Gameplay Journal Entry #5

I will begin this journal by defining the term ‘Glitch’ from what I have experienced throughout my gamin history. A glitch to me is a feature that is part of the game that breaches the normality that has been set, either intentionally or unintentionally. I chose this definition because whenever I have found a glitch within a video game, it usually takes me out of whatever emersion I am in or it makes me stop and wonder why they allowed that to stay within the game.

For the glitch I want to review today I chose a glitch from Borderlands 2. The glitch is called the “Infinite Money Shot glitch” which allows the player to essentially pump out infinite amounts of damage utilize a game mechanic. The glitch utilizes a rocket launcher type in the game that awards a free shot every other shot and players used this mechanic to trick the game into thinking that any weapon can get this free shot, allowing the player to make the free shot the last bullet in the gun and fire it infinitely. When I discovered this glitch I was blown away. This random person joined my game and was instantly killing everything that we went up against. I was both amazed and disgusted with how much this game was being manipulated due to this one glitch. Although this glitch makes you essentially invincible in the game, the developers did nothing to patch it out or get rid of it and left in many more glitches to just spice up gameplay just a bit more.

After reading the readings for this week I have come to the realization that glitches are just as needed in game development and growth then anything else. The feeling of finding a glitch on your own or being shown one gives a whole new feeling and appreciation for the game at hand. In my case, finding the infinite money shot glitch opened up so many more possibilities in Borderlands 2 then if I hadn't found the glitch at all. One quote from the Nick Briz reading really stood out to me when thinking about this assignment, “To think with glitch is to straddle a gap between non-sense and knowledge. It is to search for the unfamiliar while at the same time to tenaciously de-familiarize oneself from what might be taken for granted of software, hardware and signal realities, by less critical media theoreticians and artists.” The Borderlands community gathered together and boiled the game down to just mechanics in order to manipulate them into the glitches that are present in the game today and I thought that that quote really shines through in this story specifically.

This is a video demonstrating the glitch and how you can do it for yourself :) .