The Digest: Another huge expansion to Borderlands adds new characters, more loot, and new baddies. However, with repetitive collection missions and no level cap increase (yet), this DLC leaves you frustrated and a little disappointed.

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: September 28, 2010
PUBLISHER: Xbox LIVE Arcade
DEVELOPER: Gearbox Software
ESRB RATING: “M” for Mature
GENRE: Role Playing, Shooter
PRICE: 800 Microsoft Points

PRODUCT OVERVIEW:
To combat second hand sales of used munitions among greedy, haggling treasure hunters on Pandora, the Hyperion Corporation have decided to activate the Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap. Instead, it has organized all of the claptraps into a revolution, and they’ve been assimilating all life on Pandora and converting them into claptraps. With our heroes caught in the middle, they must stop the Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap in order to release his control over all of Pandora’s claptraps and collect their reward, of course.

PRODUCT FEATURES:

• New Locations
• New Enemies
• New Achievements

When I first discovered Borderlands, it was a breath of fresh air.  It was a game that could combine both 1st person shooter elements and RPG elements so well that it kept me busy for hours on end.

Then, they released the DLC. So far, 2 out of the 3 had met and exceeded my expectations (we won’t talk bad about Moxxie and her Under Dome).  Now, I had high expectations for the Claptrap Revolution and I have to say that Gearbox fell short this time.

The DLC starts out the same as Borderlands, with Marcus telling a cute little story of the events leading up to this point.  Basically, the synopsis is the Hyperion corporation is tired of the vault hunters looting every dead person for weapons and not buying from them.  So, they get the interplanetary ninja assassin claptrap to do mischievous things to the vault dwellers to get rid of them.  Unfortunately, the INAC realizes all of his claptrap brethren have been abused and misused.

So, what do all oppressed people do when they cannot take it anymore? Revolution!

The first person you encounter is a loony named Tannis.  She starts you out with a collection task.  If you think that is boring, then you better stop now because there are a lot of collection missions (think BRAAAAAAAAIIIIINS!!).  Now, the 1st mission seems harmless enough, but it is quite confusing because you meet some low level claptrap rebels and then some Hyperion soldiers.  However, after you complete the mission, this is where things get weird.

After the 1st mission, the Hyperion soldiers and almost every other enemy you encounter become a trap; they become a cyborg version of themselves.  So, a skag becomes a skag trap, a bandit becomes a bandit trap, and a bully becomes (yep, you probably guessed it) a bully trap.  Now, you do get a few new baddies from this arrangement, but for the most part it’s the same old enemies that look slightly different and have trap somewhere in the name.

Now, the interesting enemies are the claptraps themselves.  You get your typical claptrap rebels to your samurai warrior claptraps.  Each of the claptraps carry different weapons.  Some carry guns, some use knives, and some use punching gloves to pound you.

Then, there are the suicide traps. They are one of the best, and also the most annoying of the claptraps. If they blow up in your face, you have a few seconds to get health or you’re dead.

The maps are large and have many twists and turns.  One of the more interesting additions of the maps are not clear cut.  One of the maps you have to find your way around in order to get to your checkpoint.  In the previous DLCs, and the game itself, you could just look at the map and figure out which way to go.  And in previous DLCs, there is no fast travel to locations.  So, get ready to run, and run, and run some more.

The bosses, with the exception of one, are mostly just rehashes of old bosses and made into [boss name here]-trap.  While their dialogue is quite humorous, playing the earlier DLCs is almost required, or you just wouldn’t get the jokes and you probably wouldn’t even know who the bosses were.  Some of the bosses prove to be just as challenging as their original counterparts, so if you enjoyed battling them the first time, then you should have fun the second time.  The last boss is very challenging but to avoid being a spoiler I will leave it at that.

Conclusion: With the promise of a patch to increase the level cap, I thought this would be another great addition to the DLC.  However, unknown to many of us, Gearbox has decided not to release the patch to allow a higher max level yet.  So, if you are already at level 61, there will be no experience gained until the patch is released sometime later this month.  So, due to the large number of collection quests and lack of new bosses, I am hesitant to give this a passing grade until the patch is out.  Once the patch is out, I will play through this again and see if it changes my mind.

Special thanks to Gearbox Software for providing us with a copy of this content for review.