Story
Taken from the intro/Borderlands wiki:
“Danger! Excitement! Mustaches! It's time for another episode of Vault Hunter Adventures, featuring Sir Hammerlock! In this week's tale, our hard-boiled heroes travel to the savage continent of Aegrus! Their goal? To uncover the most exotic creatures Pandora has to offer, and give 'em the old one-two!
But danger looms on the horizon for our swell swashbucklers. For while Handsome Jack may be gone, his legacy lives on.”
Like Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, this DLC has a simple story. Unfortunately, it’s very underwhelming at the same time, especially the Handsome Jack angle.
Setting
Aegrus is a hit & miss for me. I’ll first go over the hit part, and let me just say that there are some good places here. The area as a whole feels like a place that man rarely treads, despite some signs of civilization. It’s a land where the wild rules, and man has been reduced into groups of bloodthirsty savages. The first area, Hunter’s Grotto, is a massive marshland. There’s creatures of all sorts prowling around, and the savages that live in the grotto fight back against any trespassers. The only sanctuary in this place is a hunter’s lodge, which stands right in the middle of the grotto. Right after this is Scylla’s Grove, a swampy places that shouldn’t support human life, but it does. Skags & Scaylions (A new monster) prowl around in the water, while the savages have built a village around & on top of a tree. The area before the final boss, Candlerrak's Crag, is the bleakest out of them all. It’s a group of grey mountain ranges, with a sky constantly raining & thundering, and the bones of ancient creatures can be seen on the highest peaks. All through the mountain range, villages of savages can be encounters, along with creatures of all kinds. These areas are great, and they fell fun to wander through.
Here’s where the expansion misses. There are two locations where it feels lacking, and the first is Ardorton Station. Although creatures & savages run rampant throughout the place, this location feels like a rushed version of the Wildlife Exploitation Reserve from the main game. Even the structure of the locale feels similar, as it has rooms where signs of experimentation can be found, along with ruined machinery. The other area is where you encounter Nakayama & the final boss (More on this in a sec) is the H.S.S. Terminus, a ruined Hyperion ship. It definitely looks cool, but you explore such a small space, it really doesn’t matter.
Characters
Here’s another big problem with this expansion. Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt has only 3 characters: Sir Hammerlock is back (Hence the name of the expansion) as the knowledgeable hunter & scholar, and Claptrap returns to act as the annoying/goofy comic relief. The new character, Professor Nakayama, is perhaps the weakest of the three. I understand why from a designer’s standpoint, because he was made as a bumbling scientist & fanboy of Handsome Jack. However, they way they designed him is massively flawed, as Nakayama is such a insignificant threat, the moments where he actually can be threatening, is just a waste of time.
Gameplay
5 main missions. 12 side missions. This is all there is to do in this expansion. This lack of content goes by rather fast, as most players will be able to complete the DLC in about 3 and a half hours. Just about all of the quests (Primary & Side) involve killing something, and given the name of the story in question, this isn’t a bad thing. The problem is that most of the quests are relatively easy to accomplish, with only 2 or 3 of them having a hint of a challenge. Not only that, but the quest rewards are practically non-existent, save for XP & money (Although there is one quest where you get a special skin for your character).
In an interesting twist, the majority of the enemies in Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt are melee-based. With only a pinch of enemies that will attack you from ranged, the rest of the enemies will close in on you, causing you to change battle tactics (A melee-based Zer0 or Krieg will do quite well in this expansion). Curiously, an enemy from the original game the drifter, makes a return in this expansion (Coincidentally, the Drifter was from the 3rd DLC of the original Borderlands). Oddly, the only area where the Drifters spawn is in Hunter’s Grotto, the primary starting area, but they provide about as much of a challenge as the original versions. Three particular enemies deserve mention in their own sections.
For starters, there are the savages & witch doctors. The Savages are some of the main enemies in the DLC, and they’re evenly split between melee & ranged. The Witch Doctors are the leaders of the Savages, and they have the ability to launch various bolts of energy. On top of that, they have the ability to heal themselves and heal the Savages, which in turn levels up the Savages into more deadlier forms, one of which is a hidden boss (More on this in a bit).
Secondly, there are the Giant Spores. These are Borderlands 2's first neutral enemy. The spores are content to simply float through the air, but when they are struck, they’ll fly right at you and attack with balls of corresponding energy, along with smaller copies of themselves. What I really like about the spores is that if random monsters attack them first, and you attack them second, they’ll stay on the original attackers first, and they’ll come after you if there are still alive.
The last enemy is Jackenstein, the game’s final boss (Not Professor Nakayama. Go figure?). Jackenstein is by far, the worst.....video game.......boss......EVER! For starters, you can’t kill him through the normal method of just pointing your gun at him and pulling the trigger. Instead, you must aim for his critical hit locations to hurt him. 2 of them are on his back, and the other is on his chest after the first two are taken out. This wouldn’t be so bad, if A: he didn’t move around as much (The 3rd critical hit location is only exposed when he launches a ranged attack), and B: if the Loaders didn’t spawn when the first two critical hit locations are destroyed. To make things more irritating, if you’re taken out of the fight, you get back to a fully charged boss, and you have to start all over..........AARRGG!!!!!!
However, despite all of the bad gameplay elements, there are some tiny positives. For starters, there’s a new Seraph Guardian in the form of a massive Stalker, and he’s quite possibly the most challenging of the guardians. On top of that, there are two hidden bosses as well (They don’t drop Seraph Crystals & items like the main guardian, but they’re about as difficult, and drop special loot only available from them). The first hidden boss is a upgraded Drifter, and the other is a powerful Savage created by a Witch Doctor’s magic. It takes some work to find these guys, but it’s worth it.
Secondly, the Seraph Vendor comes back. This time, we have Seraph Items & Weapons available for purchase, such as the example below:
You also have a new vehicle to pilot through some (Hunter’s Grotto & Scylla’s Grove are the only places you can use it) of the areas in the game, and that’s the Fan Boat. Looking like a actual boat you’d drive through the marshlands, this beast has a longer lasting speed boost, and can be equipped with 1 of 3 weapons (Acid Launcher, Flamethrower, and Shock Launcher).
Finally, there are new special weapons & items added to the loot pool. There’s a machine gun that fires continuously, weapons & items inspired by Teddy Roosevelt, and a E-Tech smg that shocks & stings. This is one of the few areas of the DLC that makes it worth the purchase.
Graphics & Sound
Again, the graphics in this game are the same as that from Borderlands 2. We do have new textures for the monsters and some of the architecture, but there’s nothing else. Like the previous DLCs, there’s brand new music for the expansion, such as the sample below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlC5oLM8Ic4list=PLrwWaT3GWAEfZhT_nzxytofd7SB9NssBM&index=38
Overall & Rating
Yeah, Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt is bad. It’s rushed, weak, and is Borderlands 2's equivalent of Claptrap’s Robot Revolution. There’s definitely a good story DLC in here somewhere, but it’s buried underneath all of the flaws. If there were any reasons why I’d suggest buying this expansion, it would be because of Hammerlock, Claptrap, and the new loot added in. Nuff said.
Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt gets a 3 to 4 out of 10.
See you all next week, when we’ll sit down for some geeky fun. Until then, stay Otaku!
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