Hey look! I'm actually reviewing something I said I would!
Right now my main is a harmony spec'd with some cataclysm tree Siren so this DLC is being reviewed from that perspective.
Right after I finished Torgues campaign of Carnage, I headed to Hammerlock's Hunt on normal. Around level 35, I meet with the gentlemanly, scholarly, homosexual cyborg and find we're about to go on a hunting weekend together! This should be pretty cool.
The scenery is beautiful, the animals are completely different from anything else I've seen in the game. The opening cutscene when you head to the Hunter's Grotto is like a hilarious newsreel cut from the 1930s. I was pretty well geared considering I had beaten the game and both of the other DLC's. Lets kill all the animals!!!!!
Then these fuckers showed up. The human bandits in Hammerlock's Hunt are "savages" and its unlike any mob you've fought throughout the game. Why do I say this? Because if you're the same level, they are going to fuck you up. The key to these mobs is the Witch Doctor Mob (different types include slag, vampire, burning, shock, and crippling). He will heal, skill up the savages, and cast spells that take your shields and health down to nothing in 1 shot. Doing the opening mission to receive the "Hunter's Lodge" base camp, my anus was ritually sacrificed to the Gods of the Savages. I died approximately 10 times.
When I play usually, I tend to snipe criticals from a distance and if things get close use pistols or shotguns with a bit of melee thrown in. This tactic no longer worked and I've yet to find one that effectively took care of the savage mobs. As a Siren, I'm completely dependent on my phaselock to get me out of hairy situations. Guess what is completely ineffective on the Witch Doctors? If you guessed my phaselock, have a cookie.
After an insta-death while trying to get a fan boat, I decided to go level up a bit before returning to Hammerlock's DLC. Now being 7 levels above everything, I was able to see the content without breaking my in-game wallet rezzing every 5 seconds.
First the good: Loot drops constantly. Every 5 minutes I had to run to a machine to empty out my backpack. This is never a bad thing. A lot of the drops are customizations for the fan boat which is nice, and I even picked up a couple of Bandit Technical Skins while running this DLC. The scenery stays interesting, the dialogue is amusing, the quests are actually pretty varied. The fan boat looks cool as hell. Some of the mobs will surprise you with what they can do.
The bad: Savages constantly re-pop when you leave an area. A certain quest hub is up on a high cliff through Savage infested villages. Every time you go turn in a quest, you have to again kill 200 or so savages to get there. It eventually got to a point where I stopped fighting and just started running to the quest-giver. Another big issue was in all sections of the map, each area had 2-3 different "levels" You'd run to where a quest blip was located on your map and be completely unable to find it. After googling, you'd find out you were on the wrong level and had to go completely the opposite direction to get to the quest area. This got annoying after the fourth or fifth time it happened. Finally, much like other parts of this game, the bosses were too easy. Not a one gave a challenge. I'm pretty sure the only thing that killed me in the entirety of this DLC was when I got surrounded by too many savages and my Firehawk shield was spent. Yes, I realize I was 7 levels above them, but the bosses should at least make me have to figure it out on a run or two. My final beef was it felt short. While the Pirates and Torgues took me 5-6 hours (without as much getting lost or re-popping insane amounts of mobs), this took a little less than 4 hours.
Don't get me wrong, more of a game like Borderlands 2 is never a bad thing, but with how good the other two DLC's were, this one disappointed me. It wasn't nearly as in depth and felt falsely padded to add length. Its included in the Season Pass so make sure to check it out, just be ready to be annoyed. I also feel really guilty after killing that many natives.
Filled with White Guilt,
-Oz
No comments:
Post a Comment