Sorcerers, Wizards and Crumpets, oh my! Join vault hunters, old and new, in Tiny Tina's epic quest of revenge and redemption. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, the biggest and most inspired add-on content in Borderlands history, features a game within a game, as Tiny Tina takes on the role of Bunker Master in a game of 'Bunkers & Badasses'. Travel through a dark and ever changing world of castles, dungeons and magic forests as you fight off skeletons, orcs, dragons and more. Explore side missions and answer riddles as you roll your insight stat to gain new and amazing loot. Join with friends to save the queen and restore peace and order to the world once more...

Tina has created a D&D game called 'Bunkers & Badasses' for her own amusement and to test the skill of vault hunters. The writing is slick and very tongue in cheek - if you're a D&D fan then you'll get off on the nods and winks that are littered throughout this DLC. If you're not a fan then a lot of the jokes will go way over your head, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

This DLC is almost a game in its own right. I was surprised to see that the developers hadn't simply tacked on some new levels, they've redesigned the environment from the ground up - even the vending machines where you can by ammo and health have been redesigned, as have the chests that contain loot.

You play through the game and the other players chip in every now and then to tell Tina her game makes no sense - to which Tina quickly rearranges everything. The game is her creation and is in her head, so you know you're in for a bit of a silly, messed up ride.

There's one part of the game where you have to collect four letters in order to unlock the next level. When you get them, the letters are "A", "R", "F" and "T". One of your fellow gamers is convinced it's "RAFT", but knowing Tina's sense of humour... well, you can guess the word. But it doesn't matter if you can't as this isn't actually a challenge - the letters are already arranged for you to place in the correct order.

Likewise, there's a section where you have to jump on moving platforms to get to a mission objective. It soon becomes obvious it's impossible, so Tina adds more platforms. Spend another few minutes constantly dying and Tina decides to build a bridge for you.

The game is peppered with Tina's twisted, childish humour, and it's this that makes it not just an enjoyable game, but an essential one for Borderland 2 fans.

All of the enemies are brand new too - and I'm not talking about new graphics slapped onto some of the old character's movements, these are also designed from the ground up. From the first level you start to see the attention to detail with numerous different skeleton enemies - including an immortal which you can only kill for good by removing the glowing sword from its back.

There are around five main areas to the DLC, including the main village, a forest, a dwarf mine, a dungeon and a large tower (which you can see towering in the distance from other parts of the game).

The DLC can easily be completed in a few days (probably about 10 hours in total if you're rushing through it) and the fact that the final bosses don't actually offer up much in the way of useful loot is a minor disappointment (but probably the only downside in an otherwise flawless DLC). In addition, you'll need to be at least on level 30 on the main game before you'll want to try tackling the DLC, which can be accessed from the quick travel menu's at the "Unassuming Docks" location.

10

Darren Rea