Definately the best Borderlands DLC yet, with plenty of new enemies, loot, vehicles and tons of fun missions.
Following the end of the original Borderlands campaign, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx start's off at a new location called T-Bone Junction, which is like another New Haven. It also has more intricate missions, mainly due to the new vehicles, and the far more vehicle orientated gameplay than the original Borderlands. Maps consist of massive elevated highways, Crimson Lance roadblocks and wide open areas full of mines, new creatures and hidden chests. Oh, and did I forget to mention the raised level cap? Well it's now level 61!
So within the first few missions you will have discovered one of the two new vehicles that are included in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, the Monster. The Monster has better armor than the Racer and has a cool new, close range homing rocket launcher, which is excellent against vehicles and the swarms of roadside drones. The other vehicle you will encounter later on is the Lancer, an APC which can carry four players at once, consisting of a driver, a cannon (with a longbow grenade action), a devastating mine launcher (remote or time delayed detonation), and finally a shockwave emitter (which knocks backs enemies which are nearby the APC).
Besides having new vehicles to wreck havoc in, you will also encounter new enemies and NPC characters. The new NPC characters consist of a new Crimson Lance ally called Athena, who you will do many missions for, as well as a new protagonist called General Knoxx. A new godlike, super boss is also at the end of the The Secret Armory Of General Knoxx adventure, who's called Crawmerax the Invincible. Several of the original NPC's from Borderlands also return, such as Scooter, Marcus Kincaid and Mad Moxxi from the DLC, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot.
New enemies also means more trouble, especially now that the Atlas Corporation has got million dollar bounties on your vault hunter head. Assassins, Roadside Drones, Jetpack Troopers, Elemental Troopers, Devastators and the Lancer APC are just some of the new Crimson Lance enemies your gonna have to deal with. I'll give a quick description of each of the above stated enemies below.
- Crimson Lance Assassins: These speedy ninja's are similar to that of the Guardian's near the end of the original borderlands. Except for they have low health, super dodging abilities and either teleport out of no-where or are garrisoned inside drop pods. First encountered in one of the first missions.
- Roadside Drones: This pesky little robots will appear out of little platforms that are commonly spread throughout the massive highways. These guys are quite deadly when your on foot, but will go down quite quickly when you use vehicle weaponry against them.
- Jetpack Troopers: Heavily armed Crimson Lance troopers that hover in the air with their fancy jetpacks. Their usually fairly easy to kill as they don't move much, but can render your cover useless if given time to move around and get a shot at you.
- Elemental Troopers: These troopers are very resistant to a particular elemental effect, and often carry a elemental weapon that is the same as the element their resistant to. Not much of a hassle, unless you try to kill them with the element that they are resistant to.
- Devastators: Big armored mechs that shoot you at close range with their rocket like shotguns, easy to run around and kill from behind, but are still a force to be reckoned with.
There's also other new enemies such as crazy jail in-mates, lockers stuffed with midgets that spring out like jack in a boxes and then there's skag riders and a massive, skinny, spider like creature called the Drifter. Although you'll mainly be fighting the Crimson Lance, these enemies are reasonably common throughout The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.
On the loot aspect of The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, there is a reasonable amount of new rare and legendary weapons, including the new and fixed 'pearlescent' rarity category. A new Crimson Lance Chest is also available, which has twice the capacity of the original Red Chest that also has a higher chance of containing rarer items.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx does however have a few minor flaws, one being the lack of fast travel stations. This quickly comes a nuisance as it means you have to repetively travel through maps to revisit common mission areas. Another minor issue is that there is the occasional situation of getting stuck on something while driving a vehicle, whether that be getting stuck inside or ontop of an object, or getting trapped in an invisible barrier after doing a jump (this is quite rare, as it has only occured once for me). The final minor issue I can remember is the sometimes inconsistant difficulty level, as it is still possible to be either underpowered or overpowered, which I was hoping the developers would've fixed by now.
I'd highly recommend The Secret Armory of General Knoxx to anyone who wants more looting, shooting, driving and entertainment from Borderlands, and for just $10 or 800 Microsoft Points, it's a fantastic deal.