Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Miss me? OK, probably not. (If you did, *mwah*.)

Regardless, I failed to meet last week’s self-imposed deadline because I did something that I said I was no longer going to do: I bought a first-day-release version of a video game.

I’ve been burned by the hype of Release Day versions, most notably No Man’s Sky and Fallout 76. For those two, I either stuck with the game through months of patches and updates (NMS), or I dropped it like a hot rock within a fortnight of fighting patches and incredibly bad design (F76). Those two reactions pretty much describe the trendline of my frustration with the beta versions that game studios now peddle as consumer-ready fare. I mean, you should not load up a brand new game on the day of its release only to have a 5GB patch begin downloading. That’s just nuts, but it’s indicative of the high-stakes meat-grinders that game studios have become.

However, when I heard that Borderlands, the irreverent dystopic sci-fi shoot-n-loot franchise, was coming out with a third major installment, (and in my book, there have been only two Borderlands games, as the “pre-sequel” and the spinoffs had neither the charm nor the playability of installments 1 and 2), I could not help myself and pre-ordered myself toward what I hoped and prayed would not be another Release Day filled with frustration and tears.

Why am I so enamored with the Borderlands games? Is it the stylistic art, the semi-hard-outlines of the animation that makes it feel like I’m in a 3D graphic novel? Is it the goofball intros, the wry, tongue-in-cheek patter of the heroes and villains? Or is it that the creators filled the world with mirthful mayhem and off-the wall NPCs such as the psycho who, as he is chasing you down to your death, recites Hamlet’s entire “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt” soliloquy from Act 1 Scene 2?

My answer: all of the above.

So, what about the new game?

Borderlands 3 has not disappointed. In fact, I haven’t even been annoyed, not once.

It’s kind of sad that this aspect is part of my critique, but nevertheless, I must report that after several hours of play of my Release Day version (with no patches!), I have not encountered a single glitch or freeze or bounce. The game has been running smoothly and without issue on my old Xbox 360 console, and that fact is remarkable on its own, given the usual hassles I’ve had with premiere level games.

At its heart, Borderlands 3 is essentially unchanged from the first two installments. You play a “vault hunter,” an adventurer who’s raison d’être is to plunder vaults of alien artifacts for profit (and, incidentally, to reduce the surplus population of psychotic bandits). There are story missions and side missions you can take on—in service of either your main objective or one of the memorable NPCs that form the game’s dramatis personae—exploring various regions, environments, and planetary bodies.

In B3, as in the previous games, there are four character classes to choose from, each with special abilities and particular strengths that can be enhanced through “skill trees.” You start with a pistol and a heavy dose of both attitude and bravado, and quickly level up to bring your unique ability into play. There’s a gun-heavy tank class, a gizmo-wizard, a beastmaster, and (the only holdover from previous games) a siren class, albeit one with a distinctly East Asian influence.

While most of B3 is very familiar to fans of the franchise, some interesting changes have been made to the mechanics. I took characters of each class up through level 5, playing with their abilities and exploring the three “trees” of enhancements. The first change I noted was that, rather than each class having a single “special ability,” they now have at least three, each associated with one of the enhancement trees where you spend the Skill Points awarded as you level up. The beastmaster (FL4K, by name), actually has more than three, as he has “pets” (a dog-like skag, an apish jabber, and a spiderling) that tag along. Most enjoyable from a player’s aspect, is that these special abilities can all be changed on the fly. Are you facing a close-combat situation? Pick the siren’s “PhaseSlam” where she leaps up and comes down with such force as to launch nearby enemies into the air. Need some psycho-clearing ordnance? Replace the tank’s rail-gun with a grenade launcher. While the skill tree values you’ve selected are not changeable outside one of the “Quick Change” re-spec stations, this is still a valuable addition to the game.

There are many less fundamental but nevertheless enjoyable changes in B3, such as the ability to hijack vehicles, road-warrior style, which dovetails exceptionally well with the game’s new capacity for digital destruct/construct of vehicle components. Take a fancy to that paint job or armament on that raider’s vehicle? Hijack the thing and bring it to a digi-struct platform, and you’ll have all of its components available to you!

In addition, the wastelands of B3 are still populated with some of the most literate psychos around. In just the few hours I’ve spent playing, I’ve already heard quotes from Melville, Shakespeare, Byron (I think it was Byron; it went by pretty fast), and a number of English translations of old Latin phrases. There are Easter eggs a-plenty here, too, which I won’t spoil for you, though if you’re curious, there are spoiler sites willing to accommodate.

So, ye FPS gamers, go thou and loot it up!

k