Back in September of 2012, I was in such a state of anticipation for Borderlands 2, I could barely contain myself.

When I first heard about Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, I was excited. Over the following months, my excitement began to wane, however I couldn’t pinpoint why. I was even less excited after getting my hands on the demo at the GameStop Expo last month, which only puzzled me further.

Perhaps part of the reason was that I had been set upon playing as Claptrap (I love Clappy), however I found his roulette wheel of skills to be less than helpful on pretty much every occasion.

What a bummer.

My floundering excitement aside, here are a couple of ways to prepare for the upcoming game:

One of the things I encourage fellow vault hunters to do is to check out the character skill tree calculator which allows you to create sample builds for each of the four playable characters. I did this at length for Borderlands 2, and found it to be a thoroughly helpful (and time saving) tool.

Another element from Borderlands 2 making a return is the Shift program. Shift was a free program Gearbox offered which typically awarded players a golden key (sometimes several at a time, or even special rewards) which would unlock the golden loot chest in the game hub. This chest would offer appropriately leveled (decent) gear, and keeping track of the Shift codes was well worth the minimal effort.

Last night I was emailed a new set of codes (from Gearbox, directly), for both Borderlands 2, as well as Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The codes are as follows:

Borderlands 2 SHiFT Codes:
Xbox 360: K35TJ-6395F-TXFBX-56TJB-ZZ33S
PlayStation 3: K35TJ-6399B-XZBCT-93WJB-ZZ35K
PC/Mac: CJKT3-WRK9S-6TJ33-JJJJJ-5XJZZ

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel SHiFT codes:
Xbox 360: KKK3J-T66J3-FZH3X-KFJJ3-JSF6R
PlayStation 3: KKK3J-T66R6-HTF5T-SBKJ3-JSFRJ
PC/Mac/Linux: KKK3J-T66R5-BXC3T-JBJJ3-JSF9T

The Shift codes for the Pre-Sequel must be redeemed within the first seven days of release (the game releases in North America this coming Tuesday, October 14th).

And speaking of Shift codes, long ago I had found an excellent Wiki for the Borderlands 2 Shift codes. The same folks have begun a page for Pre-Sequel Shift codes. I highly encourage players to bookmark that site and visit it often for the most up to date data.

I also found that setting a Google alert for Shift codes came in handy (which just reminds me to do that for the Pre-Sequel) as they can come from several sources (e.g. Facebook, Twitter).

I still haven’t decided which character I will play as, but that will be remedied before Tuesday by spending some quality time with the skill tree calculator.

I hope to see everyone out there in the (space) Borderlands!