It’s always nice when an Achievement can surprise you.

Was shooting some skags in Borderlands last night. Pew pew pew splat. Most of them outside of the home base in the Arid Badlands go down pretty easy now that I’m a burly LV. 18 Soldier with some wicked assault rifles and grenades that actually regenerate my health upon killing enemies. A couple took a few more shots than others, and I moved in to finish them off with some melee swipes since I wanted to conserve ammo. And then, unexpectantly, this Achievement popped up on screen:

My Brother is an Italian Plumber (15G): Killed an enemy plumber-style

I wasn’t 100% sure how I unlocked this, but after looking it up, you evidently do damage when jumping on enemies, and I must have taken a skag out in this manner. I seriously thought it had something to do with fire weapons in relationship to picking up the fire flower power (say that out loud, it’s fun). Still, neat and fun, and I’m glad it happened with me oblivious to the fact. Sure, sure, I scanned the list of Achievements for Borderlands, but I didn’t read all of them, and the majority seemed to be unlockable as you gradually proceeded further in the game. No worries then. Play it, and they will come.

All in all, I really like Borderlands…despite its faults. And trust me, I could list them. There are many. A lot of them boggle my mind, and I know that a few more months of development might have polished the game some more. But the shooting is fun, and it needs to be considering, well, that’s basically all you do. Achievement-wise, it’s a great mix of story-based ones, general exploration, do X a number of times, and random gameplay ones (like above). They are unlocking at a nice clip (pun intended), and I’m looking forward to taking on the game’s first major boss: Sledge. Considering how much trouble I had with skag legends Moe and Marley though, I might not be ready for him. Will have to do some more sidequests until I’m at least a LV. 20…