Borderlands: Dr. Zed's Zombie Island

Late to the party, I know, but hey, this blog is about anything gaming related you want to post, and since it is what I played over the weekend (with Kinto...thanks!), I'm going to post about it.

"Dr. Zed's..." is a DLC (one of three) for 'Borderlands'. Once installed, you get there by teleporting to "Jacob's Cove". A brief intro starts, similar to the beginnings of Borderlands, where Marcus is telling a story to his kid. Seems Dr. Ned...*ahem*...Dr. Zed needs help. As far as the story goes, that's all I'll post so you can play it yourself for the story. What little there is, anyway.

The entire map is colored in a sort of green that is often associated with nighttime creepy zombie-like atmosphere's from Halloween. As Kinto pointed out, this DLC was supposed to come out during Halloween last year, so the vibe is definitely sent. As far as how that affects gameplay, I'll discuss shortly.

Here's the new enemy types a brief description. I won't recall them all, but here's what I remember:

• Regular zombie - Very slow, walking towards you. If they get close, they melee you and your shield will be gone in one hit, so don't let them get close.
• Torso - Has no legs. Comes out of the ground and crawls towards you. It can also do some damage, and a little harder to see because they blend in with the ground so well.
• Midget zombie - Hilarious. They run and leap at you, so they're a little (pun intended) difficult to put between your crosshairs.
• Pyscho zombie - Remember the Psycho's in the standard Borderlands? Yeah, it's them, except once you hit them with a bullet or melee, they truly go psycho and get really, really, fast. Best to equip Daze ability.
• Suicide zombie - They carry a big barrel and run at you. If you don't shoot the barrel before they get to you, they blow it up next to you, killing themself and likely you. However, they also come in handy because if you blow them up when they're near the approaching horde, they take out many of their compatriots.
• Treasure zombie - Very rare, but a few points have these giant muscle zombies that have a treasure chest chained to their back. Kill them, then the loot is yours.
• Were-Skag - I think they were skag's. Anyway, big were-skag dudes that aren't too hard to kill. They're fast and agile, but you can easily take them down. Problem is you have to make sure they're down. When they're health get's low, they emit this red light that basically superpowers them, regen's health, and makes them a lot harder to take down. Fortunately, they don't really attack in packs, unless you're dumb enough to run from them into more of them. If you do, you're going to have problems.
• Badass Zombie - Something like that. Kind of like a badass bruiser, but harder to take down. Much, much, harder, especially because he never shows up unless you're being mobbed by a horde. Or mob?...
• Bosses - I'll let you experience them. There aren't many.
• Defiler - Vomits at you, which hurts you, slows you way down, and covers your screen with the vomit so you can't see. You definitely want to take them out quickly.
  

Strengths:

1. New Foes. Obviously, there are zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. But don't think this is Left4Dead material. These zombies are mostly slow. The horde isn't so much a horde, though there are a few points where it will seem a bit chaotic.
2. Different atmosphere. No doubt you're playing a different game within Borderlands. It makes it interesting because it really isn't more of the same. I like that, because a DLC should always, repeat always, add content, not just slap more of the same onto a game. Otherwise, you're releasing an incomplete game.
3. Humor. They went out of their way to bring some pretty funny moments, mostly through recordings found, to this experience. I encourage you to listen carefully to each one, because they are well done. You'll pick up on the references.
   

Opportunities for Improvement (we don't say "weaknesses", right?)

1. Loot. IT'S AWFUL! We played through after beating the second playthrough, so all zombies were level 50+. In the main game, playing this "third playthough" will give you highest chance for good weapon drops. In addition, since I play the Hunter, I equipped my +2 Find Rare Items class mod. That almost always results in yellow and orange drops during a couple hour playthrough. Usually more. We didn't have one in the entire DLC. Not one. And I believe we only saw five purple drops in total. The chests were even worse. Green and white almost exlcusively. That made the entire playthrough rather frustrating.
2. No long distance shooting. As a Hunter, I usually snipe a bit until enemies close in, then break out the pistols and Bloodwing to take down the masses. But in this game, the opportunities for long distance shooting almost don't exist. Maybe a personal pet peeve, but I felt like it was really made for Bruiser and Soldier, not Hunter and Siren. Balance just seemed a little off. On the plus side, though, I did become a much better pistol shooter once I rebalanced my hunter for guns and bloodwing. I used skills I normally didn't, and I like that you can easily retune your skills like that. So it wasn't all bad.
   
3. Atmosphere. Ok, I like that they did something totally different from the main game. However, the night sky with the dark green ground often made it extremely difficult to see. I guess that's what they were going for, being zombie and all, but it did make it a bit frustrating at times. Plus the music almost never changed. It got a little monotonous.
4. No fast travel! This is apparently an issue in all the DLC's. Once you fast travel there, that's it. Even though the DLC's have large maps with many different areas, there is no fast travel. That really, really sucks. After the first few hours of blasting zombies, we just stopped shooting and ran where we needed to go. We could easily outrun the zombies (especially with Bloodwing flying out and dazing everything!) If they're going to commit to making you move to the locations instead of fast travel, they should at least make you fight your way. I don't think game design benefits when you just run by it. Then again, I might be frustrated if I had to stop and fight everything along the way. Hmm, tough call, but in the end, I prefer fast travel for maps of this size.
5. No replayability. Spent $10 bucks. Not much, got some new stuff. Played and beat everything in about 4-5 hours. Now, I'll never play it again, unless I have more friends that get it, then I'll play with them to get through it. The loot system is the main point. If I can't find good loot in a game like this, what's the point? I'll go shoot through "Crimson Fastness" again 100 times (I've already done it quite a few!) and get great loot drops before I'll revisit Jacob's Cove. I mean, it's where Jacob's guns were made, so damn, I expected to find all the rare Jacob's guns throughout. Really disappointing. Also, the enemies, while unique, don't feel as satisfying to shoot as do the enemies in the main game. So why go back?

Overall, I'm kind of negative on this DLC. Having played it, and already having played a couple hours in the new General Knoxx DLC, the $10 I spent on this one doesn't feel as well spent. That said, if you don't have it, and it ever goes on sale (like part of a DLC pack on Steam), I would go ahead and pull the trigger on acquiring it. If you really like Borderlands, you'll appreciate that they gave you an opportunity to experience something very different in the world of Pandora, and who knows, you might get better loot drops than I did.

If you've played it, I'd like to see you impressions in the comments. Really love to see differing opinions.

Update: Just saw this on Kotaku...I figured as much. Good stuff!