Mister Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage Review
- Jamiex66
- Dec 5, 2012
- 5 min read
This content is BADASS
Borderlands 2 has been one of the most highly regarded games of 2012 and has promised to offer fans a massive amount of downloadable content to further the experience. The first DLC pack featuring Captain Scarlett was a fair first instalment, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the story and humour of the full game. Gearbox Software hopes to change that with their second story based content called Mister Torgues Campaign of Carnage. It so happens that a brand spanking new vault has been discovered, however this vault cannot be opened until the blood of a coward has been spilt by the ultimate badass. Remember the weapons manufacturer Torgue Industries? Well Mr. Torgue has taken this vault into his own hands and has decided to hold the most badass tournament, in hopes of finding the ultimate badass and awarding them the vaults content. Where is the best place to hold such an event you may ask? None other than the Badass Crater of Badassitude of course.
If you think the locations name is crazy, be prepared for one of the most over the top Borderlands stories yet. This is one of the contents main strength, it offers the same kind of unique humour, but is able to turn it to eleven thanks to Torgue himself. Torgue is hands down the one of the funniest characters the franchise has introduced, the dude is 2 buckets full of crazy, but he comes out with some of the most hilarious lines that I have personally experienced in a video game. He even breaks the forth wall in some sections, much to some of the characters chagrin. Campaign of Carnage also brings back from fan favourite characters from the main Borderlands 2 story, pleasing Tiny Tina fans all around. The best thing is none of these characters ever feel forced, they all play an integral part in the narrative and all provide some humour and entertaining side missions. From Tina’s protein chocolate chip cookie diet, Moxie’s interview tapes and other crazy missions, the side missions within Campaign of Carnage definitely provide entertainment.
Campaign of Courage focuses on Tier based challenges and side missions, these missions will allow you to compete in 3 various difficulty levels of certain quests. Those of you who are farming for the new Torgue Tokens, which will allow you to purchase legendary weapons from Torgues many vending machines, will be happy to know these missions can be replayed. However this means you are provided with 3 varieties of the same round based mission, instead of a brand new side mission to experience. I personally would have preferred being provided this tier mission, but instead of 2 separate difficulties (2 of which are extremely easy) a few more side missions involving the interesting characters in the DLC would have been appreciated. Though fans of loot grinding will enjoy being able to grind for Torgue Tokens, for the chance to get that extremely rare legendary piece of weaponry.
The main plot of Campaign of Carnage is fairly standard, it doesn’t offer an engaging meaningful story as you fight your way through the tournament to become the number 1 ranked fighter. Though the campaigns narrative is nothing memorable, the characters surrounding the campaign make it more enjoyable. Only a handful of new characters are introduced within this DLC, but those that are feel fleshed out, which in comparison to Captain Scarlett, feels definitely appreciated. Speaking of the main campaign, those looking to power through the story without touching the side quests will see themselves loss about 4-6 hours, while doing all the content within the DLC will most likely extend the playtime to 10 hours. This is a fairly sizable download and in all respects is the superior expansion when compared directly to the previous instalment.
One of my main problems with the first DLC was the fact the entire expansion felt bland, the environments were basically empty deserts and the enemies felt like they had been copied directly from the main game, but they wore a scarf. I am happy to announce Torgue doesn’t have the same issue; the environments always feel unique throughout the campaign and never feel empty. If you are not being facing off against on-foot enemies, expect new enemies on “Mad Max” like motorcycles to burn rubber on your location. These new additions feel fresh and definitely give the environment more personality, making you feel like these locations are full of enemies are you are trespassing on their homeland. Though you will still get the blatant reskined enemy, the varied take on environments and the constant hilarious banter from Torgue, keep you having too much fun to even notice.
Alas Campaign of Carnage is not without its problems; from all my time with Borderlands 2 and its DLC content this was definitely the content provided many technical issues that my previous time with the game never experienced. For instance many side missions decided to glitch on me, some enemies wouldn’t appear, certain objects I would need to gather didn’t appear, or one instance an enemy was invisible (Not meant to be) and was left running around shooting randomly trying to hit them, as I heard them move around the area. This was very frustrating and I didn’t experience anything close to this in the original game, maybe an extra hour of my time was spent trying to finish side missions because of the many mission glitches that were involved. There was also a lot more texture pop-in within Campaign of Carnage than I am used to, Borderlands 2 suffered from this technical issue frequently, but the pop-in is most noticeable within this DLC. Since you will be having a conversation with a character to gain your next quest and the entire time, they will be texture-less, it is quite odd. I don’t know why this content seems to be plagued with problems in comparison to the original game, but they are definitely there.
The Verdict
Mister Torgues Campaign of Carnage can be described in one word, enjoyable. The entire experience will provide many great laughs, many interesting missions from some of your favourite Borderlands characters and provide players with a great deal of new loot. All the problems of the previous DLC have been addressed this time around, no more empty desert areas and an actual variety of new enemy types that keep the combat fresh. Torgue himself will easily become one of the games most likeable characters and I hope to see him in further franchise outings in the future, though the DLC is not without problems. With many technical issues, side mission glitches and enough texture pop-in to shake a badass stick at; these issues may damper some player’s experiences.
Those who are willing to overlook such problems, will be offered a great Borderlands experience, giving them tonnes to do and an overall, enjoyable expansion from start to finish.
Good
+ Torgue is hilarious
+ Classic Borderlands characters
+ Enjoyable experience
+ Improves on Captain Scarlett
Bad
– Lots of texture pop-in
– Side mission glitches
– Tier missions become repetitive
Overall: 8.0/10
Jamie Briggs manages Analog Addiction where you can find all his latest reviews, interviews and features and also like them on Facebook. Also follow his daily life on Twitter @AnalogAddiction and their videos on YouTube.
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