Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep

Year: 2013
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Action Role-Playing
Website: http://www.borderlands2.com/dragonkeep/

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 10.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (7/24/2014):  I am really glad that I played all the way through this DLC.  I wasn't exactly tempted to NOT play through it but the first play session in this story was dissapointing.  I had just finished Campaign of Carnage DLC and completely fell in love with the Mr. Torque character.  Then I launched into a world with skeletons that were a bitch to kill.  Eventually I decided, what Campaign of Carnage had in Glee and Optimism, was displayed in Assault on Dragon Keep as Authenticity and Heart.
  
  The general story here, as one might expect from the whole "Dragon Keep" bit, is that the NPCs are playing a tabletop roll-playing game.  Full disclosure:  I LOVE tabletop roll-playing games.  My weekly gaming group ran for the better part of 10 years, playing through D&D, Earthdawn, Star Wars, Ars Magica and many others.  (I long ago stopped counting my books, as measuring poundage is more efficient.)  This experience may be part of why this content was so hard for me to get into.
  
  Here is where I get nitpicky.  In the regular Borderlands 2 world, you play as a Vault Hunter.  A distinct person, with its own existence and story and ability to do stuff.  When you set foot on the Unassuming Docks for the first time, suddenly you, the same character you have been playing through the regular campaign, are just a figment of the imagination of the NPCs.  Compounding the confusion is the apparent assertion that all three NPC players are controlling one player character through this campaign...  It is recursive, which is awesome, but it isn't internally consistent to the Borderlands 2 universe.  They even have another Vault Hunter show up in one of the cut scenes!  So the other Vault Hunters DO exist in this wacky world outside of the RPG being played, but they are a PC controlled by NPCs within a game where you control the PC that is the avatar of the game...  Ugh.
  
  All of that aside, I liked the story.  It made me feel warm and how they referenced the main story was really rewarding, for the kind of people who enjoy that in their games.  Give it a whirl if you have 8-12 hours to kill.  After you finish the main game, of course.  Playing this before that would confuse the hell out of you and spoil some pretty cool stuff.