Episode 133 - Bobblehead Sneak King - Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

The coolest sword in the whole world: the Sword of Podcasts,
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about
Tiny Tina’s Wonderland, an FPS developed by Gearbox and a spin off
of the Borderlands franchise. For a spin off title, the game
mechanically plays much the same as any other Borderlands game, but
with its priorities flipped around a bit and with a different
narrative and theme. Rather than the wasteland-y aesthetic the
series is known for, this title (while still existing in that
universe) has table top role playing games as its central conceit,
with you playing a character in a campaign being run by Tiny Tina
from Borderlands 2 (and presumably onward). This RPG theming is
more than a coat of paint, but not by too much, which could be a
good or bad thing depending on your tastes and how much you like
the Borderlands franchise. There’s a lot of fantasy style creatures
in the form of wyverns and skeletons and the like, but at its core
you are still shooting guns, grenades have been replaced by spells
which have similarly varied effects like grenade mods. Class mods
are armor, shields have become wards, etc. The mechanics are all
still present here, but with a flavor overhaul, and the world and
story have been restructured to match the fantasy ideas. If you’re
familiar with Borderlands, I can’t explain much more about the
mechanics you don’t already know, so jump into the podcast to hear
us talk about the RPG systems in the form of skill trees and player
customization, voice casting in a triple A game and how that
effects how we feel about the dialogue and writing, and we use
Comedy Algebra to explain the phenomenon of finding something funny
when you’re 18 and ceasing to find it funny at 30. Thank you for
joining us again this week! Borderlands isn’t a game in our typical
wheelhouse as far as the podcast goes, but the idea of playing a
new shooter seemed like it would satisfy a craving for (one of) us,
so here we are. Is this the type of game you’d like to hear us talk
more about? Are you a Borderlands fan from way back? Did the
writing in this game land for you, and did you engage with the
endgame content gear grind? Let us know over in our Discord or in
the comments below. Next time, we’re curling back up into a ball
and getting cozy under the familiar adventure game blanket to talk
about Night in the Woods, so we hope you’ll join us for that!