Fans of Borderlands don’t need to know much beyond the fact that the third downloadable content pack for the open world role-playing shooter introduces a four-player vehicle, a higher level cap, and a whole new level of rarity for weapons. Just for the sake of clarity and maybe poor ignorant gamers like me, though, let’s break it down by numbers:
61 is the new level cap
44 new Missions (both story and side missions)
20 pages of new dialogue for DLC characters
10 new Achievements
3 new drivable vehicles (and you can drive them in towns)
2 times the size of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned
I may not be all that familiar with Borderlands, but I know as far as DLC goes, this is a pretty sweet deal. By knocking up the level cap and adjusting the world to have a new level of rarity for weapons (Pearlescent), the endgame in Borderlands gets a whole lot longer – and even lower-level characters can cash in on it too, because there’s nothing to stop you from venturing out to the new area added by Secret Armory.
The new area is called the Parched Fathoms, a dry-lake-turned-desert with a lone outpost called T-Bone Junction situated toward the middle of the area. In this new town setting players encounter their old friend, Scooter, who has blueprints for new vehicles that you have to find components for. Moxxi and Athena also return to the cast for a lot of new dialogue, and a slew of new enemies crop up almost as a soon as you set foot outside of T-Bone Junction.
During my guided demo with Lead Designer Paul Hellquist and Vice President of Martketing Steve Gibson, I first watched as each got his ass handed to him first by Lance Assassins (which are pretty much what they sound like), Lance Probes (little robots that spout propaganda and shoot your vehicle to pieces), then by Lance Rocket Troopers (think Boba Fett). It was particularly painful to watch all of this because Borderlands is meant to be a multiplayer experience and I just know I could’ve shot off a few of the Rocket Troopers and bought Gibson time to get back in the dune buggy and run over a probe or two. Sadly, technical difficulties kept me out of that first fray.
I got my chance later, though, when Hellquist skipped ahead toward what I take to be the end of the new story section. I won’t spoil any of it for you, but there were midgets riding Skags with some incredibly clever A.I. – and I wound up leading them, plus a couple of fire-breathing Skags into a boss fight with mechs and a rocket-pack-sporting villain. It was a real treat to watch the three different A.I. factions duke it out amongst themselves while I hid in a corner with my ammo-less rocket launcher and watched. Needless to say, though, I died horribly and alone when one of the factions remembered it was me they wanted to kill in the first place.
Even so, I got a good grasp of some new combat tweaks developer Gearbox has worked into Secret Armory. Aside from the Rocket Troopers that add a whole new dimension to combat (because they can go above or below you while shooting), new A.I. for enemies has created a different battle dynamic in encounters. For example, the Skag Riders are two independent A.I. units working together – the Skag will run at you while the midget shoots from his back – and when you kill one, the other breaks off and keeps attacking you with a new set of tactics. Hellquist also told me that they’ve added a raid boss-style enemy called Crawmerax in the game that teams of four can seek out and bring down together for a chance at Pearlescent weapon drop.
The more I see of Borderlands, the more I’m convinced it’s going to get the World of Warcraft experience onto consoles in the best way possible. Assuming The Secret Armory of General Knoxx doesn’t somehow sabotage the amazing multiplayer introduced in the base game, this is one DLC pack you won’t want to pass up.