Rise of the Martian Bear DLC Review

Developer: Double Fine Productions / Publisher: Double Fine Productions / Played on: Xbox 360 / Price: 400 MSP ($5.00) / ESRB: Teen [Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Tobacco, Violence]

I could drone on and on about the content you’ll get in Rise of the Martian Bear — and in fact I will in a bit — but I’ll bottom line it for you here: if you enjoyed Iron Brigade, get this DLC. It’s cheap and it’s awesome, just be aware that it’s also really hard.

Okay, now on to that other info. Rise of the Martian Bear adds a new five-mission campaign that takes you to Mars to, yes, fight a bear. There’s more side content too — two survival missions, 80 pieces of gear, and new enemies to test that gear out on. The new gear is more substantial than getting slightly-more-powerful versions of old weapons, with some of the more outlandish gear adopting weird properties. While I didn’t unlock ALL the equipment (I have to sleep sometime), I did unlock an artillery cannon that places a small scrap collector wherever it lands which was awfully convenient.

The new enemies in the DLC fill in some holes in the waves, though to be honest the game still does boil down to “drop sniper turrets everywhere and rush down Jacobs as fast as you can.” Cathys and Noids are two new enemy types that directly target you instead of your objectives, though I find they didn’t really change my strategies much. The real game-changers are the new miniboss tubes — the Arty and the Volt Dropper. Arty is an artillery tube, which either requires a beefy net of sniper cannons or a fast mech with big guns to take out quickly. The Volt Dropper is a bomber and the biggest threat. Volt Droppers circle the map and drop charges on your objective which deal massive damage. Previously a few flak cannons were all the anti-air you needed, but the Volt Dropper adds a real threat to the air that was never there before.

There’s one big gotcha in this DLC though; it’s really goddamn hard. The “Settlement” mission is a particularly common stumbling block, which I know because everyone I played with online was trying to clear it as well. It’s not impossibly difficult, but I did have to grind out some levels and gear before I could clear it. Luckily the new survival missions in the Martian Bear DLC are great for earning levels and gear.

Like I said in the intro, if you enjoyed Iron Brigade, this DLC is a must-have. There’s a lot of content here and the price is right. Plus how often to you get to see a bipedal bear with a fantastic Russian beard? The answer is not very often at all.

Editor’s Note: The content of the DLC is not different enough from the content of the original game to necessitate another score.

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