Borderlag: The Secret Framerate of Emily Knox

It’s no secret that I thoroughly enjoyed Borderlands, and while I found the Zombie Island of Dr Ned half-decent (apparently asking for a smooth framerate was just ridiculous), I didn’t think any more DLC would interest me after that, because to be honest, I’d love to remove The Zombie Island and get my money back. Unfortunately no such luxury is available to me.

After blissfully ignoring Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, lo and behold, a third new DLC was announced: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. It’s like discovering a song that uses your name, and suddenly any taste you have in music counts for nothing; they’re using my name and that makes me feel very special.

As previously mentioned, I have a “thing” for levelling up (like I have a “thing” for Solid Snake, some other “thing” for beards, and a serious “thing” for Relentless among other caffeinated drinks), and General Knoxx would grant me access to level 61. Brilliant. That’s all I need it for. Borderlands is all about my numbers being bigger than your numbers. Numbers go up, and I become better at everything. It doesn’t make me a better human being, but I’ll work on that some other time.

On Friday the 26^th of February, I was planning on heading out with my friends for alcoholic beverages, and given PSN’s below light-speed download rate, I thought it’d be smart to download it before heading out. I surrendered six pounds and set it off. I had a shower. I had my dinner. I twiddled my thumbs as the download sat stubbornly at 20% for hours, then gave up and quit (Oh, the plight of switching one wire between the PC and PS3 for an internet connection).

Come Saturday morning, I thought I’d give it another go. Having the luxury of two TVs and two PS3s in the living room, I satisfied my wait with another go at the God of War 3 demo (see: games that make you feel sadistic yet completely utterly fantastic). With eyes and horns torn out, torsos ripped in half, necks snapped and men wall-slammed, I looked back over to General Knoxx’s progress. 40-something percent. Brilliant.

In my boredom I foolishly decided to continue browsing the PSN store, I wanted to read the blurb about General Knoxx, even though the developers had already successfully sold it to me, I was curious. When I clicked on General Knoxx’s slot on PSN, a message popped up, asking me if I wanted to cancel my download of The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. I clicked “no”. It cancelled my download.

I tried again. It did its “oh help, I’m stuck at 20%” thing, AGAIN. I cancelled AGAIN. I started AGAIN.

I played Age of Empires II for the best part of Saturday while I ignored the apparently crippling, struggling download of General Knoxx. I returned to it at night, when it was finally complete. It installed slowly. I loaded up Borderlands. It downloaded an update. Then installed the update. I loaded up Borderlands AGAIN. I loaded my level 50 Brick. Twenty years later, the area I left him in loaded. Then the textures loaded. I teleported to T-Bone Junction. I took two steps forward. IT LAGGED. A cutscene began. The cutscene lagged itself to death. I have no idea what happened in it, or what it was trying to tell me (un-skippable cutscene + lag = hatred).

Needless to say, after the very laggy cutscene, Brick was ambushed by some slightly laggy red ladies with slightly laggy swords dealing me some slightly laggy damage till I laggily died.

I turned the piece of shit off.