Mad Moxxi Beyond Chunderdome
It's Borderlands, but without the XP or loot.
Published: February 25, 2010
Borderlands gets by with its mediocre first-person shooter gameplay and its total lack of interesting narrative by having well-tuned and addictive advancement and acquisition. Getting that next skill point or gun drives Borderlands much more than seeing what's around the next corner, or overcoming a great challenge. A major strength of Borderlands is that you can play for just a few minutes, get some experience points, money, weapon proficiency or loot, save your character's growth and come back later.
In Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, you get jack shit, and getting that jack shit requires a huge investment of time. Engagements in the Underdome occur in the context of a sporting event in which the players are thrown into arena battles. These battles are broken up into multiple rounds, and each round is further composed of waves. Each round consists of five waves, and each match consists of five to twenty rounds. A single match can last for hours, and if the whole thing is not defeated in one continuous attempt, you don't get any kind of credit for your participation.
"Well," you might think, "at least I'll be getting a lot of experience and loot in the process from wasting those many waves of enemies." Sorry, bucko, but the enemies in the Underdome do not yield any experience, nor do they drop any items or money. They don't even help you improve your weapon proficiencies. The final wave of each round features a boss character, and upon clearing that wave, a few weapons are dropped into the arena in a predefined spot, but you may or may not have time to sort through the pile with your party and grab them before the next round begins. Not that it matters, since they always seem to be worthless.
On top of these structural problems, there are issues with the action itself. During a match, there is no time limit, and the enemy AI in Borderlands is useless, so even if you're out of health kits, you can simply hide behind a wall and recharge your shields and health without risk. In an attempt to spice things up, each wave features some kind of random modifier. For example, in one wave, enemies may carry extra ammo. That doesn't affect the action very much when all the enemies in that wave happen to be lower animals.
The arena combat in the Underdome highlights how uninteresting and poorly designed the core game is when you remove it from the larger context of leveling up and getting shiny new stuff. The Underdome is surprisingly lifeless for a sports arena; you'll hear a lot of cheering, but you won't see an audience anywhere. It appears as though the other denizens of Pandora are not impressed enough by the action in the Underdome to show up. They have the right idea.
P.S. A certain fellow editor who shall remain nameless would be cross with me if I failed to praise the strangely alluring Mad Moxxi herself, and I agree that she has a lot going for her. As the lady in charge of all this bloody business, she brings a certain charm to the proceedings, even as the action itself founders.
In Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, you get jack shit, and getting that jack shit requires a huge investment of time. Engagements in the Underdome occur in the context of a sporting event in which the players are thrown into arena battles. These battles are broken up into multiple rounds, and each round is further composed of waves. Each round consists of five waves, and each match consists of five to twenty rounds. A single match can last for hours, and if the whole thing is not defeated in one continuous attempt, you don't get any kind of credit for your participation.
"Well," you might think, "at least I'll be getting a lot of experience and loot in the process from wasting those many waves of enemies." Sorry, bucko, but the enemies in the Underdome do not yield any experience, nor do they drop any items or money. They don't even help you improve your weapon proficiencies. The final wave of each round features a boss character, and upon clearing that wave, a few weapons are dropped into the arena in a predefined spot, but you may or may not have time to sort through the pile with your party and grab them before the next round begins. Not that it matters, since they always seem to be worthless.
On top of these structural problems, there are issues with the action itself. During a match, there is no time limit, and the enemy AI in Borderlands is useless, so even if you're out of health kits, you can simply hide behind a wall and recharge your shields and health without risk. In an attempt to spice things up, each wave features some kind of random modifier. For example, in one wave, enemies may carry extra ammo. That doesn't affect the action very much when all the enemies in that wave happen to be lower animals.
The arena combat in the Underdome highlights how uninteresting and poorly designed the core game is when you remove it from the larger context of leveling up and getting shiny new stuff. The Underdome is surprisingly lifeless for a sports arena; you'll hear a lot of cheering, but you won't see an audience anywhere. It appears as though the other denizens of Pandora are not impressed enough by the action in the Underdome to show up. They have the right idea.
P.S. A certain fellow editor who shall remain nameless would be cross with me if I failed to praise the strangely alluring Mad Moxxi herself, and I agree that she has a lot going for her. As the lady in charge of all this bloody business, she brings a certain charm to the proceedings, even as the action itself founders.
