I won’t lie. I’m a huge Borderlands fan; every Achievement, four-characters-at-level-50 huge. Going in, I was extremely excited about the Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and after spending some quality time with the latest DLC from the fine folks at Gearbox, I’m ready to answer the biggest question you have about the Armory before you drop 800 Microsoft Points on it. That being “Is it worth it?”
First and foremost, this isn’t a content package that changes the Borderlands’ gameplay, it’s a package that adds more to it. Indeed, if Knoxx has a single premise, it’s “more,” giving you more vehicles, more weapons, more enemies, more levels, more quests, more Scooter and even more Moxxi (including her usual mix of insanity and innuendo). With that in mind, let me give you the details about all of the stuff you’re going to get from this DLC, starting with the vehicles.
Vanilla Borderlands offered you one vehicle, but Knoxx offers you three new ones. A revamped Outrunner named the Racer, a massive truck named the Monster, and an Armored Personnel Carrier named the Lancer. Like the original Outrunner, the three new vehicles come in a variety of colors and you can still spawn two at a time so four players can drive around with two people to a vehicle. The exception is the Lancer, which can actually carry all four players at the same time (finally!) and offers a ton of weaponry in its arsenal to fend off attackers.
Vehicles are great, but we’re talking about Borderlands here, which already boasts an arsenal that includes well over 17 million guns. Knoxx gives you even more firepower to choose from, with the addition of new Eridian weaponry (including one Eridian rifle reminiscent of the BioRifle from Unreal), named weapons, special weapons belonging to some of the new characters and villains. You can rest assured that no matter what weapon your character specializes in, there will be a new take on it to pique your interest. (My friend actually found a named Combat Rifle for my Soldier that – with my Overload skill – holds more ammunition than I have the capacity to hold with my maxed out SDU!)
There’s a reason there are so many new weapons and vehicles, though, and it’s because you’re going to need them against the Crimson Lance. While arguably the hardest enemies in the game already, the Lance has even been upgraded with new element-empowered Lance units, power armor, ridiculously fast assassin teams, combat medics, support vehicles, and flying attack probes. Not to be outdone, the desert outside the Lance command centers boast a new indigenous creature known as the Drifter, and whole villages of new rampaging midgets, including those riding and attacking from the back of a Skag mount.
The most intimidating and imposing enemy of all, of course, is the indomitable, invincible Crawmerax, a “no, seriously” massive Crab Worm that carries his own achievement and stands before you at level 64. This is the biggest reason why the level cap was extended to 61 instead of just 60, because you’ll need all the HP and skill points you can get. This cap extension is arguably the greatest part of the Knoxx expansion, because unlike the vehicles and enemies that are exclusive to the Knoxx content, the level cap provides 11 more levels (complete with a skill point for each) that can be earned during the second playthrough, Zombie Island, and the Knoxx DLC itself, of course.
The quests are very similar to many of the quests in vanilla Borderlands (go get this, activate that, kill and collect these), but the personality of the quests and the quest-givers once again keep the tasks from seeming mundane and instead make them very fun. Moxxi and Scooter are still hilarious, and General Knoxx is an interestingly pitiable villain for the namesake of the content. While Athena is indirectly hilarious as well, Mr. Shank just might take the cake when you visit the Lockdown Palace.
While, visually speaking, the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned provided a boggy and swampy contrast to the dry and dusty environments of the main campaign, Knoxx goes back to the well-established desert theme. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, but it might be more fun to see Gearbox utilize another unique environment in the future.
I have to Echo the exact same comments in regard to the audio. Knoxx uses the main game’s “old west” theme for much of its musical content, and this certainly isn’t bad, it just doesn’t provide the content-unique audio experience of Zombie Island. After all the time most players have likely spent in Borderlands already, Knoxx’s audio will likely blend seamlessly into the background.
If you milk it for all its worth, Knoxx is going to last you a long time. This is especially true if you enjoy it with a level 35+ character on your first playthrough before tackling Knoxx with a level 50 character on your second playthrough. Unfortunately, this same longevity is actually the only glaring weakness to the Knoxx content. The areas you have to traverse are massive, and while you have vehicles with which you can drive across these areas, there is no Fast Travel at all. Every single area of the content has to be reached on foot or in a car, and when you have to go from one side of the content to the other and then back, the driving will quickly grow tiresome. It makes what should be an exciting drive (while being chased by Lance probes and APCs) into a boring sprint to get to the next transition as quickly as possible.
However, even with this rather cumbersome fault, the Secret Armory of General Knoxx is one of the best add-ons we’ll see this year for Borderlands or any other game, making it well worth the price of admission.
| Review By: Jared Brickey - Overall Rating (out of 10) |
| Gameplay: |
8 |
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| Graphics: |
8 |
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| Sound: |
8 |
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| Longevity: |
8.5 |
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| Overall: |
8 |
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