Over the weekend, I delved into the third DLC offering of Borderlands 2 entitled Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt.  I purchased the season pass for Borderlands 2 because I really like it, and I'm never going to say no to additional content for it.  Even so, I still worried that I would end up with content similar to The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.  That is...utter crap.  The only DLC that I enjoyed from the original Borderlands was the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned.  

Fortunately, I've been enjoying all the BL2 DLC released thus far, though if I had to pick my least favorite it would most certainly be this one.  I love Sir Hammerlock as a character, but him as the star of this package doesn't quite save it from being a bit mediocre.  And slightly annoying.

So let's get these things out of the way first.  There are two things I didn't like about SHBGH.  First, I didn't like how isolated it was from the rest of the game.  I missed my slot machines, and the feeling of walking through a populated city like Sanctuary.  Or even just a ship full of pirates, or a town that is inhabited by a mad man pretending to be a dozen people.  Instead, it's just a lodge and only Sir Hammerlock, with another quest giver that you never actually meet.  It was a bit droll, really.

The other problem I have with this add-on is definitely the Witch Doctors.  I would like to meet the person who thought they would be a new addition to the game, and punch them in the head.  For a moment, let's ignore the fact that 75% of the new enemies in this DLC do not have a "head shot" spot.  What I mean is, a spot where you can shoot them so that you're guaranteed to crit.  For most enemies, this is the head.  Sometimes it's a special spot, though, like the new strider-like creatures in this add-on, where you have white bulbs on their body to shoot.  For me, this is how I like to play BL2. I aim for those weak spots, usually with a sniper rifle, and to me that's the fun in the game.  Having them either remove that (or move the spots so obtuse or hidden that you can't find them), well that just sort of kills the fun for me.  It makes me have to resort to high damage, explosive weaponry.  Now, I enjoy explosions just as much as the next guy, but when it comes to shooters I prefer the method that relies on accuracy.

Of course, with that being said, this is only one small slice of the game and I really can't expect it to cater to my needs 100% of the time.  However, with the Witch Doctors, I do feel they are just badly designed.  Hard to crit, tons of health, and a heal that is more HPS than most guns' DPS.  I'm sorry, but that's broken.  Every time I killed one, instead of being left with a feeling of satisfaction, I was left feeling that I had cheesed the system, because the only way to kill them was to throw every grenade in my inventory followed by several clips of ammo from a high damage explosive weapon, and hope it was enough to kill it before it healed every point of damage away.  It's so bad, that there are forum posts stating they are actually impossible to kill.  On a higher difficulty setting, I actually can believe that.  (I am playing on Normal.)

So with the bad out of the way, how about the good stuff?  The new weapons are cool and interesting.  I've expanded my arsenal a bit so that I now carry around a few extra versions of the same type of weapon.  In addition to carrying a normal pistol, I also have one that fires explosive rounds now, for when I really need to nuke something.  Same goes for the assault rifle and the shotgun.  I actually have a gun I really like for every slot, now, so that's cool.

The design of the place is also excellent.  It's the same Borderlands style, with different themes.  Have a look for yourself.












All in all, the add-on is quite worth it, and the ending made me laugh quite hard.  I was not disappointed at the end of it, not by a long shot.  Though, if you were picking your DLC and not getting them all, I would recommend either of the other DLC packs first before picking up this one.