As-I-Play Borderlands 2: Firebird… Thunderbird… Firehawk… Whatever. It’s a Phoenix. (Part Five)

Okay, so here’s why you should never ever ever EVER stop midway through a quest in Borderlands. When you spawn back in, IT PUTS YOU BACK AT THE BEGINNING. I’ve already progressed through the checkpoints, I have the loot and such, but I have to fight my way back through ALL the enemies I’ve already killed. Ugh. This is why I didn’t want to play Dark Souls – I am not happy that I have to do it again now, since I didn’t WANT to spend multiple hours replaying what I’ve already played BECAUSE THE DAMN MISSION IS TOO LONG.

I did get through it faster this time, but still.

Moving forward, it’s more of the same in terms of combat – spider ants, flaming spider ants, pyro nomads, normal nomads, midgets, flaming psychos, a couple of badass psychos. The spaces continue to be different – it’s something I do appreciate about Borderlands. I even find a room that appears completely useless, but if you look up, there’s a hole to the sky filled with borealis that is really kinda pretty.

But then I get to the Firehawk’s base, and my Cortana-clone warns me about traps, then, just to prove the point, a badass psycho who is on fire comes running out, which is nice only because he’s taking damage already so he’s easier to kill.

Oooh, look. Pipes with char marks and corpses under them. I wonder if they spit fire? Yup, yup they do. Traps. Wheeee! Sneaking. I’m really good at sneaking.

And there’s an ammo machine right beyond a save point. I smell a boss fight. Although I swear, if I die and get started back at the beginning, I will have an apoplectic fit.

As I enter the Firehawk Lair, I see another Siren standing in front of a monitor, a moment before she blinks out. Interesting. Especially with all the audio stuff from Jack about Lilith (from the original Borderlands, whom I played, which is why I ultimately went with Maya this time).

Well, that was odd. There were two bruisers on the platform. I snuck up so that I could repeatedly headshot one of them, I got him to zero health, and all he did was stand there and scream about his face. He didn’t die. Until I stepped up ON the platform, when he fell over dead and then Lilith appeared from the ceiling with flaming wings.

That was buggy. But FLAMING WINGS. (Also, I called it, which you’ll just have to take my word for since I’m the one typing this as I play and you’re reading it all after the fact.) Then she falls down and blathers about “keeping the bandits in line so Roland can focus on Jack. Anyway, long story, lots of internal bleeding.” Then she asks for help.

So…. no boss fight? Or did I somehow manage to skip the boss fight by sniping the bruiser when he wasn’t able to chase me? Okay then.

I revive Lilith, who asks for some eridium. I have that! No? You only want the stuff from your box across the room? Go fetch! I bring it back to her, she turns purple, then seems revived. Then the ceiling starts to shake on the other side of the platform.

Ah, so THIS is the bossfight – the bandits breaking into the compound in waves. That’s more like it! (Except for the part where I fell off the cliff… but at least I respawned in here instead of back at the beginning. Thank god.) We defeat them, and Lilith says, “Now let’s talk about rescuing my boyfriend.”

Borderlands 2 may just have made up for that Claptrap crap at the beginning. Women rescuing men? Yes, please and thank you. It’s so nice to finally have a game in which the “damsel” isn’t a poor waif-creature that I was happy enough to rescue Lilith’s boyfriend. But when I go to turn in the quest to her, she then says “Well, ex-boyfriend.”

Even better. The damseled dude isn’t even a love interest. Nor is he a child (despite the “Childe Roland to the dark tower came” reference). He’s an important military man who needs rescuing, and it’s made even better as far as I’m concerned because I’m playing a woman, so the rescue party is made up of two ladies (yes, I know that if I were playing it “as it’s meant to be played” it would be two ladies, two men, and one it, but that’s still a nice egalitarian gender distribution).

I head out (after Lilith says she’ll teleport me to the bandit camp and sends me 10 feet), and find the empty hole room I was in earlier. So that’s what it’s for. Cool.

I travel to where Roland is being held, get a car, and am told my Scooter that’s a terrible idea and I need to go see someone named Ellie. So off I go to find someone ELSE before I can go after Roland… at least Ellie is (I presume) another lady errant.

That would be a good clan name: the Ladies Errant. Maybe someday.

I would like to take a minute to say at this point that while I am enjoying playing as a Siren, I do occasionally regret not taking Zero the Assassin as my character. Maya is fine – she’s not annoying (although when I leave her alone for a few minutes to type up these paragraphs she will occasionally say “I’m bored” or “booooooring” in a really irritating voice), her powers are useful without being overkill (although it would be nice if I could levitate a raging goliath), and I get to set things on fire.

But I do wish a little bit that I had taken Zero. But only Sirens can use elemental weapons, and I do really like setting things on fire from afar.

Maybe in a second playthrough or if I get to choose another character for DLC. But who am I kidding? Even if I wanted to play through part of all of this again, I don’t have the time. Se la vie.