PixlBit

I played another full day of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel continually in co-op with my buddy Mark. I bought the season pass for the upcoming four DLC packs, topped 50 hours playtime, got to 26 of 50 achievements, and begun True Vault Hunter Mode, which is just a harder difficulty replay of the game.

                   

                   Crazy Earl, voiced by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford in all the Borderland games,                       sells you upgrades to your backpack, bank and individual weapon ammo carrying                        capacities [storage deck upgrades] for Moonstones. I have only two upgrades left.

Co-op in this game is such a blast and some of the boss challenges are really much more manageable with more players and a lot more fun. Several times I would freeze an enemey and Mark would get a bunch of hits or visa versa; or, one of us would learn something about a situation and share that with the other, making the whole process move quicker. Yes, sometimes we'd get on each other's nerves. It's never perfect, but for the most part it is a lot more fun than single player.

           

               There's The Lawbringer next to The Fragtrap on the right. Probably what it looked                      like from a third person's view while we were playing co-op.

My favorite achievement of the day was the "360 No Scope" one. You have to get airborne and rotate 360 degrees before getting a kill with a sniper rifle without using the scope. During a mission I discovered a vertical jump pad and, in the middle of a firefight, decided this was an excellent place to try this move. I didn't really expect to get it, but when you're thrown high enough in the air, you can do the 360 rotation quickly and stil have time to shoot at foes below. I kept doing it until, by some luck, I got it. Mark was pissed because just as soon as he saw what I was doing and tried to copy it, the firefight ended. He got one on me later though.

He got the Elementalist achievement which is applying all four elements to one enemy: freezing, corroding, igniting, and electrocuting. This can be done on a boss by combining shots from several weapons, quickly changed, and a grenade with elemental damage. I think, during the same boss fight, I managed three of the four elements, but then I wasn't really trying for that achievement, which I had forgotten about. 

And speaking of boss fights. I had some doozies today. The first thing my friend Mark and I did was get going on co-op on True Vault Hunter Mode. We got to the second boss, Deadlift, and really hit a wall. He was knocking us around like little gnats. So we went back to Normal Mode to mop up the last bunch of side missions (each mode starts a new game but is saved so you can go back to it. A great feature present in all the games of the series). We got to the last side mission and it involved the final boss but even tougher. It presented two sets of four challenges, each one featuring a different element. So you better have your element effect counter attacks down. I didn't; however, we got almost to the very end of him after a very, very long battle when my friend got a call and had to take it. That pretty much killed it because you can't pause a boss battle. We both died, resetting the boss to the start. I tried to go it alone, figuring my friend would be back latter in the fight, but it was too hard by myself. I just didn't have the right arrangement of weapons. Most of mine have fire damage except for my grenades which have electric damage. That's just not a big enough set of weapon types to take on a boss like this.

So we went back to Concordia to bandage our pride and sort and manage our gear and then went back to True Vault Hunter Mode to take on the Deadlift boss again. We had a few more levels of experience, both in actual levels, and in knowledge of how the elemental damage works. Sure enough, we made mincemeat out of Deadlift and continued on to several more missions and side-missions before the night was over.

I think the game feels right on True Vault Hunter difficulty. Every mission is a challenge that makes you think hard about what weapons you use. It makes you try hard to figure out the best way to get better gear and how to use that gear. There's so much detail in all the gear in this game from weapon damage effects, to class mods, to grenade types, to O2 kits, to the skills in your skill tree; all this stuff can combine together to make some real magic happen - if you can manage it all.

               

               These are all of Fragtrap's specials. I've used most of these but not all. Pirate Ship                       Mode gives you two cannon that shoot automatically and build to a giant rapid fire                       crescendo. They do massive damage to whomever is in front of them.

Finally I did some exploring. There are ECHO logs to be found, hidden Vault symbols burned into walls and floors, and of course, weapon lockers. Finding these things contribute to the list of challenges and give you tokens to apply boosts to various stats in the game. Plus it's just fun to explore and find stuff. It's a big and hugely detailed world and I'm really enjoying being in it.

                                      

                             Look for this Vault symbol hidden all over Pandora's Moon.