Role-Playing Horde Mode
Aside from an in-game bank to house all of the guns you've likely been accumulating while playing Borderlands, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot is essentially an attempt at capitalizing on the market popularized by Gears of War 2's Horde and Halo 3: ODST's Firefight modes -- sending wave after wave of increasingly vicious fodder towards players -- and adapting it to Borderlands' architecture. However, asking consumers to pay $10 for a mode that's already included in other big-budget shooters on top of the $60 they've payed already is tough proposition.
The one key advantage that The Underdome has over its competition, however, is the DLC's tie to the main game, and that the main game happens to be an RPG, where players lust after the next great piece of loot for their ever-developing characters. Though the Underdome arena is self-contained and is in no way connected to the plot of Borderlands, and offers no experience for enemies killed while in the Underdome, the player is rewarded for getting through each round with more guns to use with their character, which usually happen to be more powerful than a given player may have, since both the loot and enemies are scaled to the host's level; level 50 characters will get level 50 gear, and so on. And as the number of rounds increases (up to Round 20 in the later arenas), the number and quality of guns increases, which gives players a reason to trudge through later rounds.
You also take a character that you've built up in the main game into the Underdome with you, which adds another element of depth to this sort of mode. Instead of a stock character that everyone uses, each player has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, which means that you're likely to play the game differently depending on who you play with, beyond a certain person's play style. If you're playing with three other soldiers who've all dumped points into healing, then it's likely that you can divide and conquer without worrying about health. If you're playing with a more varied group, you'll create specific strategies to take advantage of each player's strengths and compensate for weaknesses.
Content-wise, the DLC breaks down into three arenas. Arenas are split into "small" and "large" challenges, the latter of which are unlocked after beating all of the small challenges. In a small challenge, you'll be confronted with five rounds, and in the larger challenges you'll be dealing with 20 rounds. A large challenge can take up to three hours to complete, which means you or your group of friends are going to have to be dedicated if you want to get through all 20 rounds. Each of the five waves that make up a round will have a different theme: Starter (a random assortment of weaker enemies), Gun-only, Horde (where lots of enemies will charge you), Badass (elite units), and Boss. They're in the same order every time, so it's easy to prepare a strategy for the next wave.
The Underdome also adapts Firefight's Skulls system, in the form of Modifiers. From the second round on, you'll get a random Modifier that will alter a variable in the gameplay. Modifiers range from relatively simple things like increasing the amount of damage enemies take to things that fundamentally change the way the game is played, such as increasing the movement speed, which makes the game playmore like Unreal Tournament . These modifiers are a good way to change up the challenge of the game; a strategy that involves hiding and letting everyone else do all the work is put into question when suddenly your health is being drained and you have to kill an enemy to get it back. It gets even more hectic as the number of rounds increases, since over the course of the challenge more and more modifiers are added, until headshots do minimal damage, everyone's health is draining, all player shields are gone, and only rocket launchers will do decent damage.
Unlike the previous DLC, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, the Underdome offers no tangible storyline to speak of, only a framework under which the arena gameplay takes place. However, if you're dedicated to beating all of the challenges, it's likely that you'll spend much more time in the Underdome. The larger challenges are incredibly difficult to take on by yourself, and much more so if you're a level 50 character, as I found that playing with a lower level character makes the enemies easier, even in comparison to your characters' lower level. What's more, if you have a group of friends who happen to have both the retail game and the DLC, there's certainly a lot of replay value in the arena gameplay.
Whether or not Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot justifies its $10 price tag to you will depend on three factors: How much value you place into its sort of gameplay -- one that gives you an endless number of enemies to kill -- and whether or not you enjoy Borderlands' actual gameplay and character progression over the likes of Gears 2 and ODST, and whether or not you have other people to play it with. If you're looking for a single-player story add-on, this likely won't do it for you, but if you have to have the best gear or simply enjoy killing things in the wastelands of Borderlands, then you ought to give the Underdome a shot.
