Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was a bi꧙t of a letdown. I think part of that has to do with my own excitement for the game; nobody else seemed to care much pre-launch, but it was one of my most anticipated titles of the year. I love Borderlands and I love Dungeons & Dragons, so I was hoping for a marriage of the two. Instead, I got a Borderlands game, with all the over-loaded with loot faults of a Borderlands game, dressed up in fantasy garb that made the constant presence of seven machine guns every time I kill an enemy a🏅ll the more frustrating. However, I would still heartily recommend it. My disappointment that it was not the dark horse GOTY candidate I expected it to be does not mean disaster. If I had to sell it to you in a single word, I’d cheat and say two: Will Arnett.
Will Arnett is a fantastic actor, and seems like a pretty stand-up human being. He’s one of the pure celebrity souls I sometimes worry about, like what if one day they tweet a pictꦕure of an expensive monkey, or what if they secretly harbour completely unfounded ideas about Palestine that they only discuss once they’ve had a few too many. I like him, but I don’t know much about him, basically. I hope he’s not a dick in real life. Anyway, he is a dick in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, where he plays the central big bad. If for nothing else, you need to play Tiny Tina for Arnett.
Arnett is the hammiest villain video games have ever seen this side of The Last of Us, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. It does occasionally slip into BoJack territory, but even then it’s ‘BoJack when he’s deliberately being mean’ rather than just when he’s running around stealing the Hollywoo D or delivering eulogies at the wrong funeral. Ashly Burch’s Tina is probably her most energetic character, certainly of her biggest hitters, and definitely the most differ🌃ent from her usual voice. Meanwhile, Arnett is joined by fellow celebrity cast mates Andy Samberg and Wanda Sykes, who each have distinctive voices and share an ‘always on’ energy, making the voice acting pop much more than in the typically grim, gritty, and underplayed tones of many modern video games.
While the overall gameplay wasn’t quite what I signed up for, Arnett giving it his best Shatner as a D&D villain was exactly what this game prom🎃ised. It’s a shame the repetitive encounters where you fight waves of faceless enemies didn’t have that fun, taking-tabletop-a-bit-too-seriously energy to it, but Arnett does. It’s just a Bord❀erlands game, except this one has Will Arnett in it. Not the most complex pitch in the world, granted, but you can’t deny it’s a compelling one.
Things do get strangely meta at one point, and I’m not sure it’s for the better. Arnett - who is essentially playing a fake character who only exists within the tabletop game your own character is currently playing - takes control of the game himself at od🍃d intervals, gaining sentience and wresting control away from Tina herself. It makes zero sense, but by that point in the game you’re invested enough in the silliness that plot sense doesn’t really come into it.
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It's rare that I would advise people to buy a video game for the celebrity cast. It can often result in phoned in, disjointed performances when Hollywood muscles in on video games' turf, kicking out experienced pros for a name you can slap on the trailer in the hopes of picking up a few more players, even if it results in a less successful product overall. We've seen this even when video games head to tinsel town, with Chris Pratt dislodging the legendary Charles Martinet from his lifelong role as Mario. Then again, Anya Taylor-Joy is the perfect Peach so what are you going to do?
I'll tell you what you're gonna do. You're gonna buy Tiny Tina's Wonderlands for Will Arnett, that's what. The deliciously hammy villain is the perfect fit for Borderlands, even if it turns out that Dungeons & Dragons isn't quite.
