Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty

I’m not a huge fan of Downloadable Content in general because in most cases, I’m thoroughly saturated with a game by the time its DLC comes out. Of course, if it comes out too close to a game’s release date, we the consumers feel cheated because that feels like on-disc content cut out to make a quick buck (gamers are a tough bunch to please you see).

With Borderlands 2, developer Gearbox has kind of managed to find the sweet spot with their Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty DLC that’s out nearly a month after Borderlands 2. It brings the usual DLC staples to the table like more weapons, new enemies, new areas to explore and new raid bosses. In short, it’s more of the same which can be both a good and a bad thing.

The one thing that does stick out like a sore thumb however is the fact that this DLC does not increase your level cap. That’s a big no no, especially for players who’ve already hit Level 50 through True Vault Hunter Mode. In such a case, everything is scaled to your level including enemies and loot but not allowing players to gain XP (so they can unlock new abilities) just makes the whole experience feel kind of empty.

Now in a loot driven game like Borderlands 2, finding good loot is of the utmost importance and the new DLC kind of let me down in that aspect. I’ve played through most of Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty using weapons I got from The Warrior and Terramorphous and nothing has come close so far. I was even expecting some of the weapons to keep up with the whole Pirate theme but all I found were same-ish looking pistols, machine guns, assault rifles, etc as the base game. I’ll probably get better weapons once I tackle the raid bosses but that still means I have to trudge along with my older weapons till I do. Bummer!

For those who’re planning to start the DLC with a new character, you have to be Level 15 to access it. Once you hit 15, an area called Oasis will pop up on your map and you can quick travel to it from any Quick Travel station in the game world. Upon arrival, you’re greeted by a rather creepy dude called Shade who’s very lonely and really wants to be your BFF. While he does seem like the kind of guy who would kill you in your sleep and mount your head in his living room for company, he’s also nice enough to tell you about a glorious treasure that’s buried somewhere in the sprawling desert. To get to it, you have to first get in touch with Captain Scarlett, the DLC’s new character and so begins your journey.

Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty retains the wit and dry humour you’ve come to expect from Borderlands 2 but it feels a tad skimpy since it does get over rather quickly. Missions lack the throwback to pop culture and humour some of the side quests from Borderlands 2 did and most of them quickly evolve into mindless MMO style fetch quests. It was like playing Darksiders II all over again when nearly every second person I encountered asked me to retrieve multiple objects just to complete an objective. And even then, the rewards were rubbish. Of course, I’d like to mention that I did play most of this DLC solo which is probably why I ended up getting such crappy loot.

The new areas are quite pleasing to the eye and are themed around well, pirates and lost treasure. In a nice touch, the usual loot crates now look like treasure chests and enemies (the human ones) are all dolled up like pirates. There are a few new variants like Ninja Pirates (of course) but none of them particularly stand out. On the robotic front, you have new bots in the form of the Junk Loader while Skags, Crystaliks and other Borderlands 2 oddities return in slightly tweaked avatars. But perhaps the greatest addition to this DLC is your new vehicle, the sand skiff, a hovering boat of sorts that can fire exploding harpoons and run pretty much anything over in its path with reckless abandon.

Conclusion:
For $10, Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty brings a decent amount of content to the table as long as you keep your expectations in check. It’s basically a pirate themed extension of the Borderlands 2 experience so if that’s your thing, great. If however, you were expecting something radically new, spend your money elsewhere.

Test Rig:

• Motherboard: Intel DP67BG Extreme Desktop series
• Processor: Intel Core i7 – 2600K @3.40 GHZ
• Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590
• Ram: Corsair Vengeance 4GB DDR3 @ 1600 MHZ X2
• Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200W