Welcome back, friends! Borderlands 2 has brought out of the woodwork yet another downloadable expansion for players to explore. Now that the holiday season has passed, Gearbox has unleashed to the world Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt. This is the follow-up to Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, which we reviewed for you back in November.
Like the other major DLC releases for Borderlands 2, Big Game Hunt expands a bit of the story into a new area with new side quests. Furthermore, as with the first DLC (Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty), a new vehicle has been added to help players traverse the new setting. The swampy marshes are filled with new creatures and enemies that justify the creation of the cool airboat.
For the most part, I enjoyed this new DLC, but found the experience less entertaining than Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage. The humor was less funny, the storyline was not very interesting, and, moreso than the other DLC, I felt that I was just moving from one checkpoint to the next. The story was incredibly tame and the main quest was way shorter than I expected. While Campaign of Carnage did a nice job of building up to the final boss, Big Game Hunt was too straightforward and too short. I had some minor challenges with the final boss but, even flying solo, breezed through the main quest in a couple of hours. The loot at the end of the quest was substantial and required me to spend a lot of time deciding which gear to keep and which could be sacrificed. Unfortunately, nothing I found at the end of the rainbow stayed in my arsenal long.
Watch Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt’s launch trailer.
The good news about Big Game Hunt is that the short main quest is supported by multiple side quests to explore. While these side quests aren’t terribly long, they cover a large enough swath of terrain to make my eyes happy. Furthermore, these side quests show off some of the new enemies that bring new combat challenges. I normally blast through the generic enemies that come my way, but the new tricks on display with shamans and hunters required me to rethink some of my techniques. I especially enjoyed battling a set of elite enemies stationed at the edge of a rope bridge appropriately named Elite Bridge.
We received one review code for Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt from 2K Games. Before starting our review, we played the DLC to completion.
Alex Keen is a contributor writer to Crave Gaming. You can follow him on Twitter @dbldn.
