WT Lite - Borderlands with Jay

WT Lite

This episode is a slight departure from the normal format, as Squidge wanted to talk to Jay about his thoughts on the Borderlands games. So he came up with a brand new episode type: WT Lite. These episodes will focus specifically on a single game or series and a single guest’s thoughts on them. And why not start with Jay and Borderlands? Everyone loves Borderlands, right?.

Players

Squidge

Jay

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Show Notes

Squidge has a wonderful intro to the WT Lite series:

Squidge:

Waffling Taylor’s Lite: the pocket size podcast that packs a gaming punch.

In this condensed concoction of gaming chatter you never knew you needed, we talked to Jay about the Borderland series.

Take it away, guys.

The WT Lite series of episodes will be peppered in alongside the “standard” episodes, so keep an eye out for them. These episodes allow us to focus specifically on a specific game or series, and really focus on our guest’s thoughts.

Jay: Squidge’s elevator pitch for these episodes was "All the waffle, half the caffeine"

And Jay started his episode off by sharing some “Jay Jazz” - which isn’t half as dirty as it sounds.

Squidge:

We’re going to find out whether [Borderlands] is worth the hype, from Jay’s point of view

Why Borderlands?

Squidge started the conversation off with a pretty easy opener: why Borderlands?

Squidge:

Considering you’re not one for first person shooters, I’m just wondering what drew you to the Borderland series? And what made you want to dive into the world of mayhem, loot and random carnage and all that good stuff?

Jay shared his reason for falling out with modern FPS games:

Jay:

[Medal of Honour: Rising Sun] is the one that I remember playing last; console based first person shooter.

Before then, I didn’t really play FPS games because they seem to require faster twitch reflexes than I am able to generate. And I’m like, you know what? "I’m not having fun. I’m going to go play something else"

Because, for me, if I’m not having fun, I’m going to go do something else, right? Especially if it’s a for me, video games is a leisure time activity. It’s a play activity. It’s something where I can just relax.

But that was when he saw Borderlands for the first time:

Jay:

And then I think at some point in 2009, after Borderlands had come out, you must have told me, Squidge, "you should check out Borderlands. It’s a load of fun." And I was like, "but it’s a first person shooter. I don’t want to play a first person shooter."

I must have seen you play it and gone, "actually, this doesn’t look too bad." And I was like, "you know what? I’ll give this a shot." And I gave it a shot. I quite liked it. And yeah, it’s a complete departure for me.

As much as he liked the game, the ending was lost on him:

Jay:

I’ll put my hand up and I will say I didn’t get the original ending because when I was playing though it, I wasn’t really listening to the story elements. I was like, "I’m enjoying running around, I’m enjoying shooting, I’m enjoying this ‘cell shaded can run on a potato game’."

And I’ve never actually gone back and replayed it to get the story of the first one. And I totally didn’t like when it ended. And it was like interplanetary super ninja clap trap. DA DA DA DA. And then it plays the the credits, and then it just loads you back where you were.

I didn’t get at the time, and I will happily admit it now, I didn’t get the comedy they were going after because that’s what it was. It was comedy that they were going after.

If it’s not apparent yet, it was the silliness that hooked him:

Jay:

The amount of stupidity they were able to put into this game. And it proves that games can be fun.

…

But for the first 13, 14 hours are you just running around and gunning down people and doing side quests and stuff like that, there’s loads of silly stupidity. Then there’s like, the hardcore RPG element of "here’s the main set of fetch quests," because all RPGs are just - all Western RPGs - are just fetch quests. You get all of those and then you get past that and you’re rewarded with more silliness.

And I absolutely flimin’ flamin’ love that 100%. So, that’s what made me want to dive into it: it’s not really the looter-shooter bit, it’s the absolute silliness.

On Guns

Because the Borderlands series is known for it’s silliness and taking the idea of RPG-like elements to the extreme, it’s known for some very stupid weapons. Some which are overpowered, some with seemingly random buffs, and some which just defy description. So Squidge wanted to know:

Squidge:

If you had to design a crazy weapon to be found in Borderlands, what would it do and what would you call it?

And Jay wastes no time in talking about his perfect Borderlands weapon:

Jay:

So I’ve thought about this a whole bunch. You sent me over these questions 24 hours ago, and the whole time I’ve been sitting here thinking, "what would I create? What would I create?" Well, guess what? It’s already been created in one of the Borderlands games, and that is the Sweary shotgun. It is just so stupid.

It’s a gun that has, like, an AI and a voice in it and it is able to, like, every time you fire it, it yells out things like, "yeah, get it." And when you reload, it just like, "yeah, put it in me," and things like that. It is so hilarious.

It breaks up that that combat phase with something just so ultimately stupid that, you know, you’re in the middle of this gunfight and you have to reload. And then suddenly you get this Australian sounding voice saying, "yeah, put another one in me," or something. And when you switch weapons, it says, "yeah," and then it starts, like, swearing at you.

… The Boganella. Yeah, absolutely. So I can’t improve on perfection.

Which Borderlands Skill Would You Have In Real Life?

Each character in Borderlands gets their own set of super cool, over the top skills. One character rages out, and punches things to death; another summons an auto-turret; another has a pet Wyvern which is spawned into the battlefield to give some air support. But Squidge wanted to know:

Squidge:

If you could have any skill or ability from the Borderlands series in real life, what would you go for and how would you use it?

Jay being a practical sort of cove decided on:

Squidge:

If you had to design a crazy weapon to be found in Borderlands, what would it do and what would you call it?

And Jay wastes no time in talking about his perfect Borderlands weapon:

Jay:

Gage is one of the vault hunters with, like, she’s replaced her own left arm because she’s brilliant at mechanics and electronics and robotics and all that kind of stuff. And one of her abilities - each character gets this ability, you can hit G or F or whatever it is during battle - I’m talking about the PC version here - and it summons an extra ability.

So, like, Roland has, like, a heavy machine gunner, so he summons a turret, which has a shield on it, and it takes out enemies automatically for you. Brick goes with his fists and goes into rage mode and starts punching stuff. Gage summons her robot, and her robot is brilliant. It’s a butt kicking robot, and it just flies around them, and it flies around the place so it can go up and down levels for you, so it can kill the enemies you can’t reach. And it has this swipe attack and this laser attack. It is bloody brilliant.

So if I could summon that in real life and just go get them and then be able to say I should build you an extra arm for high fives, things like that, that is what I want.

It’s just a robot that I can just summon that can help me with. And it wouldn’t even be for fighting people. It’d be like day to day tasks. Like I’m standing at the kettle making my cup of coffee and I’ve forgotten to get the milk. "Pass me the milk, please." Brilliant. That’s what I want.

A Quick Fire Round Approaches

Squidge:

Borderlands has got a lot of unique creatures. If you could have any one of them as a pair, what would it be and what would you name it?

Jay:

Either a Wyvern named Chauncey or the mushroom companion from [Tiny Tina’s] Wonderlands called Spongy.

Squidge:

What’s the most time you’ve played in a Borderland game?

Jay:

We looked this up earlier on, and it’s the first game, 48.4 Hours.

Squidge:

Favourite Easter egg or inside joke from the series?

Jay:

It’s either Tk Baha or Tiny Tina’s "questions thrrree!" quest from The One Shot, because that’s full of pop culture references to things like Star Trek, adopting all sorts of silliness like that.

Vault Hunter or Bandit?

When playing Borderlands, the players are Vault Hunters and the majority of the early-game, low-tier enemies are Bandits. But which would Jay prefer to be:

Squidge:

If you were a character in any of the Borderlands games - or let’s say the series in general - would you lean towards being a Vault Hunter or a bandit? And what kind of skills or abilities would you bring to the table?

Jay’s answer was way out of left-field, but totally on brand for him:

Jay:

I have to also be really truthful to myself. Like, I would love to say that I’d be a Vault Hunter, but I do not have the ability, agility, or even patience to run around doing inane quests. I just can’t do it.

I can’t do the running, I can’t do the jumping, I can’t do any of that nonsense. I also have never fired a gun before, so I probably couldn’t do that. Some big scary monster wants to eat me, I want to run the other way. I’m definitely the Rincewind of the Borderlands mythology.

No, let’s be honest. I would probably be one of the NPCs that gives our quests.

Think about it, right? It’s an easy life. You literally stand around. You’ve got four lines to say, so you don’t even have to talk to people if you don’t want to. You don’t have to do a great deal. You give the vault hunters the quest, they go off and do the dangerous bits, and you give them some money or a weapon at the end of it. That sounds like the life to me.

Squidge:

If you could add eating cheese and sleeping a lot to that, I think I’d be an NPC as well.

Most Memorable Moment?

The Borderlands games are filled with silliness, as Jay said earlier. But Squidge wanted to know what his most memorable moments where:

Squidge:

Over the whole Borderlands game, span series, universe, whatever you want to call it from the games that you’ve played, give me most memorable, funny experiences with the the universe.

Jay’s most memorable moment was from the most recent (to him) game in the series: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

Jay:

So it’s got to be as much as I really like T.K. Baha as a character, it’s got to be Torgue. Anything with Torgue because he is wonderfully stupid. He’s an over the top muscle bound dude, bro, but with a soft side. But he also has like a genuine love to be included in things that are going on and even like a nerdy side to him.

But also the best bit [of Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-shot Adventure], and this had a really long payoff, right. In that one shot, Torque threatens to blow up the ocean, right?So he requests that you blow up the ocean. A Tiny Tina stops him and everybody stops him, right?

And then in [Tiny Tina’s] Wonderlands, which is another game that is set during a bunkers and badasses thing, you get Torgue as a person who does a mission, he literally blows up the ocean, right? He actually blows up the ocean. And that is one of the best it wasn’t a long payoff, it wasn’t a long time between, but it was one of the best payoffs, in my opinion, in that entire series so far, where he literally explodes the ocean.

So literally anything to do with Torgue. Brilliant.

Make Your OWN DLC

Each of the Borderlands games has an extensive amount of DLC in the form of extra missions and quests. Sometimes they’re silly, themed quests (like Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned) and sometimes they provide more exposition and backstory. So Squidge set Jay a challenge:

Squidge:

So if they came to you and said, "we want you to create a DLC. So environment, enemies, quests, bad guys, that kind of thing." How would you go about it? And what thing would you introduce to the methos of Borderland?.

And Jay’s idea was pretty well fleshed out:

Jay:

So here’s the thing, right? I want to bring T.K. Baha back. He was amazing. He’s a stupid one shot character.

I feel like perhaps he’d be a bit stereotypical, and maybe they killed him off quickly because he has the sort of redneck sound to himself and he uses that kind of language. So maybe they killed him off quick because it was like, "we’ll do it as a one shot character, throw away, and then we don’t have to worry about anything to do with upsetting people and stuff."

So I would bring him back. And the story that I’ve concocted in my head is that he comes back as a cyborg or a clone or something, right? And the idea that I have is that T.K. and Claptrap have to bounce off of each other. So, like, maybe someone like Dr. Ned or something captured T.K. Baha’s brainwave pattern as he was dying and loaded it into a computer, which is then used by Janie Springs, - who is a mechanic on the moon - to help her to build a robot, right?

And I can see it being split into two halves. First half is you have to do a bunch of missions to help Janie to build the robot. "Go here, get that piece, go there, get that piece. Go do this. Go see Dr. Ned." Standard sort of RPG fetch quests. That’s the first half.

And then there’s like some big scene in the middle of it where she’s like, she’s about to throw the switch and then Claptrap, up runs it. "No, don’t. You can’t do that. There should only be one sarcastic, quick talking robot and it should be me." And then you have to decide.

Like Janie steps away and says, "look, if you want this to happen, Vault Hunter, you got to go throw the switch." And then Claptrap’s like, "no, come over to me and we’ll destroy the switch instead," right? And you get this moment where if you go destroy the switch, the game instantly ends. But if you go throw the switch, then something happens. I haven’t figured that bit out yet.

And then Claptrap then engages you because maybe evil Dr. Ned’s T.K Baha cyborg goes on a killing spree or something. And then Claptrap is like, "see? I told you. I told you this should only ever be one!" And then you join Claptrap in a series of silly adventures to try and take down Cyborg T.K. Baha, and you have to be the one to kill him at the end of the game. Maybe that’s it.

And I tell you what, right? Tell you what, Randy [Pitchford], you can have that one for free.

Gotta Play ‘Em All! Borderlands!

There aren’t a great deal of Borderlands games

with only four main titles and some side games

but Squidge wanted to know whether Jay had played them all:

Squidge:

Did you play all the Borderlands [games]?.

Jay:

Truth be told, I’ve only completed the main stories in the first one, the second one, and [Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-shot Adventure], which is technically the second one as well. So those are the only ones I’ve actually finished.

I did get partway through the Pre-Sequel. And that’s where I think I’ve got some of the ideas for the Claptrap thing from is the Pre-Sequel, because there’s a part where you enter into Claptrap’s mind and you have to go defeat, essentially his confidence of paranoia. And that boss I just could not fight.

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Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is Massive Scratch - Eight Bit/Chiptune
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• Metal gear solid Alert Theme © Konami
• Outro Music is Massive Scratch - Eight Bit/Chiptune