Borderlands 2: Not a Box of Cheap Candy

My Borderlands 2 walkthrough is now going full throttle although I will be taking a break until next Tuesday (November 20th) because I'm essentially burnt out. I've pumped out a whopping 132 videos since the game's release on September 18th plus another 30 Skyrim videos. And considering these are all REAL walkthrough videos requiring extensive study and practice, this is no small feat.

Essentially, my bid to keep pace with the blind playthroughers (those who simply record themselves playing the game with no practice whatsoever) was a failure. After looking over the playlists of numerous Borderlands 2 blind playthroughers I've come to realize that they are skipping over vast portions of the game with their recordings. Assuming the average playthrough video is approximately 15 minutes, this is how many of them can do a 'complete' playthrough of a 30 hour game in less than 60 videos which works out to about 15 hours of gameplay.

And mind you, that is just IGN's assessment of how long it takes to complete Borderlands 2 (taken from the Borderlands 2 Wikipedia page). I feel I'm going to be hard pressed to finish my walkthrough in under 200 videos and that's only if I skip all the rest of the side missions. This is doable because at the current point in the walkthrough, I've levelled up my character enough to finish the game by just pushing straight through the story mission line.

Quite frankly, the 30 hour assessment of Borderlands 2 is a gross understatement. Perhaps that's based on playing co-op and skipping ALL the side missions in the game. I've never played co-op nor do I have any desire to so I don't know. But I believe that completing the game solo with ALL the side missions is more like at least a 60 hour journey (75 hours if you take your time and really explore).

Here's a comment recently posted on one of my Borderlands 2 videos:

Great video, Slack. Your videos have changed the way I play my games. I'm replaying old games and finding them more enjoyable than just blowing through them to say I beat the game.

This is indicative of many comments I get and has got me thinking that there are many of you out there who do the same. So as an experiment, yesterday I did a 7 hour Borderlands 2 marathon session but I played with one objective in mind and that was to blow through the game as quickly as possible.

The result was I did get through the game a lot quicker than if I played at my normal studious pace. BUT —and yes that's a BIG but— I also died a bazillion times, had very little time to experiment with all the new weaponry and gear I was constantly taking on and, most important of all, I had NO FUN. (I also spent an exhorbitant $50,000 worth of rockets on a particularly tough section of the game; something I would NEVER do if I was taking my time playing strategically.)

And honestly, it was downright annoying playing like that. I don't understand why many of you pay $50-$60 for a game and then blast through it helter skelter just for bragging rights that you beat the game. Essentially you miss 90% of the game and I think a lot of game designers who spend many years carefully developing these complex and hugely entertaining and intellectually stimulating pieces of software would have a litter of kittens watching you rip through their finished product like you're gobbling down a box of cheap candy.

So I guess all this to say that I'm starting to realize I can't compete with all the blind playthroughers who continually clog up the top positions in the Youtube search results. They do so by finishing their playthroughs as quickly as possible and they do that by skipping over 3/4 of the game (and/or outright abandoning the playthrough altogether) so they can quickly jump right on to the next latest release in the world of video games and then rinse and repeat with that ad nauseam.

In my humble opinion, this humongous library of half-baked playthroughs they've built (and continue to build) is a gross disservice to the gaming industry. I don't know how many times I've read comments on my videos where people tell me they never would have bought a game had they not seen one of my real walkthroughs. But alas it seems the blind playthroughers are an unstoppable force. I personally can't keep up with them by pumping out 6-10 videos a day (which is what many of them do) and by bastardizing a game's concept by not taking the time to actually learn how to play the game.

In fact, I'm hard pressed to put out four studied and practiced walkthrough videos a day which is what I've been aiming for with Borderlands 2. I was keeping pace in the beginning but it seems any little SNAFU is enough to set me back, e.g., my wife spraining her ankle and being incapacitated and home from work for a week. And this is not to mention that my Skyrim Master Walkthrough has suffered as a result because I've simply had precious little time to work on it to the disappointment of some (and I humbly apologize).

So I think a more realistic goal is three videos a day for me. I'll probably go with that but I'm going to give it some thought over the weekend. So once again, I'll be taking Sunday and Monday off, that is no video uploads whatsoever (November 18th and 19th) just to take a breather and regroup as it were. I'll be back on Tuesday the 20th and I'll be starting off with a spate of Skyrim videos to make up for not uploading any lately after which I'll return to my Borderlands 2 walkthrough a couple or three days later.

Be advised that it's highly likely I won't be doing all the side missions in Borderlands 2 as it's just going to make the walkthrough too long and I'd like to jump on Far Cry 3 as soon as possible (release date December 4th).

So that's it, people.

Just a few quick updates and notes on the world of MajorSlackVideos.

Thanks for reading and see ya in the funny papers. :D