With Gearbox’s fourth venture onto Pandora does this latest revolution bring a change of pace?
Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution is the latest outing into the vast world that is Borderlands. If you haven’t heard or played the game here is a quick recap: A Vault is said to exist on the planet Pandora that contains untold amounts of power, riches, fame, and booty. You play one of four vault hunters to find the sucker while fighting the scum that Pandora has to offer. With a cross between RPG and First Person Shooter (RPS?) it was a much needed mix up in the shooter genre when it released back in 2007. Three years, and three DLC packs later, Borderlands looks to keep the looting and baddies coming at you.
Dr. Ned had a zombie horde, Moxxi was a crazy gladiatorial ringleader, and General Knoxx had his secret weapons cache. The Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap has an army of robot minions at his disposal. The number of Claptraps that came across your path during the original game have now joined the ranks of a revolutionary leader bent on subjugating Pandora to his will. It’s all very interesting and fun stuff to throw yourself into as it adds that much more to the larger world of Pandora. Unfortunately the story takes a back seat, much like the original game, to a large number of side quests and missions that aren’t directly tied to progressing through the game. If you were looking for a change in the structure of Borderland’s presentation then I’m sorry to inform you that you won’t find it here.
There is a lot to do and see on Pandora and the developers over at Gearbox are doing an excellent job in bringing that aspect of the game out into the open. Six new areas to explore are included in the content which makes for a lot of nooks and crannies to find all the weapons you could possibly want. But there is a drawback to this, you don’t have access to a vehicle. While the areas are full of stuff to find and enemies to shoot it seems just too spread out to run the entire time. If not a vehicle at your disposal then warp points would have a nice feature to include at the farther edges of the map. Gearbox brings back a number of familiar enemies in the form of robot controlled puppets, think skags, bandits, and even spiderants, and it’s a nice change of scenery and a challenge. Characters from other DLC packs make cameo appearances that only make the experience that much more enjoyable. Their trademark humor is still very much intact with the Claptraps spouting off dying words, mechanical insults, and just plain classic claptrap entertainment. It’s nice to see consistently well written material even for DLC in it’s fourth stage. Gearbox also seems to have increased the number of enemies that attack you this time around because I was constantly under a swarm of enemies. Don’t take this as a bag thing, it’s great to have to scramble to fend off the swarms of enemies and welcoming since a majority of players who have continued to play this far are probably in the mid to high 40’s if not higher, in terms of levels. Those that are up in these ranks will notice that the level of difficulty does not change to their stat levels unfortunately. This makes the missions a walk in the park with a few bosses thrown into the mix to keep things somewhat interesting. Don’t expect to find any weapons better than your current stock, haradcore, because there don’t seem to be any in all the chests lying around. Between the lack of powerful enemies and weak weaponry I have to say that experience is only to be gained from the missions themselves and your list of achievements in the menu.
For new players or players who didn’t complete every challenge available in Borderlands, this content is fun to have and enjoyable at the price of $10. It adds enough variety to the enemy, location, and weapons pallet that you’ll feel satisfied with this purchase. Those who have finished absolutely everything available to them, or just about close to it, should consider this a new area to grind. In fact, I feel that these packs were designed specifically for you in mind. A handful of new trophies come with the pack, of which missions are connected to to add a bit more incentive to complete the more tedious of tasks. We’ve all seen that South Park WoW episode. And Gearbox did too. Each piece of additional content seems to cater to the list of achievements that you can complete for loads of experience which beats farming the same spot for months on end. TheĀ hardcore will love these packs and for $10 a piece, you can play through as much as you can stand and buy up the next adventure without murdering your piggy bank. Borderlands: Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution comes “Recommended” from this reviewer.
Borderlands: Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution was played on a PlayStation 3, on playthrough 1 of Borderlands with Roland, via review code given to StuffWeLike.com.
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