Bugs, borg and political parody, oh my!
At the end of the original game, you see "Interplanetary Ninja Assassin CL4P-TP" get activated, but nothing comes of it. In the add-on's introductory cinematic, you find out why. It seems that the interplanetary ninja assassin's programming covers setting traps and spreading rumours, but doesn't go as far as performing actual interplanetary ninja assassinations. So, CL4P-TP hasn't been doing much of anything until he evolves beyond his programming and Hyperion's ability to control him. He starts to assimilate people and animals (yes, exactly like the borg) and recruits an army of "claptraps" to fight a socialist revolution against the remaining humans.
CL4P-TP's assimilation methods even work on the dead. You will encounter a number of characters who died in the original game and the intervening add-ons and be forced to kill them again (and again and again...). The final boss, however, is entirely new and surprisingly deadly. For those of you who felt that the Destroyer was too easy and Crawmerax is too hard, this is the fight for which you have been waiting. And you will be rewarded with an extra skill point for your trouble.
But it is not all good news. Let's get something straight: The best part of the writing in the original game was the characters. Love 'em or hate 'em, they were interesting because they were original. Even as recently as the Secret Armoury of General Knoxx, the characters shined. The title character of said add-on, far from being a warmongering loon, came across as being a normal guy just trying to do his job in spite of the incompetence of every person with whom he worked. As soon as you start Claptrap's New Robot Revolution, you will run into Patricia Tannis, more delightfully nutty than ever. Some of the things she says in the first five minutes are nothing short of scandalous and entirely enjoyable. But once you complete her introductory mission and head into town, you will meet Mr Blake, the full-blown stereotypical evil corporate spokesman, right down to the red suit, deep voice, and blonde hair curled into horns, who doesn't have a single memorable line in the entire add-on. Call this "Gearbox writers are running out of ideas, hint number 2" (the aforementioned reuse of old bosses is hint number 1).
Let's get another thing straight: Parody is imitation for the purpose of drawing attention to the subject's faults. Ripping-off the borg collective is not a parody of Star Trek; it's plagiarism. However, a character who says, "You will always fail as long as the children of the [revolution] are willing to fight against their former masters in order to protect me, their master!" is a parody of revolutionary sentiment in general and the Cuban revolution in particular. While I don't feel that it is appropriate for such a silly game to parody such a serious subject, I do feel that games need to address serious matters sometime, and it is generally well done in this case, so I am willing to let it slide. But I am afraid that the fact that they are now looking to historical events for inspiration rather than pop-culture (borg rip-off notwithstanding) constitutes "Gearbox writers are running out of ideas, hint number 3".
Now, SA of GK had quite a few issues in its gameplay, coding and spelling. These are mostly gone here. I've only found two misplaced invisible walls (they can be hopped over, so they're more like invisible hedges), no spelling errors, and all of the new regions are connected to a central hub region (Tartarus Station) making getting around fairly easy. However, in my quest to find some of the collectible items, I came across an easilly missed spot in the south of Scorched Snake Canyon where the physics engine fears to tread. Every enemy I killed flew away over my head while the loot they dropped hovered two feet off the ground. (I jumped once to see if I would fly off the planet but did not jump a second time for fear that I actually would.) Is this a serious problem? No. As I said, the problem is isolated to that one spot that you will probably miss. But it is indicative of something else: It tells me that this add-on was released before it was finished, so rather than polish the coding, they just made the spot remote and hoped that no one would notice it. I can't understand this: Why rush an add-on out now? Why not wait until after the holidays when people will presumably get Microsoft points in their stockings? It leads one to speculate....
As for the actual missions, I am tempted to use the word "formulaic", but I don't think we're quite there yet. I am inclined to be forgiving when the gameplay is essentially "manage inventory, walk, kill". There's isn't a whole lot of variety to be had with such a setup. The missions are as varied as they can be, if a little heavy on item collection. (Did you like the brain collecting missions of Zombie Island? Good news! You get to do them again with claptrap parts! /sarcasm.) I am taking pity on Gearbox's writers here: This is NOT "hint number 4".
Should you get Claptrap's New Robot Revolution? I honestly don't know. I give it 50/50. It really depends on whether you want to get back into Pandora's wasteland or keep playing that game that EVERY SINGLE PERSON on my friends list has been playing non-stop for the past two weeks....Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. It comes down to which alien planet you would rather be fighting on, and I do not blame you if you would rather run with Noble team than with the vault-hunters. However, if you aren't a Bungey-jumper - so to speak - there are worse ways to spend your time than shooting and looting your way through the New Robot Revolution.