In a world filled with DLC packs that just don’t do the game justice, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned not only does an excellent job of delivering that Borderlands experience, but might actually do so better than Borderlands ever did.
To access the DLC, you simply fast travel to a new area called Jacob’s Cavern. A short introduction video plays explaining what’s happened which, while it doesn't give you any information you can’t infer from the title, is entertaining nonetheless. Your on an Island with zombies; Lots and lots of zombies. These zombies like to eat brains, and you have some. Try to avoid being eaten while you go in search of Dr. Ned, who as the game politely reminds you every chance it gets, is totally not Dr. Zed from the last game.
You won’t see anything here that you can use that you can’t come across by playing Borderlands. The enemies are suppose to adjust to your level, but oddly enough when my level 52 siren went in, my enemies were leveled at 42. Now, I did play through this once the level cap was raised to 61, which it wasn’t at the time of Zombie Island’s release, so maybe that’s some kind of bug that wasn’t meant to happen. That means I didn’t find much in terms of helpful loot, but at least you’ll have plenty to sell after dispatching waves of zombies, and oh boy, there’s a lot of zombies to kill. There’s also no skills to be gained, levels to be achieved, or zombie themed weapons like you would expect.
While Borderlands was well received both by consumers as well as critics, the game was lacking when it game to the story. Ask me what Borderlands was about, and I’ll gladly give you the short answer; You’re a vault hunter looking for a hidden vault in a desert world named Pandora. Problem is, that’s also the long answer because there wasn’t much to Borderlands story wise. You could easily skip over all the mission dialogue and text, and still understand what you’re trying to do from beginning to end. What little Borderlands did have to offer in terms of narrative was often loss, since most of it was delivered over radio to the player which means it fairly easy to miss out on what’s someone is trying to tell you when you’re still fighting for your life. The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned fixes the problem by offering more cutscenes, better dialogue, and just making the story more interesting and varied so that you might actually want to put in the effort into reading that mission text to see what’s going on. I would still say that you could skip over half the missions and not lose out on any of the plot, but this is a side-story about Zombies, so not every mission can be a winner.
By far the thing that makes The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned worth buying are all the new assets. Jacob’s Cove isn’t like anything else you’ll find in Borderlands, replacing the desert world with a land filled with murky water, green vegetation, and even trees; lots and lots of trees. Places you’ll visit will include a deserted town, a Hospital located in a graveyard (Convenient), and a lumber yard. There’s also a section which takes Old Haven and re-imagines it by adding a more dusky infested fog and ominous clouds hanging over the city. Yeah, this part just felt like a reskin when it came time to have a big city invested with Crimson Lance zombies, which brings me to my next point, the enemies.
You won’t see enemies that you’ve encountered before in Borderlands, at least not directly. There are still Psychos that want to run up to you and Crimson Lance that can throw down turrets despite being zombified, but you don’t see Psychos all too often and the Crimson Lance only appear in Dead Haven. Most of the zombie hoard is made up of regular slow moving dudes that due intense damage if they make it up close. That means you may have to change up your play style for Zombie Island and play it with some caution, especially since enemies can spawn behind you when you’re least expecting them. There are also different types of zombies such as defilers that like to vomit on you and mess with your vision, suicide zombies that’ll throw barrels at you and then run up to you to die, and some hip zombies with beer helmets. But it’s not all about zombies, as you’ll find some flesh devouring crows and even skaggs, though not the ones you’re thinking of. There are also some great boss battles that I won’t ruin here, but there are pumpkins involved.
-Leandro Foruria