All right, the gloves are coming off, only to be replaced with shiny gauntlets of pure rageaholic beatdown... or something to that effect, I really suck at sounding cool.
So like many people who got Borderlands 2 at launch I got that fancy razzmatazz for all those DLC offerings (well it was a guarenteed 4 DLCs and the Mechromancer), and as always with the Borderlands franchise the DLC is awesome!
But I've noticed something, there's a lot of reviews talking smack about the newest, Sir Hammerlock, and it's gotten to the point that I'm sticking my head up outta the sand about it. If you haven't played it, don't take the reviews into consideration. Like at all. Even this one, go out and play it for yourself, because ultimately the only opinion that truly matters is going to be your own.
But in case you're still reading, here's the breakdown, its a DLC for a game that's centered around 3 main aspects: FPS on the insane side, Loot (for looting of course), and RPG Questing/Side Questing. Yes there is of course the RPG element of Levelups, but I'm putting that part to the side for right now, those are the 3 main parts of the Borderlands experience I'm centering on.
For a good FPS, especially one that is like Borderlands 2 you need good enemies. I'm not talking about graphically (although that is usually a plus), I'm talking about Enemies that are interesting to fight, occasionally unpredictable, and of course Variety. Variety is the spice of life, and the guys that made both Borderlands games knew this which is why there are more types of enemies than pretty much any FPS on the market. More than that, they're not all machine gun toting die at the drop of a hat annoying shits, or Invulnerable to everything but a headshot kill you at the drop of a hat annoying fucks, or crazy Snipey bitches hiding in the middle of nowhere campy fucks who headshot you to death from across the fucking map. (Is it obvious that I'm not a fan of Counterstrike?)
Sure Borderlands has those archetypal enemies (thank god not so much on the Snipey bitches), but it also has the additions of crazy monsters, acid spewing Skags, the raging Badassery levelup-ness of Goliaths, the Wormhole fuckup your movement Threshers, the non dancing Constructors, the invisible Stalkers, and the crazy BonerFarts, I mean Bullymongs just to name a few. The enemy variety is one of the things that makes the game so fucking amazing, and difficult at the same time.
So what does the Sir Hammerlock do on that side? It brings a couple missions to find the rarest most bad ass creatures and kill the everloving shit out of them. Besides the monsters, for all you that love killing people there's the new Savages and Witch Doctors.
Which is where a lot of the reviews I checked out starting get on the harsh side. Not overly really, but moreso than was really necessary. I mean I wouldn't classify them as quazi-racist. If anything they are an old architype of King Kong era tribesmen that are really B-film quality (if not C or D). They're not meant to be offensive, they're a reflection of the style of this DLC. This continent of Aegrus is meant to be even more uncivilized and regressive than the rest of Pandora, and what says that more than tribesmen that know just enough tech to fix/reload/and shoot a firearm and worship a mad scientist whose wonders of technology probably make him look like a god in their eyes.
But more than their design I think a lot of them resented the fact that the majority of them are immune to headshots. Yes headshots are cool what with the brains exploding in blood and gore and whatnot, and I suppose its also nice to instakill someone before they even get a chance to fight back (yeah I'm generally not into instakilling guys, it's probably because I don't like being insta-killed). In anycase the invulnerability to headshots I applaud as a choice. It gives them an extra edge over the Bandit hordes or Hyperion Engineers, and really if the only armor you're wearing is a mask or maybe a shield with some pants you gotta give em that.
Besides if you are solely focused on Headshots you've probably already maxed out the Headshot, and Sniperkill challenges and earned your Badass Tokens for it, so why not move on to the other loot in the game like the SMGs, Assault Rifles, Rocket Launchers or even those Pistols that are super plentiful. You do know you can kill stuff with guns other than a Sniper Rifle right?
Then you have the Witch Doctors. I could easily go on a crazy long rant about them, but there's other stuff I have to say and already I've blathered on longer than I planned. Suffice to say they are evil Sons of Bitches that can level up the rest of the badies or transform into mini tornadoes of death. Kill them, Kill them with fire, unless of course he's a fire element, or you have a better gun, or better yet a crazy Rocket launcher. You better believe I broke out the Rocket Launcher more times than the rest of the entire game trying to kill those fuckers as fast as I could.
So lets move to Loot. Loot's always a great thing, it gives you more of a point to killing enemies than the FPS standard mentality of : "This is a video game I'm playing to exercise my perfectly human desire to murder the fuck out of everyone!" I love loot, even if all I get is crap to sell for meaningless gold/money that I'll really only use for respawning or on the rare chance a vendor has an outfit I don't have or a better gun or a better shield.
Loot is great, and if you disagree with that statement than Borderlands 2 isn't the game for you, go back to that crap you call amazing like Counterstrike and don't look at the pure awesomeness that is Borderlands 2. Some games just aren't for some people (the aformentioned is really not for me). What Sir Hammerlock gives in Loot is great I think. I'm not talking about the new legendaries or uniques but I definately think that this DLC brings the guns. I hadn't found any Assault Rifles I really fell in love with until that, but that might just be my luck with the randomness that is loot.
Sir Hammerlock also has a lot of Weapon chests that I felt the core game was lacking, and best of all at the end of Hammerlock story side there's a lot of weapon chests for the looting! Maybe not as much as the Armory of General Knox DLC for the first Borderlands, but these you don't have an annoying timer on looting or have to result to exploiting a glitch to get. I dug it.
So Questing. Questing is cool. Period.
Seriously end of discussion, Questing is Fucking Cool.
Don't believe me, than Borderlands and really all RPGs are not for you, you can go ahead and cry over not being able to enjoy D&D, it doesn't make you any less of a gamer. Ok I'm lying, it makes you SO much less of a gamer. I mean really almost all videogames today are the bastard child of D&D if you look at it the right way, I mean where do you think they came up with the idea of Dungeons from? That's really a discussion for another time though.
Sir Hammerlock DLC gives more missions. Are they short-ish. Some are, the mainline Story Missions all together could probably all be done in a day if you dedicate yourself to it. But by not grabbing all the missions you can as they become available you will have to backtrack later on. By not grabbing sidequests at all you also really miss out on a lot of the fun this DLC gives you, and really why would you do that?
More important than the length or amount of quests is the quality. Which I would rate pretty fucking highly. Some games have incredibly weak sidequests *cough Mass Effect 3 cough*, and these were pretty nice. I haven't even been able to finish them all yet. (Collecting all those hidden eggs, or finding all those rare creatures is gonna take a while!)
So let me re-address the RPG element I sidelined earlier, leveling up. Levelups are great rewards for playing a game, and they make the game SOOO much better, especially the levelups for Borderlands2. And it really doesn't matter what character you're playing, everyone loves it. So in this DLC they didn't raise the level cap which pisses off a lot of players.
You know what my response for that is. Boo Freakin Hoo.
There's a lot of content that is very specific to Lv 50 players. Shit that anyone under Lv 50 can't touch, like all those fucking raid bosses. And really even then you generally don't have a chance unless you are bringing the extra firepower of another couple players (something I generally don't do because I prefer Single Player). You know what the guys at Borderlands are tracking? How many people have reached that Lv cap, and they'll raise that cap when its a large percentage of players.
So maybe instead of feeling outraged, angered or even betrayed by the lack of a level cap raise you play another character. I mean I'm unemployed and spend far far FAR too much time on stupid shit like games and video games, but for all the hours upon hours of gameplay I've had in Borderlands 2 I finally got a character up to Lv 50 last week. Last fucking week, and I've been hearing complaints about the level cap for what seems like forever.
Seriously start another character if you are that obsessed with the need for level ups after you reach the cap and are tired of taking on shit like the raid bosses. I mean it, you got 5 different characters in the game, and if rumors are true soon enough there'll be a 6th! So get another character and level that one up. In fact if you create a different Xbox account you can level that one all the way up to 50 so a friend can join you in person to take on those Lv 50 challenges.
And if you have all characters up to Lv 50, well I congratulate you. I also pity your lack of a life outside of your videogaming console.
All right, so what else haven't I addressed. A lot of stuff that makes Sir Hammerlock a great DLC. Some people don't like the fanboats, fine walk through the levels, this game isn't a driving based game to begin with, if you want better driving than it delivers play a fucking Driving game instead. I also didn't even scratch the surface on Level design which is frustratingly huge and really requires a lot of exploring (which honestly is like the biggest plus this side of awesome island on the corner of freakin and time wasting). Is this the greatest DLC in the world? Fuck no. But it's better than Pirate's Booty.
In the end I'd give it a solid 8.
Of course the only DLC of all games I'd rate higher is Torgue's, but even then that was only a 9.2
Peace
~OD
