Borderlands: Claptrap's Robot Revolution DLC

Another day, another manufacturer with a grudge against the Vault Hunters. With the Vault on lockdown after the events of the main story, Hyperion thought "Why would these treasure hunters BUY guns when they can just peel them from the bandit population or crack them out of boxes?" and promptly decided to take the fight to us by hacking the Clap-trap that first greeted us in Fyrestone and turning it into the Interplanetary Ninja Assassin. But given the state of Clap-traps on Pandora, our newly hacked adversary has gone from assassin to revolutionary. Now Hyperion's asking the Vault Hunters to clean up their mess... With a hefty payday for services rendered. And discretion. Claptrap's Robot Revolution is the fourth and final DLC for Borderlands and is one that i'm fairly mixed about. It's got some slight edges and advantages over the Dr. Ned DLC but is NOWHERE in the realm of General Knoxx. I guess i'll just expand on my thinking here. After reuniting with Tannis for one mission before she continues to hand you a lengthy mission chain, you'll introduce yourself to a Hyperion representitive named Blake who has the entire plan of taking down the revolution and un-hacking the Ninja Assassin back to his happier self. But standing against your fight to clean up a corporate stooge's mess are the army of other Clap-traps, covering three distinct approaches to combating the player with some reskins to each. Some will come shooting at you with guns, others trying to melee and some wheeling into you kamikaze style and blowing up once touching you. And in a freakier twist, they've taken the dead bandits they kill and fitting them with cybernetics to fight alongside them. But the icing on the cake? The Clap-traps have also taken the corpses of General Knoxx, Dr. Ned and Commandant Steele, fitted THEM with cybernetics and set them to guard the more story critical parts of this DLC's story. It's good to have another round with two of our previous antagonists, but it's even better to finally have a fight against Steele as we were robbed of it when chasing her to the Vault in the base game. This DLC suffers much like the rest in terms of traversal and lack of fast travel. Tartarus Station is a pretty wide map and it takes a fair bit of time running from the spawn by Tannis or if you're getting missions from the bounty board or from Blake to reach where you want to go. The final area of the DLC is even more egrigous to get to as you have to fight through three seperate boss arenas and the Clap-traps between. And if you're coming back to the final boss to farm it (for reasons i'll state soon) you'll have to run through Tartarus, through the arena marathon and then finally get back to where the last boss is... And also have to sit through un-skippable credits after killing it again. So why do I mention the final boss? Well this DLC has even more seriously stupid achievements coming from the already horrible grind that was the Underdome DLC. Three achievements comprised of pure RNG. Two achievements requiring x amount of two different items and a third that asks for x amount of THREE items. All random drops from all Clap-traps at an abysmal drop rate. Best idea to try and farm this is the final boss as it spawns Clap-traps every so often when it drives into the four corners of the boss arena. Depending on your RNG, this can take about the same amount of time if not longer than one or two full 20 round runs of the Underdome. Did someone at 2K in the making of this DLC and Underdome just hate achievement hunters? In any case, your ultimate reward is two-fold. Another skill point (Two if you beat the DLC on Playthrough 2) and a respawning loot room with several chests next to Blake's building. Simply pick through the valuble stuff in chests, quit the game and reload it on the character you just looted the room on... And the chests would have reset. So in essence? Free loot and infinite cash for selling stuff you don't want. I think that's as great a reward as any. Overall, this DLC is a fine addition if you can forgive the same and tired old long travel time and a story that kind of borders on the Dr. Ned DLC in terms of length but salivate over the prospect over a room full of respawning chests, by all means play it. But for the completionists out there who want to nab those collectable achievements? Be ready for hours of torture and maybe keep the Steam overlay notes widget open to keep track.