Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Roll for initiative suckas!

This Borderlands off-shoot is all set in the in universe RPG world of Bunkers and Badasses, featuring Tiny Tina as your resident "Bunker Master" and all the humor and a few cameos from familiar faces from the original franchise. It's the most woke of the games (because its Tina's world after all) and got swords, magic and ... guns? Yep, looks like they kept that bit but added a touch of magic to them with my favorite firearms eventually being the ones that fired multiple enemy tracking magic missiles and "regained" ammo when not being fired.

While the voice acting and story is ok (don't expect it to advance any Borderlands related thing) it is certainly a smaller game. Major areas are still medium to large sized maps but everything else is set on the "Overworld" which is a much more convenient way to reach exploration sites (at which point you unlock the teleporters there and can fast"er" travel around). Getting ambushed or going into the mini dungeons there just puts you in a randomized map (maybe 12 variants at most) where you simply have to kill everything that spawns.

It feels a bit cheap but also very on brand. Other than the main quest there's lots of things to do on the side and things to collect for those with a knack for exploration. While it did get repetitive at times it was quite enjoyable. The ocean blessing song in particular was super effective!

Some Epic Misses

Games I got from Epic's freebies that I didn't get into.

Aven Colony

A space colony builder and management game where all your structures must be connected by -roads- tubes, and all your people kept happy and fed and zzzzzz... Obviously not my type of game, but the graphics and controls are ok so it might interest the builder types among you.

Guild of Dungeoneering

A card based game where you build a dungeoneering guild and send adventurers to -their deaths- collect gold from the dungeons which you also build based on a random deck of cards. Also outside of combat (again card based), you can't really control your adventurer. Instead you need to spawn gold to lure them places. While I like the funny songs that get played the rest of the game doesn't really do it for me.

That's actually a good hand.

KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION

Not a game, an experience. A trippy Radiohead experience... which is also garbage. Stay away.

Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragonkeep (Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure)

While I did enjoy this Borderlands II DLC and can vouch that it will have funny moments in there, I think you will be doing yourself a disservice if played as it stands here - alone. The opening cinematic basically spoils Borderlands II for you, and robs you of all the other interactions you have with the characters outside the DLC. Your call.

Borderlands 2: Vanquishing Evil

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

The wizard Claptrap is as much of a failure as the regular Claptrap, but thanks to my awesome trap deactivation and jumping puzzle skills we get out of the mine and Jim rewards me with his legendary Fastball grenade because we're awesome (and he says it makes more sense tactically).

We then go up the mountain to Dragon keep, defeating the Handsome Dragon guarding a bridge and then SWORDSPLODING through an evil army before killing the Handsome Sorcerer and disemboweling his Drider-Daughter. With the villain defeated, DL sets free the beautiful rainbow queen of the land... BUTT STALLION! *NEEEEIIIGHH!*

Not so handsome after I'm through with him! Muahahaha!

After she poops out rainbow rewards for us, we learn of more evils that need squishing - starting with the whiney and cowardly prince Jeffrey (from Game of Thrones) who we take turns beating down. We then visit Murderlin's temple arena and survive all the rounds, even the bonus badass round, to learn various magic spells like fireball, chain lightning, and magic missile (regenerating grenades)!

Thus prepared, we revisit the deep mines to face the RAID DRAGONS - a ferocious foursome of winged beasts that we take down for a reward room unlike any other - we spend hours looting the treasure chest filled ruins and complete Tina's campaign!

Insight: You need to pull the swords out of the Immortal Skeletaurs to kill them permanently.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What is your earliest memory related to one of your core fandoms?" -Syp

That would be the D&D adventure where the party came across a hall full of lifelike statues with a locked door at the end, and I decided to bash it open and fall right into a basilisk den. Due to lousy initiative they got first move and I got turned to stone immediately. I was not useful that session at all. :P

Borderlands 2: The Face of Killing

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Annoyed at Pyro Pete's advanced tech, I decided it was time to even the playing field and got me some GOLDEN KEYS. 226 to be exact! With a quick trip to Sanctuary we used a whole bunch to upgrade with totally gnarly weapons which we unleashed back into Pyro Pete's FACE! MUAHAHAHAAHAH! Now we are #1 on Mr. Torque's leaderboard once again!

Acid everywhere!

Since our training to fight people has climaxed (oh my!), it was time to practice on critters and what better spot than the Hunter's Grotto - a swamp that's home to mystical and sometimes very tough vampiric tribesmen, flying spores, massive scorpions and horridly tall spiders. Riding fan boats while hunting these and the giant versions there of, we stumble upon the lab of one Dr. Nakayama who is conducting evil experiments with the local wild life to resurrect Handsome Jack, who he is totally gay for.

It's not long before we find one of his creations - a Jack Scorpion - rather, a giant scorpion with Jack's face and a Hyperion turret on its back. The thing practically kills itself. This Nakayama guy is a loser! We decide the planet will be better off if we KILL HIS FACE TOO! HAHAHAHAH!

It takes a lot of murdering to reach Nakayama's crashed space ship base, but once inside his only defenders are hyperion bots and a Jackenstein monster who I easily carve up once DL and Jim snipe off his shield generators. We don't even have to touch Nakayama as he then accidentally kills himself on some stairs! BWAHAHAHA!

Unfortunately the savage chief Ngwatu who takes his place is less of a laughing matter, as his pet stalker - Voracidious the Invincible (again!?) is another tough, fast, and hard hitting cookie that forces us to withdraw. We decide to go to our trainer, Tiny Tina, for advice and she decides to make us play Dungeons and Dragons BUNKERS AND BADASSES? All right then!

Insight: Here's how I got all those Golden Keys (for FREE of course!):

Make Shift account, link to steam or whatever. Go to rewards section.
Open this link and go through codes. There are a lot - don't forget to look at "Event Codes" tab, particularly at the bottom for unexpired keys.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What are some of the things that get you excited in life?" -Heather

New cooperative board games!

Borderlands 2: Invincible Comeback

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Lucky of us, a sponsor has recently been kidnapped in the region by Pyro Pete (Rank #4). Unlucky for him I have a fire-proof shield and beat him down in under half a minute. The sponsor turns out to be Mad Moxxi who sends us to our new trainer... Tiny Tina? WUT?

After some shenanigans with cookies, Tina sends us to participate in the DEATH RACE to train for our next battle. Somehow, both Jim and DL end up letting THE PERSON WHO HATES DRIVING (me) do the driving. Well, turns out just because I don't like it doesn't mean I'm bad at it - and successfully complete the circuit three times in a slow Bandit Technical - winning the last run by a second! I am ELATED!

Tina sends us to do a few more training missions such as getting an autograph from a serial killer and walking her dog giant flaming skag, before letting us face the overweight, cannibalistic bike rider Motor Mamma (#3) in the arena. Her arsenal manages to knock Jim down, but once her bike is destroyed she's mince meat for MY AXE! Mince meat I save for tasty snacks later. Nnnhnhnhhnnyeeesss!

With Motor Mama packed away it's time to hunt for the Rank #2 dude, "Flyboy", guarded by robots and all things flying - but Piston (Rank #1) flips the script and explodes Flyboy from his blimp before our fight can start! Piston tries to bombard us too but DL's turret and sniping skills defeat his balloon and send him crashing to the arena.

There the fight continues against his next vehicle, a monster Badassasaurus truck that Jim explodes with his dual lazers. Finally on foot, I give Piston a face full of buzz axe - splitting his face into two. IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

It's a pretty cool vehicle!

Unfortunately we don't get to keep the #1 ranking for long since Pyro Pete makes a comeback, having trained up significantly to become Pyro Pete the Invincible! What is it with everyone gaining invincibility? He's now a really tough nugget to crack and while not as impossible as Master Gee, is still enough to force the three of us to retreat!

Insight: Multiplayer can probably cheese the race by having a person wait at each checkpoint, but I did it properly meaning use the boost (F key on keyboard) during the straights, and jumping the ramp to the sky bridge also saves some time.

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Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us 5 facts about yourself." -Jen Thorpe

I'm married, I like (trying to) sing, I make diaries of most games I play, I like cooperative board games, and I dislike money grabbing/gambling lock boxes in all their forms.

Borderlands 2: Trainwreck 2 - the Wreckening

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Before going to steal the key to save the planet kinda deal, we opt to have some R&R first - delivering pizza to ungrateful lab rats, winning live grenades at the slot machines in Moxxi's bar (owie), and re-purposing a robot AI into a gun. A really cool, sentient gun.

Mmm that's some sexy pizza!

It's then off to the Tundra to hunt varkids (giant bugs) and meet with 13 year old bomb maker Tina. Varkid hunting is kinda slow thanks to local sniper Mordecai kill stealing all our shit. Anyway, Tina wants us to collect both bomb parts and tea party guests to help us steal the key, tasks that are pretty easy until an inebriated Jim murderizes the last tea party guest. Hah, and I thought I was the psycho!

Good thing Tina still makes us the rocket bombs, casually dressed as bunny dolls which we use to derail one of Jack's trains which was supposed to have his key. Of course, it's a trap. There is no key, just metal and circuits and bullets and rockets in robot shapes that we dismantle. At the same time Roland tells us that Sanctuary has come under heavy attack, and using some special gizmo Scooter rigged plus Firehawk's magic - gets the entire city airborne and teleports it of there. Our next job is simply to catch up!

Have you ever chased a flying, teleporting city before? There's a lot of ground to traverse. Ground slick with blood of the things in our way. Especially those annoying cloaking mini-dragon things. I like to hit them with corrosive bullets since the acid remains visible, even if they don't.

Insight: Letting the varkids coccoon and hatch into stronger versions is a good way to get loot.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What is a favorite Quote/s, and tell us why." -Wilhelm Arcturus

"Happy wife, happy life." because it's true! :P