Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx Review
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx has new enemies, new vehicles, new guns and most importantly, the level cap has been raised from 50 to 61 (in the parlance of Gearbox, they took it to 11). Is more necessarily better? Pro tip: yes.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Borderlands. It was the surprise hit of 2009 and the constant trickle of DLC doesn’t hurt in sustaining that trend. While Gearbox’s first two DLC offerings: the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned (incredible) and Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot (terrible) were small in scope, the third is a more significant experience.
What went right
Characters
The story in Borderlands was never more than wafer thin. That being said, the characters were hilarious and well presented. This continues in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx (hereafter referred to as Armory).
Fan favorites such as Scooter the mechanic, Marcus the weaponsmith and Moxxi the, uh, harlot? – return and are more hilarious than ever.
The real prize here might go to General Knoxx, however, who is a cynical and jaded officer sent in to clean up the mess from the first game. His commanding officer is a 5-year old (damn nepotism) and the radio transmissions from Knoxx to command are beyond hilarious.
In addition, some of the new bosses like Mr. Shank are pure gold, and even the drab Athena (your new ally) transmits messages hidden in advertising streams for a male enhancement product called Engorge.
New guns
Borderlands is all about the guns, and with the level cap increasing to 61, the gun algorithm becomes more powerful. That being said, if you farmed New Haven as extensively as I did, then your level 50 guns are going to hold up through the entire expansion, and if you had some real gems you might not even find a replacement during a single playthrough.
Gearbox has added an additional tier of rarity above ‘legendary’ and while they could have chosen heroic or godlike or something, they went with ‘pearlescent.’ I have not yet seen one of these mammoths but I can only assume when one drops it won’t disappoint.
Moxxi's back with her entourage of ex-husbands. You even get to meet one and Mr. Shank is one of the best characters yet
New enemies
The original Borderlands and even the expansions suffered from a lack of variety in enemies. By the end of the game you were tired of seeing the same skags and bandits over and over again. While Armory suffers from this a little bit, there are several new and interesting foes.
There are the mighty Devastator mechs of the Crimson Lance that look like those stupid mechs from the Matrix sequels. There are skag riders where you can kill the skag but the midget rider hops off to continue the attack. There are the towering strider-esque War of the Worlds enemies.
There are also a substantial number of new Crimson Lance foes such as the pyro, the engineer, the medic and the chemical soldier. There are also Crimson Lance ninja assassins, pesky floating drones and jetpack soldiers.
What really make the new enemies more interesting than the offerings from the original game are that they are more strategic. In Borderlands, I used my ‘best’ gun in pretty much all situations. It was a jack of all trades, and worked equally well against everything. This is not the case in Armory.
I now switch between 3 situational guns, the aforementioned standby, a corrosive weapon for pyro units and machinery and a fire weapon for everything else. Without a balanced arsenal, some enemies are simply too difficult to bring down.
What were they thinking?
Vehicle focus
Armory centers around a massive highway in the desert, and much of the game will be spent in vehicles. While they’re still primarily for fast travel and not so much for combat, it’s curious that Gearbox would take one of the weakest elements of Borderlands and focus in on it. While it’s great that there are now 3 interesting vehicles to choose from instead of the one boring offering from the original, it’s still not ideal.
This is not a driving game, it’s a shooting game, and that should always be the focus. In addition, the fast travel system is gone from the expansion area so you have to drive everywhere, a frequently time consuming process. That being said, the new monster truck with home missiles removes much of the aiming weaknesses from the first game’s vehicle combat, and some of the stunts you can pull off with the racer are incredible.
Beware the Jabberwocky. And the giant Crimson Lance mech suit. The original poem was cut off
Group focus
I realize Borderlands is a group game, and Gearbox wants to encourage group play, but it was nice that you could solo the entire first game. While the standard campaign is still possible to do alone in Armory, there is a new end-game boss called Crawmerax the Invincible who is a level 64 elite. The only way to do this solo is either to play a certain class and spend an hour shooting it, or use a well documented glitch.
Because this boss has the highest % chance by far of dropping the new and highest tier of weapons, players will want to farm it like they did New Haven. Unfortunately, it looks like getting in a group will be required and given the lack of widespread voice chat on the PS3 this is a painful thought.
Difficulty
I farmed New Haven, a town from the original Borderlands, for hours finding the best guns. Because of this, the random weapon generator eventually came up in my favor and I have guns that are hugely overpowered. As a result, I could breeze through the campaign in Armory, tearing through the Crimson Lance in mere seconds.
That being said, if you played the original game once and didn’t spend hours at level 50 beefing up your character, your arsenal is probably insufficient to get through the first couple missions at level 50. At the very least, there will be much dying and respawning involved. Once again, Gearbox has failed to adequately balance the game for the intended levels.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is the biggest and best DLC thus far released for Borderlands. I had a blast, and laughed out loud at least a dozen times. If you liked Borderlands, you’re going to love Armory. General Knoxx definitely needs a spinoff game.
