I've been eagerly anticipating more Borderlands DLC for some time now, and with Claptrap's New Robot Revolution out today, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Now after having a few hours of time with it, I can honestly say that while I am enjoying it, something about it just doesn't feel right. And before I go on, I should let everyone know that apparently, the development of this DLC was outsourced to Darkside Games, which explains a lot about what went "wrong" with the new content.
First, the good. The new environments are very well done and are pretty expansive, sometimes needlessly so, but are fun to explore and look real nice. The characters are also still great and have more than enough personality to make their purpose in the game world known. And of course, the humor is as strong as ever. There's a good amount of text and new dialogue, particularly that of the new trap-ified enemies, that got some good laughs out of me.
However, not everything about it is great, and some of it comes off as downright lazy. For one, the mission design could not be more bland. Borderlands isn't exactly known for having a huge variety of missions, but compared the big step forward that GBX took with Knoxx, a lot of what you do in Revolution seems pretty bland and uninspired. There's a huge collection quest in it, similar to the "Braaaaains" quest line in Zombie Island, but instead of it being optional, it's part of the main quest and requires you to go more out of your way to grind for close to 400 clap-trap parts. Some of the other side quests I've encountered don't offer much outside of their humorous mission text.
Then there are the enemies. The claptraps themselves are fairly varied and fun to fight, but most of what you'll be fighting are the original game's enemies, only trap-ified. That means bandits, skags, and spiderants with robotic parts attached to them. Now while I don't really have a big problem with this, some people out there will. Even the Hyperion Guards seem to be Lance soldier re-skinned. Just be prepared for a lot of enemy recycling, including some of the game's boss fights. There at least appears to be a good amount of original bosses as well, however.
I'm not going to go on right now, since I plan on properly reviewing this. As I said, I'm still having fun with it...this is Borderland's we're talking about, after all. I still have a ways to go before I finish it, so these are just some initial impressions. Right now, it seems Revolution is just more of what Borderlands has already given us.
Borderlands
Game » consists of 30 releases. Released Oct 20, 2009
- Xbox 360
- PlayStation 3
- PC
- Xbox 360 Games Store
- + 5 more
- PlayStation Network (PS3)
- Mac
- PlayStation 4
- Xbox One
- Nintendo Switch
Borderlands is a first-person shooter RPG from Gearbox Software that puts players into the shoes of one of four playable characters as they traverse the hostile planet of Pandora in search of a mysterious "Vault," said to contain priceless unknown riches and alien technologies.
Thoughts on Claptrap's New Robot Revolution
"Right now, it seems Revolution is just more of what Borderlands has already given us. "
Thats a good thing in my opinion.
Yeah, what I've read about it has been pretty mixed so far. That does seem cheap on GearBox's part to outsource it, but at least they didn't mangle it too badly, right?
Not sure if I'll lay down the $10 for it, especially if the level cap increase is free. General Knoxx is the only one I paid for, and there are other things that I could spend $10 on (like Mass Effect 2 DLC).
The worst thing at first feels to be that the enemies are rather low level for characters at level 61 (we are easily clearing parts of maps separately in co-op and there is no need to stick together). Also it is a bit depressing that the level cap raise is coming only after a few weeks. This dlc will either be completed by then, or we have to stop playing at some point because our levels will be too low compared to the enemies (if there even are enemies with higher levels).
In order for CNRR to scale up to level 61, you must have completed the Crawmerax quest, otherwise it will start at around level 56-57. Pretty lame, I know. The only character I have defeated Crawmerax with is my Siren, which I am not using to play through this the first time. I can't be bothered to try and beat that fucker anymore with my soldier. It's just not fun, so I'm settling with playing it overleveled for now.
" @OneKillWonder said:This."Right now, it seems Revolution is just more of what Borderlands has already given us. "Thats a good thing in my opinion. "
I'm going to get it when they raise the level cap in that free patch next month.
I've noticed that many of the achievements in this DLC are bugged now. I should have gotten all of the secret achievements by now, but none of them have unlocked. I've also been hearing that the collectible achievements aren't unlocking, either. Hopefully they can get this fixed soon.
" In order for CNRR to scale up to level 61, you must have completed the Crawmerax quest, otherwise it will start at around level 56-57. Pretty lame, I know. The only character I have defeated Crawmerax with is my Siren, which I am not using to play through this the first time. I can't be bothered to try and beat that fucker anymore with my soldier. It's just not fun, so I'm settling with playing it overleveled for now. "Hmm. Didn't know that. My idea was that we could get a couple of more levels and some better gear and then kill crawmerax. We play co-op with only two players, and trying to kill crawmerax (and failing badly) didn't feel like the best use of our time.. Well I guess we now have until the patch to get it done..
That's a bit of a disappointment to read, I hoped this to be as grand as Knox.
Well, here's hope for Borderlands 2 where they don't abandon the current cast.
Borderlands ain't Borderlands without Mad Moxxi, Scooter, Marcus or any of the vault hunters.
Now that I've played through almost the entire thing, my view of it hasn't changed much. There's a reason I put "wrong" in quotes like I did, because I would hardly call what CNNR has to offer "bad". But there is a lot about it's structure that feels slapped together, and it often feels like it doesn't take full advantage of it's design or concept, and I don't think it's unfair or unreasonable to think that that's at least partially due to the fact that it was made by a team with no previous developing experience with Borderlands. Still, I think Dark Side games have done a commendable job with giving BL players more of what they love, but to say that this isn't a couple of steps back from General Knoxx would be foolish. I, like many others, had pretty heightened expectations after Knoxx, and with good reason. Knoxx was top quality almost front to back, and Gearbox hyped the hell out of CNNR and explicitly stated that it was bigger and better than any of their previous DLC, without so much as a whisper that it wasn't even developed in-house. Of course, that's just the usual PR marketing buzz, but I can't really blame anyone for buying into it. And I'm sure that mentioning that this was not technically a Gearbox product wouldn't have exactly been too good for sales, either.
I'm the last person who would be prejudiced towards or uninformed about Borderlands, and I am hardly trying to gain any "amateurish writing experience" by posting this. Maybe I was a little too quick to criticize the DLC, and if by the time I finish it I feel any differently about what I have already stated, I will happily admit I was wrong and retract my statements, but seeing as I have maybe 2 or 3 quests left to do, I can't see that happening. It's not like regret spending the $10 on this in the least, and I don't think anyone should be deterred from buying it if they are on the fence.
So I finally finished CNNR. I have to say, I really loved the ending, and the final boss is probably the best one of the entire game. It's not too hard, but if you aren't careful you could easily get your ass kicked fast. The ending seemed like good closure to the rest of the game, and Marcus' comment got me excited for a sequel.
Very short DLC and muuuch shorter than the General Knoxx DLC. During my whole playthrough i found no powerful weapons and only a handful of orange weapons that were inferior to the ones i already owned. I was kinda pissed when i finished some missions and was awarded useless exp and a shitty weapon that i would never use. If i remember correctly from the hype about the DLC there were supposed to be new weapons and 10 more skill points, so far i've only gotten 1 and that was for beating the final mission. The day before this DLC came out i was hyped about it but upon playing i was really disappointed and would not recommend it to anyone unless they want a few chuckles here and there or a less boring way to get to level 69.
I don't know what to tell you about your weapon drops, though. It's all random. Throughout my entire playthrough, literally about 75% of what I found were purples and legendaries, most of them junk of course, but I came across a pretty good share of more powerful gear to use, including several of the best shotguns I've ever seen in the game, and a couple of incredibly powerful combat rifles. I haven't even defeated Crawmerax with that particular character, either, so I was underleveled for the entire thing.
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