Borderlands 3 - Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot - Review
As a Borderlands fan I was suitably hyped for the release of Borderlands 3 but I initially found it a bit of a disappointment on release due to the lack of major innovations to the gameplay. After playing it for a few hours however I quickly settled back into enjoying the latest instalment of the game ad found myself having a blast and realised the age old saying “If it ain’t broke then don’t try to fix it” is as apt as ever when it comes to the Borderlands series. The cheesy jokes, over the top characters and the tried and true game mechanics of just blasting your way through everything and being showered in loot hold up as well today just as they did a decade a go when the first instalment in this mega series was released.
The first DLC for Borderlands 3 “Moxxi’s Heist Of The Handsome Jackpot” sees the return of one of my favourite characters, the brash, cocky and completely and utterly dead Handsome Jack. The DLC revolves around another one of my favourite characters in the series, bar owner and sadistic, lustful temptress Mad Moxxi. The DLC mission is started from onboard Sanctuary outside of her bar (there is no level requirement to start the DLC but you do need to have got to the part of the game where you have reached Sanctuary, the DLC will scale to your current level) where she tasks you with assembling a crew to pull off a heist of a floating space casino that has become run down and decrepit since the death of its original owner Handsome Jack.
Before you can breach all of the casinos defences you are tasked exploring the confines of Handsome Jacks decrepit gambling den and assembling your motley crew of companions which consist of his former personal tailor, Freddie a somewhat bumbling and out of touch computer hacker and Ember who is a former dancer of the exotic variety and part time pyromaniac. These major characters of the new DLC are written in the usual over the top but extremely charming style that all characters are in the Borderlands universe and fit in very well, you might even find yourself a new personal favourite character amongst them, I personally didn’t though as Tiny Tina is always going to hold my number one all time ranking for characters in a video game ever.
As stated in the intro to this review the old adage of not fixing things that are broken certainly applies to this DLC, as far as game mechanics go nothing majorly new is introduced here except for the actual location itself, the floating space casino is a great idea and has a lot of variation as you travel through it but the gameplay is the usual borderlands formula of shoot, kill, loot, upgrade gear, take on boss and then repeat. It is the characters where the DLC shines through whether they be old favourites or some of the newly introduced ones you discover as you explore the various and differing locations of the casino. The majority of the enemies here are robots so expect to be using a lot of corrosive weapons in your fights, there are also a pleasing number of side quests and boss fights though amongst these there are none I would consider to be particularly remarkable.
The humour is also up to the usual borderlands standards and as usual there are a lot of laugh out loud genuinely funny moments as well as a lot of facepalming due to the stupidity of some of the inhabitants of the casino, one of these moments comes early on in the expansion with a side quest where a certain casino dweller has you trying to retrieve his lucky items from around the casino so he can continue pumping money into the slot machine he currently playing. As far as new loot goes most of what you will find in the casino is completely unremarkable compared to the main game apart from a few useful acid based weapons, if you are a fan of sniper rifles though you might find a lot to be excited about in regards to loot though as in my experience the loot seems heavily biased towards sniper rifles.
All in all the DLC will take you roughly 6-8 hours to complete depending on how many side quests you decide to partake in or how long you spend trying to navigate to the next part of the casino as early on there are a few locations where it does become frustrating trying to find exactly where you are meant to go next and how to actually get there. If you enjoyed Borderlands 3 though and are looking for more of the same then especially at the price this is a great way to scratch your itch and is pretty much a must buy however if you were dismayed with lack of new mechanics and innovation in the main campaign then there is probably nothing in this addition to the main story that will excite you here.
All in all Gearbox have played it safe and stuck to their tried but true formula here and with the length of the DLC and interesting new characters and locations I would have to say they have done a good job. Hopefully in future upcoming DLCs we will see some interesting additions to the gameplay mechanics as well as a raise in the level cap.
Review code provided by 2K
