This past week, I had my pick of several recent games to play (e.g.: The Last Guardian, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2), and what did I play?

Borderlands. The original Borderlands. My favorite Borderlands.

I’ve played through it over a dozen times, and I never get tired of it. I adore it.

For Christmas, my partner’s brother bought him a PS3 so he could catch up on some last gen games, and of course I leaped at this and suggested we play Borderlands (again), each with our own screen this time (historically we have always played it splitscreen). So we jumped in and it was like old times; once we started playing, all I wanted to do was to keep playing.

Because my partner is kind and patient, he has played many lengthy sessions with me this past week and on Friday we completed the main campaign. We immediately started in on the DLC, and chose The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned for our first foray.

As much as I love Borderlands (the first game in particular), replaying it this time has reminded me of some of its faults.

Many times the game slows to a crawl. I’m not a stickler for frame rate, but holy hell, at times it is quite literally zero frames per second. That’s a problem. I also don’t understand why, if they already know more than a few enemies on the screen causes the whole thing to slow to a crawl, they would throw waves of enemies at you. It’s hard to line up critical hits if the whole mess is janking around.

I know this is a minor gripe, but after Far Cry, it just seems so obvious: a “fill ammo” option at machines. Oh how I wish that were a thing in Borderlands. Sure, you could still buy various types individually, but having that option would save time.

Not having fast travel available until about 25% of the way through the game seems like an odd choice. It would be great to have that option earlier on. Backtracking can be tedious.

All this being said, I’m still having crazy fun with the game, especially playing with my partner again. We always go as Mordecai (me) and Brick (him), and both are ridiculously enjoyable.

Sure, I meant to get to several games this past week, but I don’t feel too terribly bad as I’m having an excellent time. Also, I still have a full week to play those games before two new releases drop that I’m all about playing: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Yakuza 0. I’m so excited for both, and their impending releases will be what pushes me to finish up the three games I’m partway through. Granted, that means I likely won’t get to Stardew Valley before the 24th rolls around, but that’s okay. I just need to play smart.

I think I can do that.

I’m super excited to play so many wonderful games in the span of a week. Experiences!

What are you planning on playing this week? What is the next big release you are excited for?