The Videogame Corner: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

Game: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: Action Role-playing game, Loot-Shooter
Releases: 2022 (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)

After “Gearbox” massacred the story of the “Borderlands” franchise in “Borderlands 3”, they had to produce some other direction to work into for Triple A looter-shooter action. Someone probably mentioned the following in a meeting one day: “That one “Borderlands 2” DLC about “Dungeons & Dragons” was really popular, why not make more of that?” And the rest is history, because they made exactly that game: “Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands” gives the role of dungeon master to the annoying loudmouth the “Borderlands” community seems to love so much and equipped with books, minitatures and dice we can wander into (and wonder about) a completely new direction in terms of storytelling in a “Borderlands”-esque game. One player in our Discord group asked if I was down to playing the game, seeing as I hate the character of Tiny Tina with a passion, but I ensured him that I played through all “Borderlands” titles before and I am sure not skipping this instance of looting and shooting either. So, after about twenty hours, here are my thoughts on Tiny Tina’s roleplaying campaign.

The Videogame Corner: Borderlands 3

Game: Borderlands 3
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: Loot-Shooter
Releases: 2019 (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One), 2020 (PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S)

So, here we are again. After all the games the “Borderlands” franchise had to offer, there is really only one title (currently) left for me to write about: “Borderlands 3”. Now, I played none of the “Borderlands” games right when they came out since I do not see a reason to pay the full price from them when I can pick them up for way less in the foreseeable future (by the way, I do purchase games for the full price, but “Borderlands” is not one of those titles). The same was true for “Borderlands 3”, but while I went with my budget approach of simply picking it up for cheap at a later stage, there were a lot of other players that also decided to wait a little while longer, albeit for vastly different reasons. The case of “Borderlands 3” was certainly one of drama and controversy. Now, my name is not “Keemstar” and I do not want to go on a “DramaAlert”-level for longer than I need to, so I’ll keep it brief: Randy Pitchford, Chief Executive Officer of Gearbox Software, alienated quite a bit of the community by making a deal with Epic Games and allowing them to be the only distribution platform to get “Borderlands 3” on for the first six months. There were quite a few people boycotting this deal and simply refusing to buy the game from the Epic Game Store, who also spend the newly gained “Borderlands”-free time to review-bomb the other “Borderlands” games to voice their disdain.

Also, there was something about an USB drive that belonged to Randy Pitchford being left in a restaurant that apparently had Gearbox-sensitive documents as well as pornographic material that Mr Pitchford said he kept on the drive due to the fact that the actress performing what seemed to be a “magic trick” that he wanted to study further. Worse even, that content was apparently also deemed to be child pornography during some point of the discussion due to the “actress” apparently not being 18 at the time of shooting the footage, even though that was more or less deemed to be untrue; I mean, you all know how fast faulty information can travel on the internet. Add to this mess that there was an assault on David Eddings by Randy Pitchford, and the fact that Eddings was fired later down the line after the incident and therefore is not in a position to do the voice acting for Claptrap anymore; which apparently was something that he did not received any payment from Gearbox for anyway. As you can see, there was quite a lot going on with the figurehead of Gearbox Software, which then reflected badly onto their flagship franchise. But like I said, I am not writing this article for the drama. If you are interested to find out more about the things I have hinted at, feel free to give it a google search, but while Mr Pitchford seems to be a rather unpleasant person from what you can find online, I would like to take a “Death of the Author”-approach to “Borderlands 3” and write about it for what it is: A videogame. I am aware that Pitchford is not the sole producer, writer and programmer of the game, but I feel like it is only fair to not judge the game as an end-product for stuff that happened during its development. So, let us do just that.

The Videogame Corner: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Game: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: Loot-Shooter
Releases: 2014 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360), 2015 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One), 2020 (Nintendo Switch)

Welcome to part three of the Borderlands reviews on Cubic Creativity. Last time, we talked about the story of the new Vault Hunters that have to stop the big bad evil in form of Handsome Jack from doing all the evil deeds that he inevitably does. However, when I talked about “Borderlands 2”, I already hinted at the fact that Handsome Jack was not just Jack, but John, a corporate employee of Hyperion, at some point in the past. No evil agenda or grand scheme was planned yet; in fact, the only thing this past Jack was thinking about was to keep the lives of innocent people protected, which in his case meant stopping the military force storming the Helios Moonbase from using its laser willy-nilly. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let us start at the beginning:

The Videogame Corner: Borderlands 2

Game: Borderlands 2
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: Loot-Shooter
Releases: 2012 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360), 2014 (PlayStation Vita), 2015 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One), 2020 (Nintendo Switch)

I have talked about “Borderlands” before, the game that more or less invented the genre of the so-called “Looter-Shooter”. Well, “Borderlands” was enough of a hit to see a sequel in form of “Borderlands 2”, and yes, I have also played that title for quite a while. This time though, there is no bigger intro: I cannot remember when I bought “Borderlands 2”, but I can tell you that I did not buy it straight away when it came out and I did not even pay the full price for it. My group of friends on Discord simply searched for another game that could be played in multiplayer mode, so we eventually ended up playing the game together. So, without further ado, here is my opinion on “Borderlands 2”:

The Videogame Corner: Borderlands

Game: Borderlands
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: Loot-Shooter
Releases: 2009 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360), 2019 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One), 2020 (Nintendo Switch)

The year is 2009. My friend Marcel and I are in his room, I have a gamepad in my hand and play some non-descript games while he is lingering on his bed, watching me play. A friend of their family, and the husband of Marcel’s sister today, enters the room and tells us about the newest game he bought: “Borderlands”. He tells us that the graphics are stunning, and there are millions of weapons in the game to shoot the numerous enemies with. We both stated that millions of weapons are definitely too many and that there are flashy weapons in other games too, for example in “Ratchet & Clank 3” (which is a very good game in its own right, by the way). Back then, the friend’s enthusiasm was unbroken, but he accepted that we did not share his opinion then and closed the door again to go on with his day. This was not the argument that brought me to buy the game that was described that day. Nonetheless, I own “Borderlands”; even the original boxed version that I bought months later when I was looking for a new game to play in our local game store and saw a shiny red box on one of the store’s shelves.