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All I wanted to do was score with some damn dirty skags… where blue hell did all these zombies come from?

The Island of Dr. Ned is the first DLC from Borderlands.   As someone who enjoys Zombie movies (Go buy Zombieland, now – *waits on royalty check*)    and Zombie games (I will follow this up with a post of my impressions on Left for Dead 2).   So I was very excited when I finally downloaded this.

Game takes place on the Island of Dr. Ned (who, by his own admission is “totally not his brother “Zed”" from the regular Borderlands game… oh but he looks exactly like Dr. Zed from Borderlands, but has a mustache taped on his surgical mask.)

Yes, this game has a sense of humor, and I laughed out loud numerous times with the little interludes between game play.  Be it the Russian sounding guy telling the child the story of “The Island of Dr. Ned” at the start,  or Ned himself. Or the fact that a recurring zombie you regularly “blasterize” is wearing a beer helmet.

Lets start with how much:  9.99  aka  800 Microsoft Points (in whatever conversion system Bill Gates cooked up in his free time…  I’m pretty sure it involved quantum mathematical equations and at least 4 abacuses (or is that abaci?))

Is it worth it?  Yes.

I love Zombies.   Zombie games (at some point in time I’ll babble incoherently about Left for Dead 2).  Zombie movies.  Hell, an argument can be made that Jesus was a Zombie, right?

The story is Dr. Ned is charged with keeping the workers of Jakob’s Cove alive.  Sadly things don’t go so well.  So instead of keeping them “alive” they end up “undead” … close enough.   You get dropped off there and get sent on numerous mission a la any of the lands from the original game.

You see Zombie Psychos.  Zombie Migets.  Torsos… yes zombies without legs crawling towards you, and those bitches totally bite your knees.  They have “Defilers” which spit (very much like a Boomer in L4D)  … only they spit sticky shit that covers the screen, so you can’t see much, and makes you move slower.  Something called Tankenstein, and Loot Goons.  On top of the bosses you’ll have to beat at various stages.

Also for those of you that remember “Old Haven”  (I’ll wait for you all to reflexively groan and drop an F-Bomb or 11)… In Zombie Island you have “Dead Haven”.   Yes… the Crimson Lance in ZOMBIE form!  The end of one of the missions in Dead Haven is very much like an end of one of the Left for Dead Campaigns… where you have to sit and wait for something and just survive an onslaught of Zombie awfulness.  Cuz you can’t have a Zombie apocalypse without having to outlast a stampeding herd of the undead.  Must be some sort of zombie code I’m not aware of.

For those of you who love the Skags?  And who doesn’t…   There aren’t an abundance of Skags on Zombie Island, BUT?  There are wereskags.   Yes.  WERESKAGS.   Also there are Skeleton Raaks, and a bat like creature that similar to the Hunter’s Bloodwing.  It may even be bloodwings.

With the regular story as well as side missions you have plenty of game play.  I’ve beaten every mission except the “Braaaaaaains”  mission which is you collecting Zombie Brains for a very familiar face from the regular game.  (I won’t spoilerize)

Definitely worth it.  A good way to play some fresh stuff and continue to level up.

Writer’s suggetion:  Play the Zombie Island on whatever play through you’re on.  So if you beat the game, play ZOmbie Island on Playthrough 2, so the Zombies are a challenge.  Dumbass I am, I didn’t, at first.  Then after getting a third of the way through, I decided to restart.   Don’t do like I do… I’m not smart.

But do do like I do, and download this.  Definitely fun.   The story is enjoyable.

Skag it like you mean it!

–Sir Scott M. Hayes XIV

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