Playtime: 8 Hours
Score: 5/10
So I was a big fan of the base game, as playing as a Shark in an RPG setting is just so fun to me. And this DLC which I would say is expansion level, was ticking the right boxes for me. It takes you to a new map, gives you more shark hunters and apex predators to fight, raises the level cap, new evolution's to unlock and a cool enough story that takes place after the end of the base game. In some ways it impresses but in most others it disappoints.
To start with what it does right, going to a new area of Plover Island is cool and having the narrator (voiced by Chris Parnell) turned into a full blown conspiracy theorist is fun to see. Some of his new voice over is pretty funny too. Going around this area and causing havoc felt satisfying and you get to fight apex predators that have the same evolution sets as you, so it adds a little bit of challenge. I also really loved the time trial races, which is something I didn't think I would like, as I almost never like doing those in games.
The first half of this DLC is you exploring Plover Island and doing missions there which is mostly fighting this new military militia and taking on the 5 new shark hunters. Once your done with that, the second half has you then go back to Port Clovis to track down the Apex Leviathan. Your tracking its path of destruction while your given new activities to do in each of the old bayous. On one hand I like that this DLCs adds value back to the base games areas, rather then everything being on the new map, but on the other hand its just the same tedious busy work from the base game. Most of the destroy apex predator missions for example in these old bayous are just you fighting the same: irritated, electric great white shark over and over. Thats just lazy design man. Or the consume sailor missions, half the time don't make sense, as in the base game you were attacking civilians on beaches or golf courses which made sense, but here its just a bunch of soldiers standing around on a beach for no reason, waiting for you to eat them.
Some things I hated also were the helicopters and comm tower missions. The helicopters are a pain to deal with but thankfully there only on Plover Island and not back at Port Clovis but the comm towers are in both areas. I'm a shark, why am I trying to destroy comm towers on land? And you can't just hop over to it and bite it to death, as you need to hit the top part. The idea is that your supposed to grab bombs the humans throw at you in your mouth and smack them at the towers, but that is a lot easier said then done as the controls are just too slippery for it. I have played through the base game twice, and the controls were never ideal but they didn't bother me too much until I played this expansion.
This all I guess was supposed to be made easy by the new atomic evolution set, but I thought say this new set was really disappointing. I had heard stories from players that the ability this set has of you being able to shoot out a Godzilla style blast would destroy helicopters in one hit. Well for me it was as useful as harsh language. A blast from the set would barely even scratch most enemy vehicles or towers, and would only do a small amount of damage. I don't know if they nerfed this ability in a patch but it was just really not that useful. I thought after I upgraded all the pieces of the set to max it would get more powerful but it doesn't. Towards the end I was trying to destroy comm towers with this set, but it would take like 4-5 shots to destroy even just one tower. I wish they had made it so that the blast was very powerful but it would take longer to build up the ability bar to use it. I pretty much only used this set to take out towers, as it was preferable to smacking bombs at it, and the helicopters I just stuck to my bone armor and brute forced my way through fights by biting at the helicopter when it got closer to the water.
Lastly the story was just very disappointing for this expansion. While the base game didn't have an award winning story, I liked the mix of over the top shark movie and reality TV vibe it had. And you had Scaly Pete as an antagonist who I felt brought a lot to the game and kept you going. You would even get cut scenes of him obsessing over killing this one shark and it made you want to defeat him even more. This expansion has none of that, as the story is mostly loosely told by the narrators voice over. The closest things you get to antagonists are the final Shark hunter, Barbra Terranova and the Leviathan but theres no real story there. There both just a glorified shark hunter and apex predator that you already fought in the base game.
Overall, this expansion was just really disappointing for me. If you really loved the base titles gameplay loop and want more of it, then you might like this expansion and it does offer way more content then most DLCs do, but as someone who was a fan of the base game and played through it twice, this is a definite skip for me.
All DLC I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-dlcs-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 5/10
So I was a big fan of the base game, as playing as a Shark in an RPG setting is just so fun to me. And this DLC which I would say is expansion level, was ticking the right boxes for me. It takes you to a new map, gives you more shark hunters and apex predators to fight, raises the level cap, new evolution's to unlock and a cool enough story that takes place after the end of the base game. In some ways it impresses but in most others it disappoints.
To start with what it does right, going to a new area of Plover Island is cool and having the narrator (voiced by Chris Parnell) turned into a full blown conspiracy theorist is fun to see. Some of his new voice over is pretty funny too. Going around this area and causing havoc felt satisfying and you get to fight apex predators that have the same evolution sets as you, so it adds a little bit of challenge. I also really loved the time trial races, which is something I didn't think I would like, as I almost never like doing those in games.
The first half of this DLC is you exploring Plover Island and doing missions there which is mostly fighting this new military militia and taking on the 5 new shark hunters. Once your done with that, the second half has you then go back to Port Clovis to track down the Apex Leviathan. Your tracking its path of destruction while your given new activities to do in each of the old bayous. On one hand I like that this DLCs adds value back to the base games areas, rather then everything being on the new map, but on the other hand its just the same tedious busy work from the base game. Most of the destroy apex predator missions for example in these old bayous are just you fighting the same: irritated, electric great white shark over and over. Thats just lazy design man. Or the consume sailor missions, half the time don't make sense, as in the base game you were attacking civilians on beaches or golf courses which made sense, but here its just a bunch of soldiers standing around on a beach for no reason, waiting for you to eat them.
Some things I hated also were the helicopters and comm tower missions. The helicopters are a pain to deal with but thankfully there only on Plover Island and not back at Port Clovis but the comm towers are in both areas. I'm a shark, why am I trying to destroy comm towers on land? And you can't just hop over to it and bite it to death, as you need to hit the top part. The idea is that your supposed to grab bombs the humans throw at you in your mouth and smack them at the towers, but that is a lot easier said then done as the controls are just too slippery for it. I have played through the base game twice, and the controls were never ideal but they didn't bother me too much until I played this expansion.
This all I guess was supposed to be made easy by the new atomic evolution set, but I thought say this new set was really disappointing. I had heard stories from players that the ability this set has of you being able to shoot out a Godzilla style blast would destroy helicopters in one hit. Well for me it was as useful as harsh language. A blast from the set would barely even scratch most enemy vehicles or towers, and would only do a small amount of damage. I don't know if they nerfed this ability in a patch but it was just really not that useful. I thought after I upgraded all the pieces of the set to max it would get more powerful but it doesn't. Towards the end I was trying to destroy comm towers with this set, but it would take like 4-5 shots to destroy even just one tower. I wish they had made it so that the blast was very powerful but it would take longer to build up the ability bar to use it. I pretty much only used this set to take out towers, as it was preferable to smacking bombs at it, and the helicopters I just stuck to my bone armor and brute forced my way through fights by biting at the helicopter when it got closer to the water.
Lastly the story was just very disappointing for this expansion. While the base game didn't have an award winning story, I liked the mix of over the top shark movie and reality TV vibe it had. And you had Scaly Pete as an antagonist who I felt brought a lot to the game and kept you going. You would even get cut scenes of him obsessing over killing this one shark and it made you want to defeat him even more. This expansion has none of that, as the story is mostly loosely told by the narrators voice over. The closest things you get to antagonists are the final Shark hunter, Barbra Terranova and the Leviathan but theres no real story there. There both just a glorified shark hunter and apex predator that you already fought in the base game.
Overall, this expansion was just really disappointing for me. If you really loved the base titles gameplay loop and want more of it, then you might like this expansion and it does offer way more content then most DLCs do, but as someone who was a fan of the base game and played through it twice, this is a definite skip for me.
All DLC I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-dlcs-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/