June 21, 2013 by Paul Curtin
In all the years I’ve attended E3, I’ve never seen a bigger line with a bigger wait than last year for the 20-minute demo of Borderlands 2. Not playing the first game, 2K’s demo just dropped you right into the world of Borderlands with very little explanation of how everything worked or what was going on in terms of the story. For a game as massive and complex as Borderlands 2, jumping right in and trying to get the full experience in just 20 minutes can be pretty difficult and not that much fun of an experience, even with the game looking and playing amazing.
Admittedly, when I went to check out Borderlands 2 again this year, just like last year, I certainly wasn’t as hyped to play it as most would be — and considering E3 is mostly about brand new games that are months away from their release, playing DLC for a game that came out eight months ago wasn’t helping my level of excitement.
However, I must say, that right away I was hooked in by the concept and execution of Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. The final piece of story DLC in the Season Pass for Borderlands 2 shows just how far Gearbox has come with the development of the series and that they’ve saved their best for last.
In the new Tiny Tina DLC, players will enter the fantasy-based world of “Bunkers & Badasses,” a tabletop game inspired by “Dungeons & Dragons” that the characters in Borderlands play themselves. The best part of the DLC is how the characters are playing B&B during the story and you’re seeing their fantasies come to life in real-time during the gameplay. Giant dragon bosses will warp into cute little skeleton bosses named “Mr. Boney Pants Guy” and even entire environments will switch from lush green forests with sunny skies filled rainbows to dead forests that have corpses hanging from bare tree limbs.
A lot of the ideas and tech showcased in the demo I got to play was unlike anything I’ve seen before in a game. Not only was Tiny Tina’s DLC beautiful, but it was also filled with parts that made me crack a smile or even chuckle, it makes me want to go back to Borderlands 2 after not being blown away by the gameplay the first time around and should be something that fans of the series are really looking forward to. Check out the first five minutes of what I saw and what you can expect from Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep when it comes out on June 25th, 2013.
