Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

System: PC
Release Date: 2009
Published By: 2K Games
Reviewed by: Darien
Rating:

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is the first Borderlands expansion, and it takes the same basic gameplay as the original Borderlands, but applies it to a zombie-infested genre spoof. In a lot of ways, it materially improves upon the base game; for example, there are no vehicles.

This time around, the comedy works much better. It still has its share of oversold jokes, but it seems less out of place, since the whole thing is so over-the-top camp. The idea is that you have to help Dr. Ned find a cure to the zombie plague that's overrun Jakobs Cove, and, along the way, mow down dozens of zombies, along with werewolves and "Tankensteins" for good measure. But things may not be as they seem!

Dr. Ned is an excellent character. He uses the same model and the same skin as the original game's Dr. Zed, but with a giant hilarious fake mustache pasted on to the front of his surgical mask. Frequently, he or Marcus will have dialogue mentioning that he's totally not the same person as Dr. Zed, which actually manages to be fairly funny. The game also pokes fun at the survival horror and survival-horror-ish FPS genres pretty regularly, highlighted by an excellent homage to the Ravenholm level in Half-Life 2.

And it's not brown. It's not the least little bit brown. Everything's green and orange and purple and looks spooky and Halloween-y and really visually engaging. It's very dark, which can make it difficult to spot the mobs, but I'm fairly sure that's intentional; it's sort of a staple of the zombie-shooter market.

Fundamentally, this is the same game as Borderlands, and you're not going to like this if you didn't like that. It's still all about shooting and looting. There's a bit of a different dynamic this time, though, caused by the heavy reliance on melee-only mobs in large swarms; the original Borderlands had a lot of shooting mobs, and getting cover and taking opportunistic shots was very important. There's nearly no cover to be had in Zombie Island, though, and it wouldn't do you much good anyhow, since almost nothing shoots. This time around is all about crowd fighting and mobility. An interesting change of pace.

This game won't run without Borderlands, so you shouldn't even be thinking about getting it if you haven't played the original. I can say with confidence, however, that if you liked Borderlands, you'll like Zombie Island. I can also say with confidence that the Amazon link on this page is to the two-pack that comes with Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, which I ain't played but which sounds honestly pretty bad.

Buy this game from Amazon.com!