PixlBit

                                

Today was a long hard day on the battlefield of Earth Dynasty Warriors 2025. . . I mean, Earth Defense Force 2025. My buddy Mark and I worked for hours and hours trying to build up our armor, find more weapons, and basically create as much havoc as possible.

I managed to get my Fencer's armor up to 800 on the way to 1250, and my collection of weapons went up to 390. The game was advertised as containing over 700 weapons and I saw on a message board someone claiming there were 790. So I thought if I got to 400, I would probably unlock the 50% all weapons achievement. I didn't quite get there.

I've played all four classes for a significant amount of time now collecting all their differnet weapons. Sometimes you get new ones and sometimes you don't. It seems random, but I did notice that the drops seem to be tied to difficulty levels and possibly individual levels. I noticed when I started playing on Hard in single player I would get lots of new weapons, but after several levels I would stop getting new ones no matter how many drop boxes I picked up or what level I was on. So then when playing co-op with Mark, I switched classes a lot and played difficulties each class hadn't played. It seemed to work because playing my Wing Diver on Easy (a skill level I never played her at) netted me 20 new weapons after a single level. Yes they were all low level weapons, but they all counted in the race to get all the weapons in the game.

Mark and I replayed certain levels with lots of drops over and over again. He was just using his Ranger, as always, but I used all different classes and switched up the difficulty after each play. Then we stopped getting any new weapons, so we went back to level one and started playing on the hardest difficulty, Inferno. We got through several levels like that. I used my Fencer to build his armor stat and find new higher level weapons. I got these Arm Hound missle launchers that look like boxing gloves and put them on each hand. I could continuously shoot missiles the whole time with those. Then I tried dual-wielding chain guns and that worked pretty well too. Finally I found a level 50 spear (my highest level weapon found yet) and put one on each hand. On this one level with swarms of ants, I was able to keep them at bay with those spear-arms pounding away and dashed around to get health to stay alive. It was yet another new strategy the game revealed to me with its huge variety of weapons. That's why I've been able to play this game for over a hundred hours this year. There's always something new.

               

                            Shield? Who needs a shield? I'll take two chain guns please.

So after a while, the stream of new weapons slowed and the levels became harder and harder to beat on Inferno or even Hardest, so we finally took a break and busted out Borderlands 2 in preperation for the midnight release of The Pre-Sequel. 

Mark played his level 60 Gunzerker and I selected my level 5 Psycho. Since those skill levels were way too far apart, we each played single player. I'm finding the Psycho a lot of fun. His special ability turns him into a raging melee attacker with a special blade that gives you health every time you make a kill. I was able to take out Bewm and Boom and Captain Flynt with this.

              

             Krieg, who talks a lot considering he's a Psycho and has a gas mask over his face.

I noticed that the game really doesn't penalize you for dying that much. It seems as though dying and respawning are meant to be a part of the game. I had to fight Midge-Mong and I kept dying, but I would just respawn at the edge of the town and get back into it. I wasn't losing experience just 10% of my cash, which is pretty easy to come by anyway. I came to accept dying as part of the game and stopped letting it bother me so much like it used to. After a while I was giving up my sniping ways, letting the true Psycho take over and charging into the fray, launching into my special fury whenever I got surrounded. I love melee fighting in games.

I almost made it to Sanctuary before I had to stop for the night. Then I went to Gamestop and picked up my two pre-orders for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I'll drop off Mark's copy at his place tomorrow. He'll probably play it all week and I'll have to wait until Sunday. I don't usually get much more than a half hour or hour a night on my handhelds during the week, much less any console playing. I can't wait though. It's going to be a blast next weekend.