{"id":38086,"date":"2017-11-16T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=38086"},"modified":"2017-11-16T12:27:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T17:27:15","slug":"borderlands-part-17-dee-ell-cee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=38086","title":{"rendered":"Borderlands Part 17: Dee Ell Cee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Borderlands 2 had a lot of DLC. All together, the DLC probably doubles the size of the core game. Some of it is crap, some of it is on par with the rest of Borderlands 2, and one DLC in particular is really<\/strong> good. So before we move on to talking about the Pre-Sequel, let’s talk about this stuff.<\/p>\n

These things don’t need or merit much in the way of analysis, so let me do some rapid-fire mini-reviews…<\/p>\n

Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep<\/h3>\n

It's like if DM of the Rings was a videogame.<\/div>
It's like if DM of the Rings was a videogame.<\/div><\/p>\n

This is the best DLC I’ve ever played. For any game. <\/p>\n

I admit I’m biased. I’m predisposed<\/a> to enjoy humor built around RPG meta-humor. The premise here is that Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai gather around the table to play Bunkers & Badasses, an alt-universe D&D game run by Tiny Tina. You’re still playing as your character, still running around shooting things with your acid gun, and still pushing the big red murder button on the Borderlands Skinner Box<\/a>, but now you’re shooting skeletons and dragons in imaginary castles.<\/p>\n

You may be asking how Lilith playing D&D can result in your Axton gaining XP and loot. I’m glad you asked. The answer is shut up you’re ruining this for me<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A lot of the humor comes from the tension between the game world and the real world, similar to the jokes in Dorkness Rising<\/a>, or even that one webcomic I did<\/a>. The comedy here is stronger and more consistent than in the core game. There’s the in-game story about the party trying to defeat the sorcerer who cursed the land (Tina’s story is extremely arch) and the meta-story about everyone dealing with the loss of Roland and Bloodwing. <\/p>\n

The main story is played entirely for laughs. We’re not expected to care about the gameworld-within-the-gameworld. The whole thing is just riffs of tabletop games, with a few jokes about story-driven RPGs, MMOs, and nerd culture thrown in for good measure. <\/p>\n

That's the vault symbol on the die in the foreground. Is that good, or bad? We can see the 1, so it's not replacing that. And the 20 should be opposite of the 1, so it's not replacing THAT. How does this work?<\/div>
That's the vault symbol on the die in the foreground. Is that good, or bad? We can see the 1, so it's not replacing that. And the 20 should be opposite of the 1, so it's not replacing THAT. How does this work?<\/div><\/p>\n

The meta story is actually kind of heartbreaking. Tiny Tina has borrowed people from the world around her to use as characters in her game, and by doing so we can see them – and even some of the events of Borderlands 2 – through her eyes. Both her perceptions and her GM style are somewhat skewed. She’s in denial about both Roland and Bloodwing, and nobody at the table really knows how to help her cope with this loss. <\/p>\n

(One funny detail is that there are slot machines within Tina’s gameworld, and they take eridium from your inventory to play. Which if you think about it means Tina is evidently running some shady pay-to-win thing where she accepts “real-world” currency for in-game rewards. Not cool, Tina. Not cool.)<\/p>\n

When the DLC ends we cut back to the real world where the characters are all sitting around the table playing B&B. Maya walks in and says, “Hey guys, that spy just coughed up the access codes to the Hyperion moon base. Anyone feel like blowing up a space station?” This seems to be setting up a story where everyone went to the moon. I wonder if this was the original plan for the next game, and at some point they changed their minds and made it a prequel instead. In the next game we do indeed go to the moon and we visit the Hyperion space station, but we do so with a different slate of characters and it all takes place a few years in the past.<\/p>\n

Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage<\/h3>\n

HI I'M MISTER TORGUE! BUY MY F***ING DLC!<\/div>
HI I'M MISTER TORGUE! BUY MY F***ING DLC!<\/div><\/p>\n

Torgue is a musclehead who runs the Torgue corporation, which is one of the in-game weapon manufacturers. The joke with Torgue weapons is that they always deal explosive damage. This DLC is where you finally get to meet the screaming nutjob who only makes exploding guns. You enter a deathmatch tournament against a bunch of colorful characters and uses that to riff on sports, professional wrestling, television, and sports underdog movies.Also, we get to see something new, which is an urban area on Pandora. A whole section of the DLC takes place in a dilapidated cityWhere everyone tries to kill you on sight for no reason, for obvious reasons.<\/span> and it feels really different and interesting.<\/p>\n

Here’s a dilemma: I love Mr. Torgue, but I hate the gimmick his character is built around. He cusses all the time, but all of his cussing is bleeped out by an implant that was forcibly installed by the board of his company. On one hand, it’s a funny gag and leads to some amusing jokes. On the other hand, I hate having things beeped out.<\/p>\n

I don’t mean I “hate censorship”. I mean I actually find the beeping of cuss words to be grating. I can’t listen to songs that have had lyrics muted or beeped. It bugs me when TV shows do it. Cuss or don’t cuss. I’m fine either way. Just don’t beep stuff out. It creates this building frustration in me, like having someone constantly pause a song every few seconds while I’m trying to dance. It makes me want to punch a motherf***er. <\/p>\n

Assuming you don’t have this weird hangup about censored words, then I highly recommend it. If you do have this hangup, then I’d still suggest you get it, but turn down the volume to mask out the offensive censorship.<\/p>\n

Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt<\/h3>\n

Interplanetary poaching HO!<\/div>
Interplanetary poaching HO!<\/div><\/p>\n

Here is another DLC that leaves me conflicted. On one hand, I love<\/strong> Hammerlock. Having this xeno-zoologist take us on a Victorian-style safari where we go around blowing away huge creatures for the lulz is a hilarious idea that fits right in with Hammerlock’s shtick. A villain pops up, and he turns out to be a lot of fun. Professor Nakayama<\/a> is a unique goofball of a villain.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, this thing is a bit of a slog in terms of mechanics. I dislike the obnoxious hiking over empty space you have to do here. Maybe the designers were trying to capture the feeling of being in the big open wilderness? If that’s the case, then the look is ruined by the sheer cliffs that wall you in on every side. I’m not sure why this game is so shy about letting us see the horizon. It has the border towers to mark the edges of the playable area, and of course you can always make cliffs that drop down rather than tower over us. But Borderlands seems to love its playpen walls, and Big Game Hunt suffers from this more than the rest of the game.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure what happened here, but the areas feel off. The cliff walls make the space feel somehow claustrophobic. At the same time, these areas are also too large and it requires entirely too much hiking to get around. I really like the story and the unique freakshow monsters, but whenever I pop in and see that huge stretch of open space I have to cross I find myself thinking, “Meh. Maybe I’ll go do something else.”<\/p>\n

Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty<\/h3>\n

BOOTY. Geddit? Huh? HUH?<\/div>
BOOTY. Geddit? Huh? HUH?<\/div><\/p>\n

It has some moments, but this one fell a bit flat for me. The loot at the end comes from a room full of chests rather than a lootsplosion from the boss, which left me feeling pretty cheated. <\/p>\n

None of the regular characters show up, and the new characters don’t have the same zing. It might be because they’re all isolated and don’t have anyone to banter with. The environments are monochromatic beige for most of the run time, and you don’t see anything really fun or interesting until near the end.<\/p>\n

It’s not bad and Scarlett wrung a laugh out of me a few times with her ridiculously over-telegraphed betrayal, but this DLC didn’t quite have the magic of the others.<\/p>\n

The Holiday Shovelware<\/h3>\n

The Halloween DLC. It's supposedly played for laughs, but it's all catchphrases and callbacks with no actual jokes.<\/div>
The Halloween DLC. It's supposedly played for laughs, but it's all catchphrases and callbacks with no actual jokes.<\/div><\/p>\n

There are additional DLC packs for Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day. These are bargain DLCAs of this writing, these packs are $3USD while the above DLC each sell for $10.<\/span> that offer maybe forty minutes to an hour of gameplay. Usually only one of the regular ally charactersScooter, Zed, Marcus, Moxxi, etc.<\/span> shows up to read lines, which are heavy on exposition and catchphrases but short on actual jokes. Mechanically they’re pretty dry and the boss fights are boring bullet sponges. The loot is meager and not worth the time. <\/p>\n

The DLC packs suffer from an overall lack of polish and balance and I wouldn’t suggest them unless you’ve tried everything else and you’re still hungry for more content.<\/p>\n

Well, except for…<\/p>\n

Sir Hammerlock vs. the Son of Crawmerax<\/h3>\n

I'm not going to bury this post in screenshots but trust me, this DLC is really pretty.<\/div>
I'm not going to bury this post in screenshots but trust me, this DLC is really pretty.<\/div><\/p>\n

The exception is the tropical island-themed Sir Hammerlock vs. The Son of Crawmerax<\/em>. For some reason, this thing is a slice of brilliance. The environment is gorgeous. Hammerlock is there, but Lilith, Mordecai, and Brick get some dialog as well. There are a bunch of callbacks to Borderlands 1 DLC and some occasional in-joke fourth wall breaking on the part of the cast. The jokes are often actual jokes and not just recycled catchphrases. There’s even some important character beats in this DLC. We learn that Mordecai is busy training a new bird to replace Bloodwing. <\/p>\n

The Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s Day DLC packs break from the tone of the core game. They’re silly without being funny. They don’t feel like the work of head writer Anthony Burch. But Son of Crawmerax feels like the exception. <\/p>\n

Burch likes to do this thing where he’ll go for a really obvious joke or twist, and then telegraph that he<\/em> knows that you<\/em> know where the joke is going. It becomes this sort of meta-joke about expectations. He did this in the situation with the totally un-suspicious power core<\/em> when Angel betrayed everyone in Borderlands 2<\/a>. He did it in the sidequest No Hard Feelings<\/a>. He did it again with Pyro Pete in Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage<\/em>. He built an entire character around this gag with Captain Scarlett in the Pirate DLC. Likewise, Crawmerax has a section where you have to track down a bunch of assassins, only to discover they’re already dead. After the first couple it stops expecting you to be surprised and instead begins poking fun at how everyone knows where this joke is going. <\/p>\n

I’m not sure why this particular Holiday DLC is so much better than the others, but the difference in quality in pretty striking. It’s fun, it’s beautiful, the loot is good, the environment is full of variety, and the banter is charming. It’s only three stupid dollars. You might as well get it.<\/p>\n

That’s it for Borderlands 2. Next week is Thanksgiving and I plan on goofing off. After Thanksgiving break we’re going to start on the Pre-Sequel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Borderlands 2 had a lot of DLC. All together, the DLC probably doubles the size of the core game. Some of it is crap, some of it is on par with the rest of Borderlands 2, and one DLC in particular is really good. So before we move on to talking about the Pre-Sequel, let’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[609],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borderlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}