Borderlands 2 DLC - Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage Review

I am not really a big fan of first person shooter games, but very much enjoy the Borderlands series. I have completely played through the first Borderlands game and all of the DLC that was released and have since then got the second Borderlands game and was excited to download the DLC for it when they were released. After just playing through Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage, I thought I would review it while it is still fresh in my head.

For those of you who dont know anything about the DLC, the idea behind the main story through it is a new vault has been discovered in a carter and it will only open "once the champion of Pandora feeds it the blood of the ultimate coward. Torgue steps in and deems the crater "Badass Crater of Badassitude" and decides to host a tournament there to see who the champion of Pandora will be to open the vault.

The DLC includes a whole new area in which the DLC takes place along with a new vending machine within the area that takes Torgue Tokens. These tokens can be found after killing badasses as drops or completing quests within the DLC. The vending machine gives you access usually strong explosive Torgue weapons and occasionally a custom skin or head. There is also a new slot machine that takes Torgue tokens but otherwise works much the same way as a regular slot machine except giving out and taking Torgue tokens instead of cash.

There aren't exactly new enemies, but basically bandits and other enemies re-skinned to fit the theme of the DLC.

I was playing the story mode on offline two player mode with a partner (just like I have played the rest of the game) so please keep this in mind in case it makes a difference in game play.

I always found arena type challenges a lot of fun in Borderlands. Survive the waves and usually end up earning a lot of loot and experience. This DLC starts out very similarly as it is a tournament in order to find the champion of Pandora. I noticed immediately if you were close to the same level as the enemies the game threw at you, they were actually quite challenging as most of them were very large or robotic. Most of the DLC involves fighting many of these same enemies and nearing the end they almost get old as there are very few different types of enemies that you encounter.

Most of the quests involve you either being in the arena or seeking out people on the badass list and working your way to be the number one badass and champion of Pandora. There are also a couple neat and unique side quests available in the area and then quests a series of quests that involved a timed challenge that consisted of three tiers, the third being repeatable in order to earn more Torgue Tokens. Some of these consist of racing around a track under a specific time limit and a barroom brawl in which you must defeat the badass bar patrons within a certain time limit. I found these repetitive quests amusing but the ending tiers extremely frustrating despite them even being a couple levels under my level and still difficult to complete.

Torgue, the host of the DLC along with the major quest givers Mad Moxxxi and Tiny Tina, is a very new character that very much resembles a redneck, wrestler type with a personality to match. He was also probably one of the more unique aspects that the DLC has to offer.

I found most of the maps difficult to navigate and often got lost or caught up on trying to get to my mission location, despite the hours we put playing the DLC. In fact this is one of my major complaints about the DLC because I found trying to travel through the maps more frustrating and it definitely detracted a little from the game play as I was so caught up on navigating the maps and the many obstacles and ridiculously out of the way roads you had to take to get to your destination.

The other major disappointment I had with the DLC is that you do not actually enter the vault or have anything to do with it after beating the DLC. I was rather upset as I thought the whole point of the tournament was to be able to open the vault. After beating the DLC I just couldn't believe that it had ended and it did not continue to enter or even open the vault.

That being said, the DLC definitely offers quite a few more hours of new storyline and gameplay and even a few missions that are repeatable for you to do as many times as you feel like it. I enjoyed it, though probably not as much as other DLC, and have found it entertaining to play. Is it worth a full $10? Well that is questionable but I would recommend the DLC for anyone looking to expand their Borderlands 2 play time and available missions and anyone who enjoys tournament type missions.