If you read my last blog, i'm sure your assuming that i have fixed my gaming computer. Sadly this is not the case; i spent a lot of time in the last week or so trying to fix it, and all i was able to determine was that it was defenitely a hardware problem. I formatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows, and i was still getting BSOD crashes. I took it into the shop today, i used to work for this particular computer shop so i should be able to get a discount.

To entertain myself in the mean time, i installed Borderlands on the 'family' computer; which i beefed up with my old nvidia 8600; its only a year or so old and has a AMD quad core cpu and 4 gigs of ram, so it can run Borderlands without to much trouble on med-high settings at 1650x1050. I've reached level 11 in the game so far, and have dabbled in singelplayer and online co-op. I'll start by talking about the singleplayer.

I wanted to become competent at the game before launching myself into the online co-op, so i played for a couple of hours just to familiarize myself with the gameplay and get some decent weapons to take online. While the story is obviously terrible, this is not the kind of game that needs a story; Borderlands is purely about the moment to moment gameplay, and if done right, these kinds of games can be far more gratifying than those which rely on a story and a script (like Bioshock). Borderlands succeeds at creating excellent moment to moment gameplay; the guns look and feel great, they feel just like they should when you fire them, and the unpredictability of which gun you will use next is fantastic. All the different weapons feel so good that i have no preference for one type of weapon over another; i'm just as comfortable staying back and sniping as i am going in close with a shot gun. This is an achievement few games have achieved in the past, and the excellent gunplay alone makes this game worth playing. After indulging in the game for a number of hours, i felt a bit tired of it, and thought, 'well, maybe it isn't that good after all. Maybe it will be overly repetative.' coming home two hours later, i could't wait to start playing again. It is the unpredictability of Borderlands that makes it so addictive, and this is in no way shape or form a bad thing.

It is no secret that Borderlands was designed with online-co-op in mind. I am not usually a fan of co-op type games (never cared for Left 4 Dead), but the co-op component of Borderlands appealed to me, so i thought i'd give it a go. After a few failed attempts at connecting to a host, i finally got into a game where i was the lowest level character. I was level 9, while the other 3 were levels 11, 15, and 20. The lvl 15 player dropped soon after i entered, but i still had a blast playing with the other two fellows. They were pretty good about not just running off on their own searching for loot; instead we set off on a quest to kill something. We encountered a incredibly tough foe soon enough; a 'badass bruiser,' it was level 22, so none of us could kill it at all easily. We quickly found that the only the lvl 20 player could do any real damage against this thing, so we adopted a effective team stragety after a few tries; me and the lvl 11 player would distract this huge bugger, we would keep our distance and pick away at it with our weaker weapons while the lvl 20 player snuck up behind it and threw grenades and blasted it with his shotgun. When either me or the lvl 11 player got down to the 'last wind' thing, the other would revive him. We managed to perpetuate this until we killed the brute, and it was very satisfying indeed. After this the lvl 11 player left and a few lvl20 + players joined, at which point i became useless and left the game.

But if that brief encounter was a sign of things to come, i look forward to playing the game more in the near future, unlocking new and interesting weapons, and taking on tough foes. Finally, a mmo style co-op game i can appreciate and enjoy.