[BL2] Badass Rank
Borderlands 2 uses the usual achievements, but it has its own in-game achievement system in the form of challenges. Challenges award you 1-100 points of “badass rank.” Increasing your badass rank...
View ArticleBlast from the Past: Tome of Knowledge and Sets
I am still waiting for games to pick up this idea from 2009. Achievement systems have proliferated, tracking all kinds of things, but most games want to give you cosmetic items instead of unlocks. One...
View ArticleTo-Hit Rolls
To-hit rolls are an RPG mechanic inherited from pen-and-paper systems. They represent an obvious intuition (attacks can miss) and use a binomial mechanic with a random chance. Many non-RPG computer...
View Article[BL2] Dark and Wacky
Borderlands 2 is silly but also darker than the first one. Most things are, upon a moment’s reflection, at least creepy and sometimes horrifying. There is lots of comedic sociopathy and black comedy...
View Article[BL2] Getting the Tone
The Slab King is probably the single best character for exemplifying the setting of Borderlands 2. He is needlessly violent, friendly and silly, occasionally profane, psychopathic, and devoid of...
View Article[BL2] Colleen Clinkenbeard
Would Borderlands (2) be as much fun without the voice acting? I love both the lines and the delivery on Patricia Tannis, but I’m not sure how well the lines work without the delivery. There are some...
View ArticleRally!
An exciting mechanic I do not see in enough games is a state between fully capable and dead. Some games weaken the player as injuries accumulate, but most follow the trope codifier in letting you (and...
View Article[BL2] Off-Screen Adventures
The Borderlands 2 end boss fight is long rather than difficult once you find the perfectly safe spot on the map. Your only risk is leaving it to grab more ammo. To help you rally in case of...
View ArticleResetting Characters and Worlds
I find myself preferring new game plus models where you carry over a bonus to a new character rather than taking the same character through a new, higher-level version of the game. Torchlight is the...
View ArticleLoot Bonuses: Bad Multiplayer Mechanic
Socializing costs and privatizing benefits is a lousy combination. Many games allow you to increase your difficulty and your reward. This could be explicit in the form of a difficulty dial tied to...
View ArticleBad Habits
I decided to play a bit of Borderlands 2 and see the quests I never did back in the day. I also stumbled into the Minecraft Easter egg, which was kind of neat. I was playing as the Mechromancer. Her...
View ArticleMomentum
The loot system for Borderlands is both a selling point and a major problem with the franchise. I dislike Diablo-style loot in general, but Borderlands seems especially damaged by the way you break up...
View ArticleTesting
I am gradually playing through Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep in Borderlands 2, and I have come to wonder if the game was playtested solo and/or with the Mechromancer. I assume it must have been,...
View ArticleUnplayed Steam Games
I have many unplayed Steam games, largely due to buying packs of games where I am interested in a few of the ten. Then there is the Steam sale effect where you see a game you are kind of interested in...
View ArticleAustralia
I feel like there should be a longer silence for mourning, but Ravious was also the guy who mixed a game review into his announcement that he had terminal cancer. Keeping the blog going seems like a...
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