GAME REVIEW: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (Series X)

(Memories - John Paesano)

I've had a lot of reason to dwell on nostalgia recently. No, the irony of that statement isn't lost on me.

I don't think people understand what nostalgia is and I think that's why it's being misused so grossly right now. The whole point of it, in case you were wondering, is hearkening back to something, some kind of source material, that you personally found pleasant or otherwise sentimental.

A reboot is not a guarantee of nostalgia.
A sequel or prequel is not a guarantee of nostalgia.
An adaptation of existing content into a new format is not a guarantee of nostalgia.

If I'm going to create nostalgia for you, I really do need to know why you enjoyed the source material. Otherwise, you're pretty much just beating a dead horse.

This, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the subject of today's review. 'Tiny Tina's Wonderlands' is a completely honest attempt at rekindling the kind of magic that pretty much everyone experienced while playing that most epic of Borderlands 2 DLC, 'Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep'. 2K Studios is banking very, VERY hard on the fact that they know what you enjoyed about that little adventure. 

But...did they?

To coin a phrase, "Perception Check, Bitches!"

THE SHORT VERSION: 

That's a '1' on the die. (Which means 'no' for the two people reading this who haven't ever played D&D.)

THE LONG VERSION:

What I find most incredible about the extent to which Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is lacking is the fact that IT IS LACKING.

'Assault On Dragon Keep' was maybe one of the best DLCs that's ever been released. Like...ever. For any game. The people who made it clearly understood the assignment and were working off of not just 'a recipe', but 'the recipe':

1. Start Off With A Tried And True Game Platform - CHECK. 'Borderlands', a game that many recognize as the granddaddy of the Looter Shooter genre. (Yes, I know about Hellgate: London but I suspect a lot of folks don't which is why Borderlands is looked at thusly.) It was a staggering achievement of the genre. Borderlands 2 somehow took that and made it much, MUCH better. Insane gameplay mechanics and a catchy art style married perfectly to what must be one of the most all-time colorful casts in video game history in a perfect storm. BL2 was the platform that 'Dragon Keep' was working off of.

2. Add A Strong Story - CHECK. Without spoiling it, the story for 'Dragon Keep' doesn't take itself too seriously...right up until it does, at which point it gets even better. It's a Borderlands-flavored spit-take and lampoon on Dungeons and Dragons. And World Of Warcraft. And of about a hundred other pop-culture elements that anyone who has ever played an online game will be instantly familiar with. It's incredibly self-aware and perfectly self-deprecating from beginning to end.

3. Use Elements That You Know Your Players Already Love - CHECK. This...seems like kind of a no-brainer but believe me, it's not. Borderlands 2 was not a perfect game. 'Dragon Keep's designers knew this and wisely only used elements from it that had a long history of player love.

In contrast, playing 'Wonderlands' ... pretty much misses all of these items:

THE PLATFORM: 'Wonderlands' is built off of BL3's engine, which was something that could only loosely be called 'bloated'. Stories abound in the forums online about glitches and bugs from BL3 that 2K couldn't be bothered to fix before engaging in some Italian programming for 'Wonderlands'. That would be bad enough except that, fundamentally, Borderlands hasn't ever really changed as a game. This is now the FIFTH Borderlands game -- BL, BL2, BL The Pre-Sequel, BL3, and Wonderlands -- not counting the massive quantity of DLC for each game which could have easily made ANOTHER game...and they all look and feel the same. Seeing as how the original BL game out in 2009, the overall formula for the game just feels ... old.

Then there's the cast of the game who, TO A PERSON, are annoying. There's only one ClapTrap in the other games for a reason. One ClapTrap is more than enough. This game? Full of them. I know I'll take some heat for this but I'm also including the game's main showpiece, Tiny Tina, in my assessment. The use of Tina in this game is a blaring, flag-waving, and otherwise painfully obvious example of the developers not understanding what we all found so nostalgic about 'Dragon Keep' -- or the other games -- in the first place. As a matter of fact, Tina's pretty much a perfect case study of the problem with this game as a whole.

Tiny Tina is OVER. THE. TOP. She's manic, she's rude, she's crude, she's raunchy, and occasionally, she's really, REALLY scary. Except...in this game, 2K chose to give the game a 'T For Teen' rating. Now, we all know why they did this: Money. Which would make sense if it weren't for the fact that Borderlands 1, 2, and 3 were all rated M for Mature and still sold like mad. The very content that made them worthy of the rating -- and they were, believe me -- was a huge part of what made people love them, Tiny Tina included. For this game, Tiny's pretty much...just manic. Everything else has been replaced with Woke attempts at humor and even more of her manic behavior. This gets old before the intro cinematic is even over. It's gotten sincerely irritating by the time the title card rolls at the beginning of the game. Which...brings us to another thing and that's the fact that in the other games, Tina is used sparingly. She's a grace note, a perfect accent used perfectly. In this game...Tina's EVERYWHERE, and she's not really that funny. 

Since this is Tina's game...it stands to reason that Tina's problems are the game's problems.

Gone are the many unique and varied personalities, replaced with generic NPCs and annoyingly voiced townies. If I were British, this game would offend me doubly because of how horribly misused the accent is. (I'm looking at you, Paladin Mike.)

Gone is the raunchy humor and razor-sharp wit. You'll truly know despair when Tina stops the game -- quite literally -- to do a 'vibe check' on her players. What little profanity remains is wasted -- and personified -- in exchanges like this one:

And yes, if you're sitting there thinking, "That robot sounds like it's being voiced by Wanda Sykes!' you're right. For the whole game. Wanda Sykes is this game's ClapTrap...except this game also has a ClapTrap. And the largest douchebro to ever douchebro in the form of the game's other main character, Valentine.

A whole game full of this.

'Tiny Tina's Wonderlands' had everything it needed for excellence, including people lined up around the block to consume it...and yet they somehow messed it up. This is a perfect example of the one thing worse than a bad game:

One that's disappointing and boring.

...God, I wish that was all of it. I do. It's not though.

- This game was not designed for Last-Gen consoles. Anyone playing on one will have a distinct disadvantage when it comes to load times and frame rates. 

- The problem with cell-shaded worlds is that you need stronger foreground and background contrast so that you can actually...I dunno, SEE SHIT. Like enemies. This game didn't get that memo. It's a gorgeous game but it's very difficult to see the enemies, especially if you want to play couch co-op with someone. And speaking of couch co-op...

- The co-op interface for BL3 was so bad that my wife and I put the game down after about three hours of playing and never went back. Ever. They're using that same interface for Wonderlands and they've somehow made it EVEN MORE CROWDED. Things get especially painful when you're trying to do any kind of work in your inventory like...say, comparing stats on your new loot. Which you have to do ALL. THE. TIME. because the game spams it everywhere and the vast majority of it is absolute garbage. Consider this your warning, kids: Don't play couch co-op in landscape mode. Do it in portrait mode. Or don't do it at all because it's really fucking frustrating.

- The map in this game is a Greek tragedy, due largely to that contrast thing I was talking about earlier. You can't see anything useful on it like, again, ENEMIES, unless you've got your nose pressed up against the TV. The game tends to spread those enemies out in lush environments too, so you sort of...need that map. Oh well.

- So many of the game's enemies are boring skeletons that are voiced by the same few people who have been voicing the psychos and other BL enemies for years and years that it's just...boring.

- ...Breaking the fourth wall is risky but the payoff can be awesome if you're Wade Wilson. Breaking the 16th wall is REALLY DUMB and never, ever a good idea. Even Wade Wilson backs away from it. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

- For a $60 triple A title, this game is -SHORT-. The Borderlands Games have all been pretty massive but this one's...well, it's not, hence my use of the word 'short'. Yes, there are side-quests. Yes, there's DLC that you will no doubt have to pay for unless you bought the Chaotic Great edition. (Sadly, I did...) I'm afraid that somehow doesn't make it any better.

"But...Steve," you stammer, "Isn't there -anything- about this game that you like?"

Actually, yes. 'Wonderlands' does get one thing very, VERY right, and it does it in a really surprising fashion. See, the character creator for this game? Not only is it bonkers flexible, it pretty much allows you to create whoever you want outside of the boundaries of normal binary genders. The game doesn't even -have- normal genders for the two major body types. It's just 'This One' or 'That One'. When it's time to pick voices, you get a list of voices A, B, C, and so on, but again, no preconceived notions of binary gender. 

This would be a staggering achievement on its own but its also somehow accomplished without rubbing anyone's face in anything. It's just...there. No fanfare, no banners, it's just there. Just options. Steps forward should be taken in this way pretty much all across the board. 2K is to be applauded for this and hopefully they'll carry such behaviors forward in their other games. Hopefully other development houses will pay attention.

...At least until the game starts.  You can pretty much ignore it after that and go back to playing 'Assault On Dragon Keep'.