Borderlands DLC Pack 3: The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx

The third in the line of Borderlands Downloadable Content, The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx, continues the story of your character from the first game and shows you the consequences of the actions you took in finding the vault. Atlas have tried to re-establish order through brute force – they have posted wanted posters of you and the other Vault Hunters around the towns and the Crimson Lance have sent assassin teams to hunt you down.

One upping themselves from the last few content packs, 2K and Gearbox have added few new characters like Athena the ex Crimson Lance Commander who enjoys nothing more than shouting orders at you and the idea of getting revenge on the Lance, the eponymous General Knoxx who shares a few transmissions with you and is generally pretty down on the idea of being stuck on Pandora and Mad Moxxi (the manic mistress from the previous DLC) is expanded upon and becomes a more central character. The humour is again amped up with some pretty funny transmissions and interactions with Scooter, Knoxx and Mr. Shank, a boss of one of the quests Moxxi gives you.

The new areas focus on a previously unseen part of Pandora which at one time was a great sea, and is now completely dried up, the landscape is quite meticulously designed and rendered, it has a different feel to the rest of the world the sand dunes have distinct ripples left in them from the days of being an ocean floor and the gigantic, water worn rock structures are covered with calcified husks of ancient barnacles. Among these rocky outcrops are elevated highways a lot of which are now buckled or have huge chunks missing, but those that are driveable have had road blocks and tollways set up on them and every few miles there is a Crimson Lance checkpoint, so you can get out, stretch your legs, kill some guys and then continue on your way, refreshed. The new central hub is T-Bone Junction – it feels like a cross between an oil rig, an elevated crossroads and a fishing pontoon (minus the water) and like the rest of the content it feels unique but fits perfectly with the rest of the game.

Overall, this instalment of the game will take you around ten to twelve hours to finish with more missions, higher levels to achieve (the level cap is now raised to 61), new character mods, new enemies – both human and decidedly non human – a few new types of vehicles and most importantly more weapons and a new super powerful, super rare class of weapon The Pearlescent – and I almost forgot Crawmerax the Invincible, the game’s almost unbeatable not-so-secret secret last boss (there’s a road sign just outside his lair), should prove a challenge for those brave enough to accept the task. There are a few small glitching problems – now and then you might fall through a walkway, and the fact that there’s no fast travel between the major sections of the highways means you’ll be driving back and forth a few times but there are always a few enemy patrols and drones to take down on the way so there’s nothing to stop the flow of the enjoyment.

Highly recommended for those who enjoyed Borderlands.