Baby, you can drive my car…in Borderlands (cause I don’t want to)

I’m beginning to wonder what videogames with vehicles would be like without their vehicles. Most likely better, to start.

The Mako in Mass Effect was frustrating to control, and unsatisfying when you finally did get the hang out it because then you’re mostly standing still, bunny-hopping incoming rockets, and firing your own weaponry off into the great distance. Not fun, and it might have just been easier–and more fun–to walk the path from Mako point A to Make point B then drive like a loon. I was extremely glad to hear it got the ax for Mass Effect 2 though they seemed to have added in a flying ship of sorts. Not sure how it controls.

In Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, if a single block was off or the wrong type of fuel was attached, the vehicle would be classified in the local paper as 100% jalopy/clunker/hooptie. This made making your own vehicles un-fun, and using the ones provided by the game until you hit a spot where none of them would work. Wish it was a platformer again instead of a car circus.

And Grand Theft Auto IV‘s vehicles are just hahahahaaa ahaha ahahahahah ha. Ahem.

But I’m not here to harp on Mass Effect‘s shoddy future tank or Banjo Kazooie‘s pickiness. No, no. This blog post is all about the vehicles in Borderlands.

To start: WHAT ON PANDORA IS WRONG WITH THEM?

Actually, nothing. But there is something terribly wrong with the control scheme for them. So, once you’re inside the driver seat after accidentally climbing into the gunner seat a few times, you’re ready to burn some rubber around the wasteland. To do so, on the Xbox 360, you have to press forward on the left analog stick. Okay, weird. Old-school design. So how do you steer then? Oh, you also use the left analog stick. “But,” you ask, dear reader, “how can you effectively hold it forward to drive and tilt left/right to steer the vehicle away from sharp rocks?” You can’t.

I really had a lot of trouble figuring out how to use the vehicle once I got in it. And so far, after trying to use it on two missions to speed up travel time, I’ve found myself stuck on a rock or down a ditch thanks to hard-as-vault controls. It really boggles my mind, and I can’t seem to find a way to change the scheme myself. Why couldn’t you hold A for gas and steer with the analog stick? Makes no sense, I tell you.

Now I’m just waiting to unlock fast travel because driving vehicles, especially in a solo game where no one is watching my back or driving for me, is not a good time. Of all time. NOT A GOOD TIME OF ALL TIME. Shooting bandits is much more desired.

Yet somehow–and I assure you there was no skill involved here thanks to previous mentioned controls–I unlocked the following Achievement:

Get a Little Blood on the Tires (20G): Killed 25 enemies by ramming them with any vehicle

Seriously, at this point, I think the only game with vehicles I’ve ever greatly enjoyed is Super Mario Kart. Those things handled perfectly.

Pay what you want for the Humble Indie Bundle

I stumbled across the Humble Indie Bundle yesterday, and I’m now here to tell you this is one helluva deal.

I’m gonna steal words from the give-awayers themselves since they can better explain what’s going on here:

The Humble Indie Bundle is a unique kind of bundle that we are trying out.

Pay what you want. If you bought these five games separately, it would cost around $80 but we’re letting you set the price!

All of the games work great on Mac, Windows, and Linux. We didn’t want to leave anyone out.

There is no middle-man. You can rest assured that 100% of your purchase goes directly to the developers and non-profits as you specify (minus credit card fees).

We don’t use DRM. When you buy these games, they are yours. Feel free to play them without an internet connection, back them up, and install them on all of your Macs and PCs freely.

Your contribution supports the amazing Child’s Play charity and Electronic Frontier Foundation. By default, the amount is split equally between the seven participants (including Child’s Play and EFF), but you can tweak the split any way you’d like.

I use a Mac laptop at home, and it’s definitely not a gaming computer (in my mind), save for some Facebook applications and…er, Chess. But they said “all of the games work great on Mac,” which immediately piqued my interest. Plus, I have a Wacom tablet for drawing, and it comes with a mouse that now finally has a purpose. So I plopped down a couple of bucks (more than a penny, less than $10.00 because I’m not made of money, kids), got an email, and immediately started downloading World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, and Penumbra Overture.

Now, of these five games, I’d previously heard of two, and then of those two, I’d played one of them before on the Wii. That game being World of Goo. But the screenshots for Aquaria really stood out, and so I loaded that one up first and found myself falling in love. Hard. I can already tell that it was lovingly created, and the hand-painted scenery and aquatic life are really impressive. I mean really impressive. As are the shafts of light bursting down from cave walls. Graphics-aside, the gameplay is simple but gradually growing more complex as songs are learned and recipes are found. I’m liking it very much so far, as it’s a genuine mix of Super Metroid and Ecco the Dolphin, a mix unlike any other, a mix that is relaxing and fun, surprising and mysterious. I know this game–and many of the others in the bundle–came out some time back, and I’m a bit bummed to only be discovering it now.

I was gonna talk a bit more about Aquaria here, but this blog post has run a little long. Will save it for next time! So, yeah, the Humble Indie Bundle. Get to it before time runs out!