X marks the spot.

I'm playing Borderlands 2's effortfully-titled new DLC Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty for a lot of reasons, I guess. I'm playing it for the colorful new locations, for the goofy new pirate enemies, for the sweet new sand skiff (though boo on Gearbox for not unlocking it across the entire game). But really, as with all things Borderlands, I'm playing for the loot.

There is a lot of good loot in the new DLC, which I guess makes sense, as "loot" is actually a word I associate more with pirates than any other subgenre of enemy. See, I'm probably about 2/3rds of the way through the story missions in Borderlands 2, and I'd started to feel a bit stuck with my current weapon loadout. I had a decent assault rifle, a middling sniper rifle, and a really good shotgun. Every weapon I found was in some way inferior to what I had—I hadn't had that somewhat sad somewhat awesome "Oh eff yes, this amazing shiny thing completes me" feeling for too long.

Right off the bat in Captain Scarlett, I snagged an $8,000 corrosive assault rifle. Nice. Shortly afterwards, I found my first message in a bottle. As it turns out, the bottle-message missions are the easiest way to get a crapload of great loot—but they're a little bit trickier than they seem.

First you have to find the bottle—easy, since they're always marked as orange exclamation marks on your map. After finding the bottle, you have to head to the treasure site and find the treasure. At first I thought this would be easy, but on the second one, I got a bit stumped—don't judge! Environmental puzzling isn't something I'm used to doing in Borderlands.

So, in the interest of helping out anyone else who's gotten stuck, let me give you this piece of advice: X marks the spot. Makes sense, no? These are pirates we're talking about!

When you come upon that second treasure location, and think, "Hmm, maybe that crate with the shields in it was the treasure…" It wasn't. You've gotta find the X, and then you've gotta do what treasure hunters have been doing since time immemorial: You've gotta dig.

The folks over at Gearbox sure love their easter eggs and hidden secrets. Borderlands 2 is chock full of them.

But while playing the first campaign add-on to Borderlands 2, called Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, I stumbled on what might have to be known as my favorite.

Easter egg spoilers follow

Because it's a reference to BioShock, and I absolutely squeed when I saw Big Daddy come through mid-battle. I hadn't noticed his midget companion, named Lil Sis, but fortunately SquishyMoobs did in the video above.

Borderlands 2's first campaign add-on—Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty—releases today. It's good.

But maybe the best thing about the DLC is the new vehicle it comes with: the hovering sand skiff.

Randy Pitchford teased some sort of Star Wars references in the upcoming DLCs during our live Q&A. Once you see the sand skiff, you'll know why.

As cool as the reference is, the skiff unfortunately only seats two people: a driver and a gunner. Fortunately I am not limited by things like programming and rules and seats.

In the video above you can see me at the helm of the DLC's sand skiff. My partner in crime can easily sit atop the rickety chair to man the turrets, but what if there were three of us? Or the full four? Watch as Rogue Cheddar—also known by his human form: Mike—simply jumps on top of the boat, crouching for extra security. The only trick is that it's easier to hop on when the sand skiff is on a bit of an incline, so that the edge is closer to the player. It's also a lot easier if the driver isn't already in the vehicle, since it moves of its own accord when a driver is seated.

As long as I don't make too many violent turns, Mike can rest easily on my sand skiff. You can watch me even boost through high speeds while he sits comfortably and shoots sand worms. Even ramming into things won't necessarily mean he will fall off.

Next, I take Mike for a ride by pushing him with my sand skiff. This isn't new to the DLC, and is something I did often in the first Borderlands for funsies. But it feels a lot smoother with the sand skiff. I even manage to reverse-push him long distances.

The sand skiff can even ram into some small bandit camps. So near the middle-end of the video you'll see me drive forcefully into a hideout, spamming my harpoons at what are assuredly terrified pirate bandits.

Lastly, Mike switched seats with me and flew off of an unintended ramp, sending us flying in the air momentarily.

The sand skiff is a whole lot of fun. Fluid driving, side strafing, harpoon shooting, unconventional fun.

There's a hidden oasis in Pandora that you never knew about, with palm trees and crystal clear water that I want to die in (which, incidentally, probably happened a few times).

Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty is the first in a series of planned campaign add-ons for Borderlands 2. It introduces funny new characters, some really great new weapons, more challenges, a lot of new quests and an amazing vehicle. Heck, even some of the loot chests sport new designs. It's all very new and exciting.

The first person you'll meet in Oasis—a dried up pile of dust that was once apparently a beautiful resort settled by an equally beautiful ocean—is Shade. He's basically the most exaggerated version of Johnny Depp's character—Raoul Duke—from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, complete with the glasses and hat and the crazy face. He's lonely, and ever so pleased to have a new friend roll into town. Creepily pleased.

He's also a little bit insane, like most of the people you'll meet in a Borderlands game. Insane is the new normal on Pandora. His loneliness and insanity combine to create delusion, in which Shade insists he's not actually alone on his tiny, desolate oasis. Just look at those people in the center of town! You see that one over there, slouched over that bed? She's totally not a corpse, all pinned up with a megaphone shoved in her mouth. No, not at all. In fact, go talk to her to collect a quest item that you'll need to repair the new vehicle: a sand skiff that fits two players. Well, technically fits two players, anyway (more on that later).

WHY: The first campaign DLC is a hefty serving of more of that crazy humor, creative enemies and glorious loot from the main game.

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Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty

Developer: Gearbox
Platforms: Xbox 360 (played), PS3, PC
Released: October 16

Type of game: First-Person Shooter/Role-Playing Game hybrid

What I played: Six hours of the main storyline and a handful of side missions.

My Two Favorite Things

• A gorgeous new environment.
• An amazing new vehicle, the sand skiff, that can be used to run over new enemies to death.

My Two Least-Favorite Things

• Side quests tend to be more fetch-oriented than the creative ones found in the main game.
• Still lots of invisible walls to get stuck in.

Made-to-Order-Back-of-Box-Quotes

• "Let's agree to have sand skiffs built into every game moving forward." — Tina Amini, Kotaku.com
• "Borderlands 2's impressive loot teaches me that being a hoarder is not a problem, it's a very important way of life." — Tina Amini, Kotaku.com

The sand skiff is the most exciting vehicle in the Borderlands universe yet. It hovers and strafes, and shoots harpoons that explode on impact. It's fast and can crash into bandit camps, unlike the other vehicles. It still can't go beyond those invisible walls set up outside most quest areas, but it's fun to infiltrate the few that do allow you to ram your hovering skiff into them to wreck unfair damage on unsuspecting enemies. It might be my favorite thing about the new DLC.

All of the enemies are designed to fit the pirate theme. Like a mini-boss named Nobeard, and NPCs—like Captain Scarlett herself—with eyepatches, peg legs and hook hands. Soon after you enter Oasis, you'll be sand skiffing around the barren ocean floor, running over sand worms and fighting off crazed pirate bandits riding in their own sand skiffs. You feel less special in your sand skiff now.

When you finally make your way over to Captain Scarlett, you'll meet the infamous pirate leader who's known for being a backstabber (but, hey, she's honest about it). That bodes well for your new alliance and the mission that tasks you with helping the English-accented pirate find the treasure she seeks.

Once you set off on her assigned mission and wander into the real hidden oasis filled with palm trees and gorgeous iceberg-blue water, you'll forget to worry about why you're there in the first place.

And then once you meet the barrage of new, electricity-damaging crystalisks and skags, you'll forget about the beauty of the place you're in. But not really. Cause it's really, really pretty. The water glows and there's a lot of natural green and palm trees in this pirate-infested area. I even caught myself often admiring the adorable little midgets with pirate hats too big for them and scarves wrapped around their faces. Put a shotgun in their hands that throws them backwards with the gun's kickback force and I'm d'awwing all over the place.

I have to admit I wasn't expecting to fight as many loaders—those mechs you fought in the main game—as I did, though. They're not my favorite enemies of the bunch, but fortunately the new DLC adds a few more of those insanely hard, you-will-certainly-die, raid-boss enemies that take a team and an all-nighter to pull off. These end-game bosses will grant you a new form of currency—seraph crystals—which you can use to buy sweeter-than-usual loot.

Randy Pitchford described this first campaign DLC as something on par with Borderlands 1's General Knoxx add-on. Without spoiling anything, this is an incredibly accurate comparison, and not just in terms of length and amount of new content. But since we're on the topic, the new DLC provides plenty of side quests alongside the one main mission Captain Scarlett sets you off on. I mentioned in my review of Borderlands 2 that side quests felt more creative when you consider how fetch-focused the first game's bulk of side missions were.

Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty certainly has a healthy amount of extra missions, but they are more reminiscent of the fetch side quests in the first game than the creative ones of the second. Fortunately the writing is so superb that it won't matter that you've been asked to deliver that bottle of whiskey or a bunch of pirate peg legs when you're giggling over having to deal with the menace that is a pervy robot or laughing at a deluded old man's love letters to the foxy Scarlett.

I loved every DLC that came out for Borderlands 1. Yes, even the Mad Moxxi one that was just wave after wave of enemies (and not just because it finally introduced a bank system). Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty feels like a continuation of that legacy that Gearbox has built for themselves. When you pop in a Borderlands game, you expect to have dialogue with quirky characters and to exchange your reliable elemental weapons for a shiny new purple one. And that's exactly what you get with this new add-on. The first DLC is well worth your time, even if it's just for that amazing sand skiff and some really impressive new weapons.

The first official trailer for Borderlands 2's newest playable class—the Mechromancer—shows off how versatile her three skill trees are.

You can get a sense of the kind of play style you can mold Gaige towards, as well as how she looks in action. I already told you she feels great, but here she is backing it up with kills alongside her powerful, metal companion.

I've got a golden ticket!
I've got a golden chance to make my way!

When Charlie Bucket opened up that golden ticket, he probably wasn't thinking that Willy Wonka was going to give him a sweet-ass sniper rifle, or a shield that generates ammo. And yet, in Borderlands 2, a similar golden key can give you those very things.

I'm late to the party on the whole golden key thing. I got a press copy of the game, which is the same as a pre-ordered copy, and so it came with a golden key. Immediately upon arriving in Sanctuary, I found a big weapon container.

"Yay," I thought. "A weapon container!"

I did what you usually do with weapon containers in this game: I opened it. Inside were two beautiful sniper rifles, far more glorious than anything I had picked up in the first few levels of the game. I used one of those sniper rifles for the next six or eight hours of the game, until I finally found something better.

I didn't know at the time that I'd used my one and only golden key, which allows me to open that single loot chest and get two super-rare pieces of gear. I figured it out much later, and felt a little disappointed. I wanted another golden key!

Fortunately, there's a really easy way to get one. (Well, there is also a hack that lets you generate infinite keys, but I haven't tried that, as well as an Xbox glitch, but I don't want to go THAT far, and I'd imagine that stuff will be patched out of the game eventually, anyway.) My way involves no trickery or profile.bin finagling.

It's simple—so simple, that I'm sure you hardcore Borderlands 2 players have already done it. But if you haven't, I thought I'd let you know: All you have to do is sign up for Gearbox's free "Shift" service and you'll get a free golden key. You can even just delete your account immediately afterwards, if you don't like having that kind of extraneous gaming account (I sure don't.)

Here's how: First, go to Gearbox's "Shift" online service and sign up. You'll get a confirmation email, so go ahead and confirm.

Then, go into your Borderlands 2 game and find the "Shift Code" option. You won't have to enter a Shift code—you'll just have to enter the login info you just made.

You'll be prompted to enter a code, but you already have your free golden key. When you boot up the game, you should see this dialogue box:

Hooray! You can now go get a sweet piece of kit anytime you want.

If you don't want to keep your shift account, it's very easy to delete:

And there you have it. I got a super powerful shield that sometimes will absorb bullets and add to my ammo count. Sweet!