In recent years, popular media, gaming especially, has become saturated with zombies. Whether it is plant fighting zombies, Nazi zombies or clown zombies they all want one thing – you.
Pandora it seems is another victim of zombie invasion and what better way to solve this problem than with bullets which thankfully there are lots of. The Zombie Island of Dr Ned invites our vault finders to solve the undead situation at Jakob’s Cove offering new enemies, loot and quests but does it live up to this promise? Sadly not.
In sticking with Borderland’s sense of humour your travels will have you come across numerous sites including Skaggy and the Misery Machine and it is these which bring little bits of life to the DLC. Without these moments then there is nothing else that is notable.
Enemies are divided into your typical undead shufflers, spitting zombies, wereskags and tankensteins along with a few boss characters. While perfectly suited to the setting for the most part you find yourself swamped with typical zombies and less of the others. They come in different shapes and sizes, with particular mention going to the beer hat zombies who even in death are in need of a stiff drink, but considering the wide array of horror monsters Gearbox seem to have a limited offering.
Even the major selling point of Borderlands, loot, is lacking with few new items. If you have a legendary item in the main game then there is nothing that is worth replacing it with in the DLC. Added to this is the relative weakness of the zombies. In large numbers they can do some damage but they rarely can get close enough to you considering how overpowered fire and explosives are against them.
All this might be taking the game too seriously but there is little in the way of challenges. Because there is no extension of the level cap, a level 50 can breeze through the DLC making the game little more than a tedious grind. Coupled with brain collecting for quests and no fast travel points around the new areas, you find that the initial charm upon first entering wears off quickly.
Sure the areas are aesthetically pleasing, encompassing all what we imagine a Halloween zombie kill fest to be yet it feels like the DLC would have been better released late October as opposed to late November. As it stands you get around six hours of zombie killing action but promises of 50 new quests are unfulfilled instead reaching a measly 25 quests at best of which five have you grind for zombie brains.
All in all The Zombie Island of Dr Ned had potential but fails ever so slightly through its lack of challenge and content. Had Gearbox spent time adding more of everything then it could have been a classic. Hardcore fans of Borderland will enjoy the change of setting, even if some areas are just rehashes of places from the main game, though anyone else should save money and wait for future DLC.
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