Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre:First Person Shooter/Role-Playing Game
Release Date: 02/23/2010
Once again we are being brought back to Diehard GameFAN’s pick for best first-person shooter for 2009, Borderlands, with another DLC. So you tackled the vault? You shot a bunch of zombies in the head on Zombie Island? You may have even survived all the rounds in Mad Moxxi’s Underdome, but now we have a DLC out for all the die-hard fans on Pandora, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx’s. One of my favorite things about Borderlands, besides shooting midgets, is looting in hopes of getting that next big gun. Well the title of this DLC leads me to believe that it has a lot of loot as it has both armory and a reference to Fort Knox in the title. I am not going to go into too much about the game play as it was already covered in Diehard GameFAN’s review of Borderlands. So this DLC was released recently on XBOX live for the price of $10(800 MSP). So what do you get for your $10?
Let me start by saying if you could only afford to buy one of the three DLCs for Borderlands, this is the one to get. It has nearly double the amount of playtime on missions that was provided by Zombie Island. This DLC also increases the level cap to 61 allowing to beef up your characters that much more. The retail game is best played in multiplayer, but it possible to do all of the missions solo all the way to the end of the game. With General Knoxx this is nearly impossible to do without a little help from your friends. I died probably about 10 times as many times going from level 50 to 61 as I did with leveling to 50 in the main game. Within the first 10 minutes of this new DLC, I encountered instant death as some Lance Assassins crashed right on top of me. I thought to myself well at least I have a crapload of money. Being allowed to add 11 more skill points to your character can really enhance your battles.
General Knoxx, as I said earlier provides a lot of gameplay time. One thing this DLC relies on heavily is driving. Most of the areas are long highways full of Lance soldiers and Lance vehicles. The good thing is that there are three more vehicles for you driving pleasure. The first one available is called the racer and is nearly identical to the vehicle from the first game except its nitro blast lasts longer and allows you to go much faster. The next vehicle acquired from a quest is called the monster. The monster looks like a pickup with a roll cage. It too has a longer nitro blast but it also has a new turret gun that fires heat seeking missiles. The last vehicle, and by far my favorite, is the lancer. The lancer seats four players so your entire party can mount up and each has player will have their own responsibility. One will obviously be driving but the other three will have a choice of an eridian cannon turret, a land mine deliverer, and lastly a concussion like explosion that acts like area effect explosion emanating from the vehicle. Even with all these weapons you will still die, ands the disadvantage of a four person vehicle is that once it explodes your entire party will be fighting for your life.
So I am not going to give away too much of the story but I will give you some highlight. Mad Moxxi will be making a return in this DLC and this time she will be dishing you out missions. She has quite the reputation of being a loose lady in this expansion. Scooter will be helping you catch a ride again. Get yourself one! Athena is a bad ass chick who will be initiating most of the story based missions. These missions will eventually lead you to General Knoxx. General Knoxx really does not want to be on Pandora anymore and is extremely bored with his responsibilities and your party is the most excitement he has had in a while. He of course guards armory. The armory is what it seems to be a place with a lot of weapons. Depending on what you already carrying you may find some good weapons there and you may not. After completing the main story you will be given some additional missions and one is worth mentioning because it really changed what I thought about Borderlands as a whole. The mission is called, “You. Will. Die.” In this mission you will fight a giant level 64 crab called Crawmerax the Invincible. This character is nearly impossible to solo unless you are using a siren class. Even with a party of four you will die and numerous message boards are developing strategies and raiding parties. People are treating this like an MMO boss and joining up to loot his remains. I will tell this much, when he dies, he explodes into nearly a 100 weapons. He also has the highest probability of dropping pearlescent weapons which are the rarest in the game. I have yet to receive these guns after beating him twice and I have heard people have made dozens of attempts with no luck. So yeah, they are rare. However I have found a number of great weapons from fighting him included some guns that say they are manufactured by Gearbox. There are also some new enemy types that you will encounter besides the invincible crab. The most amusing were the skags that were being ridden by midgets. You kill one then you still have to fight the other. There was some giant spider like creatures called drifters, flying lance soldiers, and giant lance operated mechs.
The Scores:
Story: GREAT
Graphics: GREAT
Sound: GOOD
Control/Gameplay: CLASSIC
Replayability: CLASSIC
Balance: GREAT
Originality: GREAT
Addictiveness: UNPARALLELED
Appeal: GREAT
Miscellaneous: CLASSIC
FINAL SCORE: GREAT GAME
Short Attention Span Summary:
Overall The Secret Armory of General Knoxx will give you a lot of bang for your buck. For $10 you will get more playtime added to the main game than most FPS’s. The weapons are great! The enemies are varied! The missions are challenging! For all of you die-hard Borderlands fans this is a must get. No question.
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