picked Clap-trap for my character. But I thought “Oh I remember that little guy, sure that’ll be fun!”
It got a little old, and the game also hit a wall of frustratingly difficult. I pushed through and finished the game, although that final boss I remember being quite a struggle.
But it was fine, I have to imagine the first game was like that as well. I just don’t remember it. I may go back to play it again since it’s part of the collection.
Also never touched 3, but I now own it with every piece of DLC that was on sale for less than 10 bucks. That was me going “oh yeah I’m sure I’ll like 3.” I only heard good things about it.
So here and now in 2025, it’s time for 2. As I said that’s partly because I was still in the mood for a shooter after Fallout 3, and then because I bought 3 and want to give that a go at some point. Also I somehow missed Ashly Burch’s entire career up until now making the connection she’s been a voice in so many of the games I’ve played and really liked. And then watching all of HAWP over a weekend. Great stuff.
I’m about 30 hours in so far, loving it. Yes, there have been some parts of difficulty, but it’s nothing like what I remember. I remember so clearly being stuck on that first boss for hours and hours.
Am I improving very slowly over the years? Likely not. If anything, given the number of games I’ve written off for just frustrating me to the point of no fun has been growing, it’s definitely going the other way.
But I can definitively say, I was wrong back then. Don’t remember who I said it to, but I know I said to someone that, I didn’t like Borderlands 2 because they “added multiplayer” and “didn’t balance it for solo.”
And I was very very wrong.
Oh also since I’ve been playing Borderlands 2, I watched the movie. It was fine? It wasn’t nearly as bad as I heard, but it also wasn’t really great. They did so many references to the game, literally a part in the movie where a sniper rifle scope is shown and it’s exactly pulled from the game. I was using it not 20 minutes earlier. That’s cool.
So I guess if you wanted to not hate that movie, just play the first game over a decade ago. Then basically don’t touch the franchise until riiiight before watching. So you get just enough of it to half remember and think it’s pretty cool.
Besides some things that bugged me like for the insane amount of guns and bullets fired, not a wound was shown. To keep a certain rating? To not have to animate it or use blood packs? I dunno, I’m not here to poke holes. Just something I noticed.
Back to the game though, and at some point I’ll get to 3. And maybe when 4 goes on sale in 10 years, I’ll scoop it up too. Although I hope it’s not that long.