Borderlands 2: Ultimate Vaulter Hunter 2
Written by Nathan Carter on 10/30/2013 for
360
Borderlands 2 has already provided hours upon hours of gameplay when the game was released the game last year and the folks at Gearbox have kept releasing more and more DLC packs to give you even more baddies to shoot, levels to attain, and of course, loot to collect. Even after putting a possible hundred plus hours into the game, some players may have still felt that they wanted more of a challenge after reaching the level cap. Gearbox provided just that with the Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade pack 2: Digistruct Peak Challenge. The challenge itself may not take long to complete but the reward you earn can keep you playing for many hours more.
You won’t find a huge campaign in the Digistruct Peak Challenge like you did with Assault on Dragons Keep or Campaign of Carnage. What you will find is a single challenge map that should take around 45 minutes to an hour to complete depending on how fast you blow through it. You’ll meet up with Patricia Tannis again who also acts as a master of ceremonies for the trials. The Digistruct Peak Challenge is one large area where you move from outside arena to outside arena all while taking down enemies in your way. The challenge starts innocently enough, you usually have to beat two Digistruct creatures at a time, but as you advance through the level, they will start to throw in a variety of different enemies at you from all directions.
You have to be on your toes the entire time though as once you have finished killing all the enemies in the area when another ten will be dropped into the area all around you. To further add a challenge, there are no respawn spots during the entire run. If you die, you start all the way back at the beginning so you better be loaded for bear with your best weapons before starting the challenge. Luckily there are health, guns and ammo vending machines conveniently placed right before you go through the door to the challenge so be sure to stock up. For those who play solo and aren’t at level 50, I give you a bit of advice. Unless you are playing with friends or other players that are level 50 or higher, it would be wise to stay away from the challenge. When I first played it at level 45, I was arrogant, thinking that Deathtrap and I could easily blow through the challenge with my weapons ranging from 42-45. Well, I was sadly mistaken as I got my butt handed to me before I even got past the first two enemies. I grinded my way up to level 50, brought in some level 50 guns and I was good to go. I completed it in one run as soon as I level 50 but there were some pretty close calls along the way.
Now of course all your hard work won’t come without reward. First, the DLC pack, the level cap raises to 72 so that right there may be incentive enough for players to buy it. As for the challenge itself, completing it will provide you with two loot chests that may or may not contain rare or new loot. While the loot is nice, the challenge does provide something even more rewarding. When you complete the challenge, you will earn an “Overpower Level”. If you exit out of the game and restart, you will be asked if you want to play on the overpower level. This give all enemies a boost in their current level thus making them more challenging to defeat. You can play through the challenge up to eight times to earn more overpower levels. This means that you can be capped at level 72 and with 8 power levels, all your enemies will be at level 80, pretty much making the game impossible. This makes me think that the level cap may be raised again at some point in the future.
Your enjoyment of this DLC pack will pretty much depend on whether or not you want to make the game more challenging and whether you want to get to level 72. There is more than enough content already in the base game to keep you going well past level 72 and beyond if you add in all of the DLC they have provided over the last year. The Ultimate Vault Hunter Challenge 2 is only $5 so if you are planning on spending even more time in Borderlands 2, go for it! Just make sure you are well leveled and ready for the challenges that await you.
You won’t find a huge campaign in the Digistruct Peak Challenge like you did with Assault on Dragons Keep or Campaign of Carnage. What you will find is a single challenge map that should take around 45 minutes to an hour to complete depending on how fast you blow through it. You’ll meet up with Patricia Tannis again who also acts as a master of ceremonies for the trials. The Digistruct Peak Challenge is one large area where you move from outside arena to outside arena all while taking down enemies in your way. The challenge starts innocently enough, you usually have to beat two Digistruct creatures at a time, but as you advance through the level, they will start to throw in a variety of different enemies at you from all directions.
You have to be on your toes the entire time though as once you have finished killing all the enemies in the area when another ten will be dropped into the area all around you. To further add a challenge, there are no respawn spots during the entire run. If you die, you start all the way back at the beginning so you better be loaded for bear with your best weapons before starting the challenge. Luckily there are health, guns and ammo vending machines conveniently placed right before you go through the door to the challenge so be sure to stock up. For those who play solo and aren’t at level 50, I give you a bit of advice. Unless you are playing with friends or other players that are level 50 or higher, it would be wise to stay away from the challenge. When I first played it at level 45, I was arrogant, thinking that Deathtrap and I could easily blow through the challenge with my weapons ranging from 42-45. Well, I was sadly mistaken as I got my butt handed to me before I even got past the first two enemies. I grinded my way up to level 50, brought in some level 50 guns and I was good to go. I completed it in one run as soon as I level 50 but there were some pretty close calls along the way.
Now of course all your hard work won’t come without reward. First, the DLC pack, the level cap raises to 72 so that right there may be incentive enough for players to buy it. As for the challenge itself, completing it will provide you with two loot chests that may or may not contain rare or new loot. While the loot is nice, the challenge does provide something even more rewarding. When you complete the challenge, you will earn an “Overpower Level”. If you exit out of the game and restart, you will be asked if you want to play on the overpower level. This give all enemies a boost in their current level thus making them more challenging to defeat. You can play through the challenge up to eight times to earn more overpower levels. This means that you can be capped at level 72 and with 8 power levels, all your enemies will be at level 80, pretty much making the game impossible. This makes me think that the level cap may be raised again at some point in the future.
Your enjoyment of this DLC pack will pretty much depend on whether or not you want to make the game more challenging and whether you want to get to level 72. There is more than enough content already in the base game to keep you going well past level 72 and beyond if you add in all of the DLC they have provided over the last year. The Ultimate Vault Hunter Challenge 2 is only $5 so if you are planning on spending even more time in Borderlands 2, go for it! Just make sure you are well leveled and ready for the challenges that await you.
You really can't go wrong with this DLC pack and it's only $5. The Digistruct Peak Challenge may take less than an hour to complete but you can run through it seven more times if you wish. That, and over level play pretty much adds so much more content into an already huge package to begin with.
Rating: 8 Good
About Author
I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember. My earliest gaming memories come from playing Lady Bug and Snafu on my fathers Colecovision and Intellivision respectively. It wasnt until I was 6 years old and played a Mortal Kombat 2 arcade machine in a game room at a hotel that I truly fell in love with a videogame. I have so many wonderful memories of my dad and I playing Mortal Kombat on SNES every night after dinner. Throughout my childhood NES, SNES, Gameboy and Sega Genesis were the loves of my life. Here I am 35 years old and still as much in love with videogames as I ever was.
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