Borderlands Headache

The Personal Computer version of Borderlands may have forsaken the "Games for Windows" branding as well as its Live feature but strangely, this game is fully compatible with the X-Box 360 controller. As a matter of fact, the game's instruction manual readily shows off the 360's controller layouts and the configurations files even mention "Xbox" in there. Why this game didn't fall along Microsoft's effort at streamlining PC games is beyond me. Unfortunately, my X-Box 360 wireless receiver for the PC is dead so I am unable to use my controller to play the game. When it comes to precision, nothing beats a keyboard and a mouse but in terms of overall comfort, I rather just hold a small controller in my hand than have a bulky setup in front of me.

Nothing works!

The cool thing about this game is that it actually works with my Super Joy Box, a USB converter that allows me to hook up my wired Dualshock 2 PlayStation 2 controller to the PC. I really didn't expect it to work at all and I had been playing the game using a keyboard and a mouse until late in the afternoon when I stumbled upon the Super Joy Box that was misplaced in between the move several weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised that the game recognized the controller but then something was wrong - all of the buttons work perfectly except for the Y-axis on the left analogue stick. For some reason, tilting it up - which should translate to moving forward - moves my character backwards instead! The opposite happened when I tilted the stick backward. I researched the game's forums on the web and unfortunately, I cannot find a remedy to my situation. The problem is definitely not with the controller - the calibration test revealed that everything is fine with it. Perhaps this is a ploy to force people to play the game with only the X-Box 360 controller if they want to play with a gamepad? For around 2-3 hours following my discovery of the problem, I had been experimenting with the game's *.ini files only to find myself being terribly frustrated with the situation and there was no solution in sight. The constant failure was draining the very life out of me. It also doesn't help that the PC gaming community mostly despise the gamepad - a lot. I have already wasted too much time on this when I could just have fun playing the darn game.

Update Note: 11/02/2009 - I found a great solution here. I hate using JoyToKey because it is a big hassle so the controller.zip solution presented there is definitely the better alternative. After installing the files into the appropriate folder, the left analogue stick is now functioning properly. A new problem will emerge if you are not using Logitech controllers - the input assignments of the face buttons and the triggers were all over the place - but it was easily remedied by going into the extracted xbox360cemu.ini file and reassigning the buttons there. Using a gamepad does result in less accuracy in this game but now I get both the convenience of the console versions plus the better graphics and performance that are just simply not possible on the consoles. It's $10 cheaper too!

And oh, all of a sudden an "achievement" notification popped up on the screen while I was killing enemies last night so the "achievement/trophy" system did make it into the game. It's just that it will not go to any player profile to show it around - It's all about achieving and conquering them anyway and not about showing them off for some illusion of gaming excellence so why would that matter right? Or is it? - When I looked deeper into the in-game menus, I found a long list of things to do there. It's not my cup of tea but I thought I would mention it for those who are really into the achievement/trophy thing.