"Is a bot not entitled to the oil on his brow? ‘No!’ Says the man at Hyperion, it belongs to us." And that’s about where the novelty ends in the latest DLC for Borderlands, Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution. Aside from some fantastic game reference and the obvious humor of a robot revolution, a la Fidel Castro, this expansion doesn’t do much to actually expand, just reiterate. Allow me to explain.
The enemies are a kind of metaphor for the whole package in that each foe is a robot version of an enemy you’ve already encountered, including all but one of the bosses. It’s a trash can full of all the skunked ideas from the past DLC’s (Zombie Ned, General Knoxx, etc.), and the only discernable difference is a small robot attachment on their heads. It just feels lazy, as do most of the levels which appear to reuse a number of assets from previous add-on packs or the original game so there’s little sense of exploration or wonder.
The missions suffer from the same repetition, in that collecting claptrap parts is damn near identical to collecting brains from zombies. Most other missions are collecting parts or turning on machines for Hyperion, and the side missions run in the same vein. The very last mission provides a big surprise twist, but it’s quickly invalidated by the actual ending which ultimately disappoints.
But here’s the deal: If you like Borderlands to begin with and just want to keep playing (mind you the level cap isn’t raised here), that is, if you want some new missions, some slight variations on loot, and really hilarious dialogue throughout, then this DLC will win your heart. The problem is, after three other pieces of DLC that have provided essentially the same thing (aside from Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot which is just a lengthy arena mode), it feels like Borderlands could use some freshening up. I don’t want to say that Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution fails to entertain, it simply fails to do so in a new and unique way. Perhaps our expectations for DLC have become too demanding, but I couldn’t help but leave Pandora disappointed this time around.
