Quick question

You tube is free. Id go with that.

Guide is handy for more than just finding recordings... For me, it gives me something to read during down time at work when I cannot play the game!! ;)

Next, enemy crit areas and weakness / resistance, maps and chest locations are handy. If you wonder what kind of weapon combinations are possible, uniques, legendary, etc... locations for quest specific legendaries... If you want to know more about playthrough 1, playthrough 2 and playthrough 2.5... and how each is different (and they are, as you only get to do certain things on playthrough 2 and the best gear comes from playthrough 2.5 as everything becomes level 50 at that point!!! The guide definitely helps at that point. It also details how the baddies level up and change in playthrough 2 and 2.5.

There's way more to find / unlock in the game than just finding recorders now. All seem to be tied to BadAss challenges in some form. There are collectibles such as skins, heads and then challenge specific items, tasks, locations or - actual gunplay challenges.

Some challenges yield a skin or head as a result of achieving a particular rank in a challenge...

Example, if you want to unlock the harder customizable skins, there are skins for doing certain things and getting certain bad ass challenges to a specific level. However, all badass challenges do not give skin rewards. You get one customization at BadAss Level 3 challenge for "Whaddaya Buyin?" (purchase items with Eridium). From a cursory glance, only about 29 of the challenges give you a Customization reward at some point... and of those, only one of them gives you a 'head' customization reward. It's also worth noting that not all of the customizations happen at level 3 of the particular challenge, some don't happen until level 5... like the head reward.

LEVEL .... GOAL ..... BAD ASS RANK REWARD

Lv1 .......... 2............... 1

Lv2 .......... 5............... 5

Lv3 .......... 9............... 10 + Skin Customization

Lv4 .......... 14 ............ 50

Lv5 .......... 20 ............ 100

Not all challenges are based upon doing stuff you normally do, some are based upon 'finding' areas, exploring, and finding stuff hidden in the world. Every area in the game has 'hidden' challenges.  Here's a couple quick examples:

LOCATION: Southern Shelf

CHALLENGE NAME.......... DESCRIPTION................................................................................................ BAD ASS RANK REWARD

Fireproof.............................. Kill Flynt without taking any damage from his Dragon Breath............... 5

Cult of the Vault.................. Discover the two hidden Vault Symbols..................................................... 5

Make Boom Go Boom....... Kill Boom and Bewm without taking a direct shot from their cannon... 5

There are several Easter Eggs in the game. The Guide hints at where and what to look for... such as Custic Caversn Cosplay... Eavesdroppign in Southpaw Steam & Power and Claptrap's welcome sign... moustaches on mailboxes...

Someone will post on Youtube about all the locations to find chests... That's cool, I don't want to wait. I also like to support the guys developing a quality game. I do that by purchasing a guide if / when it's helpful. This one is.

The guide is also characterful and fun. At least, the hard backed limited edition one is.

Cheers,

Pick it up from amazin, it's like 13 bucks or so, well worth the expense.

Meh. Any of the challenge stuff you can just press your back button and go look at for free. Any of the location stuff like lighting the hanging totems at Frostburn shows up as soon as you step into the area. The other ones like pistol kills show up as you do em. Really isn't anything in this game that needs a guide. And anything you might need it for, you can get the info for free online.