Any devoted readers of our site will know how popular last year’s Borderlands was amongst the staff. We must have loved it, because it was one of our nominations for Game of the Year.

The real joy we found in Borderlands came from not only the tight controls and the charismatic characters, but from the compelling loot system. The game boasted the fact that there were millions of different types of gun, each with their own individual statistics. Arguably, it was the search for bigger and better guns that made Borderlands so compelling. You can imagine our disappointment when upon loading up this latest piece of downloadable goodness, we discovered that there is essentially no looting to be had at all.

Moxxi provides commentary during each round... And it gets pretty stale.

To set the scene, Mad Moxxi is a woman looking for love. After three failed marriages – including one to a recognisable character – Moxxi founded the Underdome Riot. This is an arena-based battle to the death, with the hope of possibly finding husband number four along the way. Moxxi herself is a typically charismatic character with well written dialogue.

However, in terms of gameplay, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome is a very dull place. There are three arenas: each based on areas you visited in the main storyline and you are tasked with defending yourself against wave after wave of opponents. The first set of challenges has you fighting against five waves of enemies. However, each wave is made up of five rounds, meaning you have 25 rounds to fight through before completing an arena.

At the end of each round you fight a randomised boss character from the story mode. In a way it is similar to the fire fight mode in Halo ODST: up to four players keep fighting their way through increasingly difficult waves of enemies, with certain waves having unfair advantages, such as being immune to headshots. This is all very well and good, but the real problem with this format is that you gain no experience for each person you kill, and they drop no loot.

The only way to get loot is to defeat the boss round at the end of the wave, and a randomly generated gun will fall out of the sky at your feet. So far I have yet to be given a gun that is actually any better than the ones I had previously found.

The new waving robot had them completely entranced

The second problem with this add-on is that the enemies are often too tough, as they have no set experience level. Instead, they match the experience level of the player that hosts the game. In true Borderlands fashion, if you are unfortunate enough to not at least match the experience level of the host, then you have absolutely no chance against the enemies. They are all just too strong.

You could argue that this is where teamwork comes in, allowing you to strategise with your team mates. But there is little time for strategy as the enemies tend to just come charging towards you. Once you eventually make your way through all 25 waves in each of the three arenas, you unlock the advanced challenges. These place you in the same three arenas, but this time you must fight through 20 waves of enemies in each arena, bringing the total number of rounds to 100. Even completing the 25 five waves of the original set of challenges became tedious, and as of writing I have given up slogging through because it has become so mind numbing.

Having listed the faults it would be unfair not to list the few good points of this DLC. A new bank system is introduced, allowing you to store items that previously you would have to have dropped if you found something new and interesting.

Round 1! By round ten you'll want to scratch your eyes out...

Moxxi herself is a good character, although it is sometimes easy to forget this when you are forced to listen to her repeat her phrases for the 131st time in a row.

Finally, if you can stomach beating the Underdome then you are rewarded with one new skill point, which will please the more hardcore players that have already reached experience level 50, and are looking for some way of advancing their character.

Review Round-Up

GRAPHICS: 3/5 Borderlands’ graphical style remains unchanged. The new environments are made up of parts of levels already experienced in the story mode, which is a little disappointing.

SOUND: 3/5 As usual, all the sound effects remain pretty much unchanged. New music will play in the game when you reach the boss fights and this is suitably fast paced and pleasing to the ear. Moxxi’s voice acting is competent, but after the 200th time of hearing her yell “horde wave!” you may get sick of her.

GAMEPLAY: 1/5 While there is a certain amount of fun to be had playing these challenges in multiplayer, it only lasts so long. This add-on is as tedious as it is long. While I appreciate the inclusion of various handicaps in rounds – such as enemies only being able to be harmed by shotguns – by the time you beat the first three arenas you will probably have seen everything there is to see.

LONGEVITY: 2/5 Each of the first set of arenas will take approximately half an hour to beat. When you move on to the final three arenas, which are four times as long, you can expect to spend a few hours on each map. However, the removal of one of the key elements that made Borderlands fun in the first place (the looting) will likely mean that you won’t bother.

OVERALL: 2 Horde Waves out of 5. It seems the developers have forgotten what made Borderlands fun in the first place. Having chosen to remove all the fun of looting and expansive environments to search, they decided to stick you in a familiar looking set of arenas and force you to shoot at wave after wave of generic enemies.

[starreview tpl=16]