As-I-Play Borderlands 2: Of Parts and Pizza (Part Eight)

So nothing much came of the whole “Let’s be a deity!” thing (other than a semi-hysterical woman at the news stand in Sanctuary who says, “Who would worship the Firehawk? You’re clearly more godlike!”), and I’m still helping out Lilith. This time, I’m going after a ‘gentleman’ named Boll who has information on Lilith that he’s willing to sell to Hyperion (the bad guys), and she wants me to go kill him. At least he’s presumably not going to beg me to set him on fire. Not that I won’t do it anyway, mind you…

So I kill Boll, then have to hunt down the pieces of evidence he left scattered all over the map (in places I’ve already been – yay!). As it turns out, one of those places just so happens to be right where I got horribly stuck (mentioned in my Ooops post). In fact, where I was trying to go then is where I actually need to go now. Needless to say, I jump very, very carefully so that I don’t get stuck again. (The fact that you can get progress-blockingly stuck somewhere where you are SUPPOSED to be going is actually worse than me getting stuck somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be going, by the way.) I get up there, retrieve the ECHO in question (which is the third for me, although they can be fetched in any order), which is about me.

As it turns out, fetching me is Lilith’s idea, not Roland’s. Interesting. Now back to Lilith.

Well, it looks like that’s it for side missions for now, so I’m back to trying to rescue Roland. Let’s see how that pans out this time.

Off I go to the “Friendship Gulag.” Gee, that sounds like fun. Turns out, it’s full of robots, and a couple engineers. And that giant thing that has Roland trapped. Okay, shoot all the things. Shoot the thing that has Roland with the rocket launcher.

Surprise! It actually worked. After all the craziness that it took to get here, I’m actually a little amazed that I really did get to rescue Roland. So. Roland has been rescued, and he tells me to meet him back in Sanctuary because he has a plan to stop Handsome Jack, which he obviously can’t explain here because… no reason.

This is one of those things about videogames – and, let’s be honest, tv, movies, and books – that drives me crazy and makes very little sense: the “I have something important to tell you but I can’t tell you now” trope. Often, it’s a case of “because you wouldn’t understand because you’re too young/a woman/not special enough/not experienced” or what have you. And usually that turns out badly for whomever was supposed to share said information (and often they end up dead before they can actually tell you/the protagonist whatever it was… or they gasp it out with their dying breath), and they regret not sharing because if only they had, some Bad Thing would not have happened.

I’m going to bet that Roland will be alive and fine in Sanctuary when I get there, though, but I have to confess to being annoyed that he just won’t tell me here and now. I have to walk back through the damn robot base and get into my car and then travel (or find a fast-travel kiosk) and then walk through Sanctuary to Roland’s base… it’s just tedious and irritating and there’s absolutely no reason why he couldn’t just talk to me NOW.

But maybe in Sanctuary there will be more side missions for me to fetch things. (Oh, joy.)

Back at his base of operations, Roland is talking to Lilith and she asks him how he was captured. He says that he was knocked out while “taking a leak.” This is one of the little things I really do like about Borderlands – not that the big hero gets taken out every now and then, which is pretty awesome, but that people are people. People take leaks. People sleep. People tease each other and care about each other (Lilith and Roland, Moxxie and Scooter and Ellie), even if things are a bit weird. Just like people.

Roland is in the midst of explaining to me how a Vault is a living Warrior thing that Jack wants to control when he says the following phrase: “it isn’t a cache of weapons.” Except he doesn’t say “Cash,” he pronounces it like the social clout version, “cash-ay.” AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH. My inner grammar/spelling/pronunciation nazi has a small fit.

It’s one thing if you’re just an everyday human who messes up spelling and pronunciation (although I really wish you wouldn’t). People mess up spelling and pronunciation. I suck at spelling (which is why I use spellcheck). I get it. BUT. And this is a HUGE but. IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL OR PUTTING YOUR WORDS OUT IN PUBLIC MAKE SURE YOU GET THEM RIGHT. This, by the way, includes students turning in homework and blog columnists turning in their articles. And menus. And signs. And AAA videogames.

Okay. Rant over. Just don’t do it again, Roland. (He doesn’t.)

Okay, time to put that plot mission on hold for a bit and go rack up more XP by fetching/killing things.

Crazy lady (Dr. Patricia Tannis) wants me to lure out some of her mutants and kill them because they’ve gone rogue. So back I go to the bandit base (that I’ve already been through multiple times because that’s where they were holding Roland prisoner before the robots kidnapped him). So I fight through THAT level again (I am not a fan of this repeating levels crap), but at least this time there’s a new area to which I haven’t yet been – and it has mutants. Only a few, but still.

I’m supposed to get the extra special mutants in question to come out of the sewer with pizza… and when I ring the doorbell (yup, there’s a doorbell), I am told to “Come in, dude!” with a surfer accent. I’m totally expecting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here. I am not wrong. Okay, they aren’t actually turtles, but their names are Dan, Mike, Lee, and Ralph. So…. cute. I feel a little bad about killing them because of this, but they do attack me first, so…

Before I leave, I have another mission to complete. On the way to the mutant lair, there was a robot being killed by some thugs. When it died, it left behind a battery core, which it asks me to take somewhere and install. Okay. More backtracking and replaying.

I have to say, it’s one thing to revisit places, but revisiting them AND REKILLING ALL THE SAME ENEMIES INCLUDING THE BOSSES is really damn annoying. REALLY ANNOYING. It would be one thing, I think, if there were just mooks, but to have the bosses respawn is just stupid. What, are there clones of each boss that replace them? Ugh. I profoundly dislike worlds that don’t reflect what I’ve done in them. But it is what it is, so I will continue to kill the morons I’ve already killed just so that I can do your stupid fetch mission.

Okay, so I go upstairs and head across the roof, find the first robot body and plug in the core. It tries to kill me. So I kill it. It apologizes, and asks to be put into another body. No, I’m not dumb enough to think that this time it won’t try kill me. I do it anyway, and kill it again. Now it wants to be put into a radio. In Sanctuary. This strikes me as a terrible idea. Yes, I’m going to do it anyway. Yup, terrible idea. So I destroy the radio and then get to decide whether to turn the AI into a gun or a shield. I go with a shield because I don’t like shotguns, even talking shotguns.

Sir Hammerlock has another critter-hunting mission for me, but that will have to wait until next time.