When the fall patch for Civilization V made it even more difficult to get through a decent multiplayer game, the ragtag group I play with several nights a week decided to give it a break and started looking at other alternatives. Everyone started suggesting things they thought would work and would probably be easy to get a hold of. Left for Dead 2, Borderlands, and Borderlands II topped that list. Uh oh. My Achilles' heel — online FPS.

Betrayed by age and life and the treachery they work on your body, I got out of there a long time ago. I know you whippersnappers don't want to hear this, but at a certain point, even a very well-trained selective memory can't protect your pride any longer. I didn't give in completely, but I'd slog through for the story by myself on Easy or marshal my troops and act as armchair general/support in local co-op.

But when the gang figured we should give Borderlands a try, I figured, why not? The fluttering of the calendar pages has wafted away most of the scent of scorched ego, and these days I'm a lot more comfortable with the fact that I suck hard enough to unbalance the HVAC. I know this isn't a Western, but the setting has that frontier/space opera/Firefly sort of feel for me. I like that. So, after giving them fair warning, I hitched up my britches, slung my Cobalt Firehawk low on my right hip, and swung back into the saddle.

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