The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC Review

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is the latest instalment of DLC goodness from those fine fellows and fellowette's at Gearbox for their outstanding FPS Borderlands.

Now as this is a review of the DLC content I can skip the pleasantries of describing the game and get stuck straight into the meat of this content. So for $9.99/£6.30/800 Microsoft Points you'll get yourself the self-tagged "Best DLC ever" featuring new guns, new vehicles, a new level cap, new areas and new enemies.

The events of this DLC are set after your hijinx in the main game, The Vault has been dealt with, Commandant Steele of the Atlas Corporation is dead and has been replaced by General Knoxx. Lance assassins are after you and a wronged assassin captain has gone rogue and befriends you to help with the task of taking down General Knoxx's armory and the man himself. Not that General Knoxx wants to be there, as you come across some comedic gems in the form of Echo Recordings featuring Knoxx's dry wit, where he expresses his disgust at Pandora and his desire to get off the hell hole.

So during your quests in the new content you come across familiar faces including Marcus, Scooter and his new cars, Moxxi and even the star of the show: Claptrap who annoyingly reminds you that there are new quests at the bounty board. The quests themselves are the usual fare of "go here, kill this, return", so it's business as usual on that front. However, be careful looting things in this DLC as there's been more than one occasion a midget was hidden within a locker resulting in some trouser soiling when it jumps out at me. Also watch out for the new loot mobs in the form of Truxador Wrestlers, as these midgets can knock you about like a used tissue.

To top things off we have the introduction of what can only be classed as a complete bastard: Crawmerax. This huge claw worm is level 64 (3 levels higher than the new cap and accompanied by annoying minions), if you can kill it you will be showered in loot. However, be prepared to die lots in the Borderlands equivalent of the Onyxia encounter from World of Warcraft.

It will take a little while before you reach the new cap of 61 in the game so there's plenty of life for your cash in this DLC. The repeatable Crawmerax encounter offers a loot dungeon once you crack how to defeat this beast and additionally the 70-80 loot chests which greet you in the armory itself makes you wish you had more time to go and loot them all. Unfortunately you have a mere 3 minutes to grab as much as you can before the place is blown to kingdom come.

However there is little scope to return after you've hit that level cap: there can only be so much Crawmerax a person can take before boredom strikes, so lets hope a new set of DLC from Gearbox is not too far away to keep us Borderlands addicts happy.