Borderlands: The missing splash screens #3: King Wee-Wee

Borderlands: the missing splash screens #2: Reaver

Also today: Reaver

Borderlands: the missing splash screens #1: Helena Pierce

Borderlands' splash screens that mark the player's encounter with a new character are great fun - nothing sets off a boss battle or key NPC like their own title screen and possibly catchphrase. It's for this reason that it's a crying shame that some of the characters don't get one. In fact, less than half of the characters are graced with their own intro - it almost feels like the developers ran out of time or something. Whatever the reason, here I present my version of the missing splash screens. If you think of a better slogan, let me know. I'll be adding these as I make them.

For today: Helena Pierce

The characters of Borderlands

Roland, Lilith, Mordecai and Brick

Borderlands is an amazing game - in terms of entertainment, in the top three games I've played to date on the Xbox 360. It has the trifecta: excellent shooter mechanics, awesome 4-player co-op!!!, and satisfying RPG character-building. It contains a rogue's gallery of some of the most entertaining, offbeat, and flat-out hilarious characters I've seen in a game. However, it also has some deeply irritating stereotypes and failed attempts at humour. Let's hit some of the most notable ups and downs.

• Mordecai - The Sniper. I was instantly drawn to this character, and was not disappointed. Skinny, weird, and a serious menace with his rifle, pistol and trained attack bird. Seriously, Beware Of Bird. Kudos for making a male protagonist who is combat-capable without looking like a body-builder, unfortunately, they took it a bit far, and he looks like the recoil of his revolver might snap his sticklike forearms.
  
• Roland - The Soldier. My partner played this class first, and later I tried it out: it's a solid, middle-of-the-road style, and great fun to boot. Roland's a completely typical sci-fi soldier, his only hints of personality are his occasional utterances that were clearly meant to be "Black" even though nobody could quite express what that meant.
  
• Lilith - The Siren. And so it begins. Gameplay-wise, the Siren's combination of fast-paced, in-your-face action and the ability to disappear in a flash of smoke and reappear explosively in the face of the enemy is an original and thoroughly satisfying piece of game design. The Siren is female, obviously. This is cool, I suppose. A playable female character might have been praiseworthy in 1982, but now it's just something I expect. The problem is that Lilith is A) called a "Siren", and according to the manual, she claims her ability to phasewalk is due to her crossing the "hotness threshold". Great. Apparently combat ability in women on Pandora is linked to perceived attractiveness. B) some of her skills form a group called "Controller" (seriously!) and have names like "Diva", "Girl Power", "Mind Games", and "Hard to Get". Was this an actual attempt at humour? Ha-ha, that's SO FUNNY, because, like, she's a chick and they're all like that. Sigh. The Siren is possibly my favourite character to play. It just pisses me off every time I open the skill tree menu.
  
• Brick - The Berserker. Brick is the huge guy with the huge gun and the huge fists. Those who love the idea of beating badass bruisers to a pulp with their bare hands will enjoy playing as Brick. I got sick of it and went back to sniping.
  
• Tannis - The Mad Scientist. Ah, Tannis. The source of much of the humour in Borderlands, Tannis is a narcissistic, hilariously sociopathic researcher who guides you on your quest to the mythic vault. Her journal recordings provide some of the high points in the game's backstory. I was quite impressed by the character woven by the Borderlands writers. She's a scientist, who actually conducts research and draws conclusions based on evidence. This is very rare behaviour among fictional scientists. Even more rare, her scientific knowledge is not the source of a civilisation-ending malady based on her use of untested techniques in unwarranted field tests. She's a woman, whose role in the game is not to A) fall in love with the protagonist, B) taunt the player with a mixture of small-penis and dominatrix jokes, or C) provide some chesty eye candy. She's there because she's a person involved with the plot. This sounds like a ridiculous thing to be impressed by until you consider how few games (or movies) have a character of this type. Tannis' awesomeness is bittersweet. It's great to see a character like this. It's sad that the simple fact that Tannis isn't cringe-inducing is praiseworthy in the year 2010.
• Scooter - The Car-Rental Mogul. Scooter runs the "Catch-a-ride" stations that dot the planet Pandora. He frequently calls the player with hilariously vulgar comments and requests to do a "little sumthin' sumthin'". I'm on the fence about his references to his mother's "girl parts" - but I did laugh when I heard it the first time.
  
• Commandant Steele - Leader of the Crimson Lance D Company 3rd Starborne Brigade. Steele spends a lot of time threatening you over the radio. I expected a lot of her, something like an epic boss battle. Well you get one, and she watches. Then you get another, and she again finds a way to not be actually involved. Admittedly, like Lilith, her arms are too thin for her to convincingly lift a weapon (or anything, for that matter), but that is a boilerplate error that I've seen to often to consider relevant. She and Tannis refer to each other as "bitch" just a little too often, as does the nameless game-menu voice.
  
• Claptrap - The helpful robot. Claptraps are diminuative, unicycle-wheeled utility 'bots. You encounter them in your journey and they help you by opening doors, giving you upgrades and remarking on the wonder of your continued ability to breathe. You even get to save injured Claptraps from an untimely demise. They're occasionally hilarious, and mercifully aren't overused, so they stay funny even after many playthroughs. To all writers looking to create comic relief: behold the Claptrap, who delivers a punchline and then gets out of the player's face.
  
• The Guardian Angel. The enigmatic raven-haired presence on the radio. She pushes you along the plot rails, assuring you before each landmark event that this is a real challenge. While her character is obviously trying to manipulate you, her manufactured concern for you and the inhabitants of Pandora seems a little overdone. "Oh, that poor little robot!" she exclaims. I spent most of the game waiting for her to manifest a real personality. I waited in vain.
• Mad Moxxi. This is where it really went over the line. Mad Moxxi's opening movie is a mismash of every bad femme fatale, ball buster and dominatrix joke all rolled into one. She lists her husbands, I presume in hopes that the irony of a woman who sees men as playthings will be apparent. Her cleavage puts sword-and-sorcery fantasy armour to shame. Her grating voice always has some ridiculous stereotyped come-on/innuendo to deliver. She gyrates around a stripper pole above her arena, being sure to lean forward enough to present her chest rather than her face to the camera. If you managed to miss it before, the Mad Moxxi expansion pack hits you over the head with it. And the saddest part is that yet again, there seems to be only one possible kind of sexually aggressive woman in a computer game: one who's full of bluster and sly phrases, but somehow finds herself performing for the audience, even more of an object than her more passive brethren. Come of Gearbox, we've seen this before, and it looks just as cheap and obvious now as it ever did.

There are more characters, and anyone with a name in Borderlands is worth meeting. My comments may seem to some like nitpicking, and indeed, they don't stop me from heartily recommending Borderlands to any FPS or RPG fans I meet. That said, these are glaringly obvious signs plastered all over the game, that if you don't subscribe to this kind of stereotyped, sexist worldview, then this game "isn't really for you". I hope that Gearbox decides to make a Borderlands 2 - that would make me happy. I hope that they fix these problems and make all their characters as impressive as the best we see in Borderlands 1. I hope most of all, that such a change will be recognised and have a positive effect on sales, because that would mean that the gaming community's attitude is a more enlightened than Gearbox's writing team currently gives us credit for.

Cheers
-t

Viewing Transformation

Hi all, and welcome to Viewing Transformation, my gaming blog. Games have come a long way, and with all the hoo-ha over how games are a legitimate artistic medium now, there are a lot of things that developers are doing well, and a lot of things that need improvement. There are a lot of blogs and websites out there that provide insightful and useful reviews of games. My aim is not to duplicate them, but to supplement those reviews with a few comments on the game's impact on our culture. Too many times have I seen a stellar game, which I know I'll enjoy playing, that has an advertising campaign or supplementary character that is an insult to the gaming community's intelligence. Existing game rankings don't include a "cringe factor", nor do they applaud those games that get the little details right. Producing a modern commerical game is a monumental effort, one that can influence the worldview of millions of players. I think it's time that developers who make that influence a useful and positive one received some recognition. I know I'm not alone.

Cheers
-t