Borderlands 4 is right around the corner, and while I grew up playing Borderlands 2 as a kid I never got around to fully 100%ing these games, and by that I don't just mean the main story, I mean all of the achievements as well. As time has passed I have started to play games for the glorious platinum achievement (technically just 100% as i'm a steam user but hey, it sounds cooler) on both new games and old classics I played growing up.
So here we are, in the glorious land of Borderlands 1, choosing one of four Vault Hunters to step onto the planet of Pandora in search of this elusive vault said to contain riches beyond our wildest imagination, stuff that would make YOU the wealthiest person out there. So who did I pick as my character? Lilith "The Siren", who lore wise is one of the most powerful sirens out there, at least as far as i'm aware.
Core Game Achievements
The first set of achievements in this game aren't the worst out there besides one in the non-enhanced version of Borderlands 1 (Hey, that's the one i'm on!), it's all just your typical "Hit level 10", "Complete Quests", "Equip a class mod", stuff you'll do just by playing the game naturally. Some challenges can end up being a bit harder to get such as secret bonus quests for standing on a very specific boat, killing an enemy by jumping on them like you're mario, that type of stuff, but where the challenges really get hard is Multiplayer achievements...
Multiplayer achievements for the most part aren't that bad, it's just stuff like doing 15 missions together, winning a duel against the other player, reviving a friend, that type of stuff, but in the original there was a fabled "And They'll Tell Two Friends" achievement that was NOT as easy as you may thing. The description simply states to "Game with fame", but who is fame? Do I have to go call up Obama and have him hop on Borderlands for a quick match? Nope, you had to play with a Gearbox employee OR someone who did before.
Keep in mind this game came out in 2009, and this isn't even the remastered version, the odds of finding ANYONE who played with a gearbox employee back in the day and is still willing to help out is rare, they even changed it in the remaster to just "Play with two people", but I wanted to get that 100% so I went online and managed to find some very friendly people willing to help me get this. I have no clue who Tico, Mr. Bones, or Mate are in real life, but they are real ones for deciding to hop in and game on a 2009 game with Tico infecting us with the achievement he somehow had gotten through someone else who had it.
Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot
Friendships made, achievements obtained, now what? Well that is where Borderlands 1 DLC comes into play. I had no clue what the Underdome was about until I was asked to do it with them, but I'm so glad I decided to play this with them, because doing this solo would've been hell on earth three times over.
This DLC is a break from what makes Borderlands, well, Borderlands.
While that could be a good thing it just brings pain and suffering prolonged by hours of grinding. If you want all of the achievements you need to sit through 20 rounds of 5 waves with RNG modifiers applied, on it's own that doesn't sound all too bad until you realize doing just one of the 20 round maps (there are three of them) ends up taking 2-3+ hours depending on how good of a team you have and if you did the trick to make the enemies a lower difficulty level. Not only this but if the host crashes or has an internet issue you don't get to just continue on from where the host left off, no, EVERYONE gets kicked out into the lobby, with all of that progress lost.
Surely with these achievements taking hours on end you'd be awarded handsomely for your efforts right? Nope. You get a certificate .png slapped on your screen and you get to call it a day.
This image is your only prize, but it doesn't just stop there because during the match itself you don't get any XP for any of the kills you have to endure over those hours spent scraping away at this DLC. Luckily every round you complete you are able to get some loot that spawns under Moxxis platform in the middle but I never once saw an actually good item drop from it, just a bunch of junk i'd only use for money to buy better items.
Oh well, at least they added Moxxi.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
As of right now this is the only other DLC I have played, that means I still have to go through The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution but what I can tell is that this DLC is most likely the most fun i've had so far with all of the things Borderlands 1 had to offer, so I can only hope that the other two DLCs are less painful.
If you haven't caught on yet, Borderlands is a looter shooter, the games main feature is loot, farm it to hell and back for the hopes of that shiny legendary or higher rarity loot to demolish everyone. This game has loot so rare that there are only a handful of documented cases of specific items even existing after over 15 years of the game being out, and that means something to me, it means there will always be more to grind for.
The reason I mention this is because this DLC is a looters worst and best nightmare, the game has a lot of roads you travel on, and the worst part about that is a lack of fast travel spots, but the game makes up for that with loot everywhere. There is an entire base where you get put on a 3 minute time in a chest filled room with one goal: LOOT IT ALL. The only time this game takes away money from you is the "Sucker born every minute" achievement, which requires you to spend $8,000,000 in game dollars on a donation box next to a giant bullet in the ground.
But if that is the case, where does the nightmare part come into play? Well it's time to talk about the crab that explodes loot, Crawmerax. Crawmerax will always be four levels above you and almost every attack will two shot you even when wearing a shield with over 2.5K capacity, he is a nightmare to deal with but if you manage to take him down he explodes into a giant pile of shiny loot with the highest chance of being goodies you actually want to bring into your future loadouts. I mean hell, when you get to this fight the game tells you VIA a new achievement "You. Will. Die."
Crawmerax is so good at providing loot that the suffering ends up feeling so good when you get those right hits off and get an explosion of loot, even if it ends up being stuff you never plan to use anyways. But I have more achievements to grab before I close out this game, so until next time remember to loot on!