We stopped by the Nyko booth at E3 last week and got an overview of the new products being developed by the popular accessory maker. Michael Quiroz of Nyko gave us a personal walk through of a variety of next generation products for both the console and portable / mobile markets. highlighted products include the new power charging sleds for XBOX One and PS4 controllers, smart clips for Xbox Glass, and carrying cases for NVIDIA’s Project Shield.

Check it out:
   

At E3 last week Trio rolled out a much smaller presence than they had in previous years.  Instead of a large on the floor booth they had a quiet meeting room upstairs up and away from all of the E3 hullabaloo.  Honestly it was a little depressing in that the company had rolled out very large booths at the last few shows.
 
Inside the room they had stations setup for ArcheAge their new MMO (Travis will have more on this later) and the upcoming DLC for Defiance, the action online game they released earlier this year.    There's not an official name for the DLC but it will be out later this month for the reasonable price of $9.99.
 
For your money you'll get one new race, the uber pale Castithans as well as their signature weapon, the Castithan Blade.  Which if you watch the show it's the blue blade that Datak Tarr menacingly wields  in most of the episodes.  Folks who don't have the DLC will be able to randomly pick it up in drops but those that purchase the DLC will have the ability to bypass the loot grind and buy it directly from a merchant.  The blade does have a nice area of attack mode but you'll still want a gun handy as a backup. 
 
The new DLC also adds the Volge, the big hulking things from the show's pilot.  Not only do you get the Volge but you'll also get some of their weapons as well. 
 
From a gameplay mode the DLC adds a Capture and Hold mode where you and a gang of other people who have purchased the DLC will try and capture points on the map against increasingly stronger and stronger hordes of enemies.  The game does dynamically increase the difficulty based on the number of people playing the mode but it also ratchets up the loot to maintain a good risk/reward balance for players.
 
Other additions include a new four person vehicle, an arena mode, and a new Monolith Arkfall events that will allow more players to experience the joy of trying to take down one of the games harder bosses.
 
I spent about 20 minutes playing it and it does seem like a decent deal for the money.  I'm not sure it's sold me on buying a copy of the game but if you already own Defiance then this is probably going to be worth the $9.99 investment.       
 

One of the games that Sony Online Entertainment was showing off at E3 is a new free-to-play title called Dragon’s Prophet. In this world, you can ride, capture and train hundreds of dragons in a mythical world. Think of it as an action and more adult-oriented version of “How to Train Your Dragon”. Players will have to not only deal with hordes of enemies and fight againsta great evil, but also spend time capturing and “recruiting” dragons to serve them.

Dragons that you capture and train can be used for a variety of things including help in combat and to do the more menial tasks associated with most MMO’s such as resource gathering and simple crafting. It is also worth noting that even though there are distinct character classes in the game (four to be exact), character powers are drawn from the different dragons that you associate yourself with. Therefore, your sword-swinging tank can get himself some magical, Paladin-like abilities by simply hunting down the right enchanted creature(s) to accompany you on your journey.

Dragon’s Prophet is currently in open beta and available at DragonsProphetTheGame.com.
   

Travis and I stopped by NVIDIA”s booth at E3 on the last day and took a look at two things. The one thing I can discuss today is the NVIDIA Shield,  their portable Android gaming system. 

Picking up the Shield, I was surprised at how nice it felt. Balance with the 5” screen was solid and it felt pretty comfortable being held in the hand. All the sticks, buttons, and triggers felt really, really good. I like the tension that the sticks provide and the springs on the triggers were firm and responsive. The D-Pad, as well, felt good in use and that’s a hard aspect to get right on controllers.

The 5” touchscreen display provided a nice bright and clear picture, but as a user of a Galaxy Note II, it seemed a little small. That’s me, of course, since I’m used to a bigger screen, but it should hold up to most others who use more “normal” sized phones. The touchscreen was responsive and I didn’t have issues navigating the menus using it.

Inside it will be powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 4 which features a Quad-Core ARM Cortex A15s at 1.9GHz with another single low power core for tasks that won’t require the other ones being on and to help improve battery life. There are 72 custom GPU cores in the Tegra 4 to deliver some awesome graphics in a small package. 

Android 4.2.1 was on the units I tried out, but NVIDIA”s going to be pushing 4.2.2 soon. You can also expect quick updates to the latest version of Android because they don’t have to jump nearly as many hoops as say carriers to update their hardware. It, of course, remains to be seen if they do provide timely updates, but we’ll have to wait and see on this.

What was on display was the final production unit, so those that have already pre-ordered, this is what you’ll be getting, The overall package felt really good and the hinge for the display seemed strong. Also, there an HDMI output on the back so you can pair this thing up with a Bluetooth controller, plug it into a TV, and have a micro-console on your hands.

One of the Shield’s big features it the ability to stream Steam games to it, thus making it a powerful, portable gaming solution for your PC games. Unfortunately, this is limited to an internal network. Even if you have a solid connection from either LTE or a solid wired connection outside of your home, the PC streaming will not work. This is disappointing as I’ve been able to stream some of my PC games via Splashtop THD and my Transformer Infinity tablet with some success. You’re also getting things like remote play via a PlayStation 4 and a PS Vita, so I hope this is something that NVIDIA relaxes on a little bit so that maybe those that can do it will be allowed to do it.

NVIDIA’s Shield is certainly an interesting product and one that I’m going to follow closely to see how well it sells. Up close, I think the product has a solid feel to it and I think it has potential. Time will tell, but there’s no denying that the Shield looks and feels like one very high quality product.
 

The latest edition to the Plants vs. Zombies franchise might confuse and even startle fans as the series isn't usually associated with the shooter genre. With Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, the series typical gameplay has been transformed into a third-person shooter with some remaining tower defense elements in which players assume the roles of various plants in battling waves of relentless zombies and other mischievous creatures. Each of the plants that players control contain specific traits and abilities following close in line with character classes from multiplayer shooters, not surprisingly similar to Battlefield 3.

During the E3 presentation of Garden Warfare, I was immediately drawn to the visual style that's powered by EA's Frostbite engine, which is able to provide stunning graphics while still maintaining the quirky and charming world of Plants vs. Zombies. All of the plants and zombies return with new additions, but more importantly the ability to switch between the direct control of plants on the actual battlefield. Plants ranging from the sniper-like cactus to the unit-healing sunflower were showcased during the presentation, each containing special abilities such as a precision corn missile strike and even a sun beam blast. I particularly enjoyed the variety between each of the plant's roles on the battlefield. The player also has the power to spawn new plants at specific points in the level.

The demo ended with the plants defending the base against a zombie disco boss that literally danced through the battlefield, which then was followed by a brief clip of the returning Gargantuar. Players will have to utilize the powers of all the plants to defeat the towering Gargantuar. While the game is a major contrast from previous games in the series, it seems as it will be a refreshing addition to the franchise as players can experience the world of Plants vs. Zombies from a new perspective.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare will be available exclusively first for Xbox One and Xbox 360 and then followed for release on PC and other systems.
 

I'm not saying that Magrunner is borrowing a lot from the Portal games but both games features people being tested in an overly elaborate testing facility.  Both feature physics based puzzles based on something the user holds.  And both games have a third act that differs dramatically from the first. 
 
That said the premise of the games are very different.  In Magrunner you play Dax, one of seven "magrunners" who are competing to join MagTech's space training program.  The game has a weird Hunger Games/Running Man vibe to it as you are interviewed by media  between each puzzle and there's talk of corporate sponsorship and what not.  The sound on my headset was a bit intermittent but that's what I caught from the bits of dialogue I could make out.
 
The key puzzle solving mechanism for Magrunner is that you can flip the polarity of items between two states (positive  and negative).  Things that are both positive or both negative attract each other while items of opposite polarities will repel each other.  There's a neutral state as well but it didn't seem to come into play into the first few puzzles I played through.
 
To see how it works, here's one of the early puzzles which requires you to get to a platform that you can't reach by jumping.  To get there you stack two cubes in front of it and then charge both of them to the same polarity and then jump on the top cube.  Once you're up on the cubes you flip the polarity of the top cube and you're pushed up to a place where you can easily get where you want to go.  As you would expect the puzzles get more complex the puzzles get more complex.
 
What you might not expect is that the game goes Lovecraftian with a science fiction twist in the later levels.  I didn't get that far but looking at the screenshots below you can see that that games tone shifts from the sanitary white world of the tests to something darker later on in the game.
 
I did enjoy what I played although I wish they had skipped the obnoxious elevator segments that transport you between levels and hide the fact that the game is loading stuff in the background.  They do cover it with the press interviews and what not but I'm wondering why the entire game can't be streamed a bit better.  Either way the game is coming out later this month and we should have our review of the full game shortly after it's available.  

Six of our staff members have fallen into a fitful post-E3 hibernation. Medical staff are on standby. The rest of us can get punch drunk on Zeno Clash 2, or see how Juno has apparently made The Last of Us one of the best games of the year--and perhaps of this console generation. But if you're saving your lunch money for a new console, you might be tackling that mean old backlog instead. 

What are you playing this weekend?

Russell Archey | staff writer | Twitter @neoscyther
I'll be playing a couple of classics this weekend that allow me to travel through time as well as alter the seasons how I wish--yeah, I'm playing through Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages on the 3DS eShop.  Since I'm reviewing both of these games, I'm playing through Seasons first as I've beaten that several times before (with and without a linked password from Ages), then playing through Ages with the password from the end of Seasons, though as far as I know the "linked ending" is the same regardless of which one you go through first.

Nathaniel Cohen | staff writer | Twitter @seven_hells
Let's see, I'll be playing End of Ten-Year Relationship Simulator 13, then some Moving Out of State. In between, I'll probably play a lot of FIFA 13, and if all goes perfectly, The Last of Us.

Jeremy Duff | senior staff writer | Twitter @duff3c
This weekend I am going to continue adventuring as my favorite superheroes in Marvel Heroes. I don't care what anyone says, it isn't that bad and has actually been a lot of fun thus far. Hopefully I will also get some time to head out on a few D&D quests with the Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. All of this depends on whether or not I can resist the urge to spend more time with Mojang's Scrolls, which is a deadly addiction that I am currently nursing.

Charles Husemann | editor-in-chief | Twitter @chusemann
This weekend will be all about recapping the amazing stuff we saw at E3 this week as well as playing some of The Last of Us and trying to get caught up on sleep and food. The intensely frustrating thing about E3 every year is seeing some amazing games and then having to wait to play them. I'm somewhat tempted to buy some of the Borderlands 2 DLC as I really liked what I saw out of Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep this week and I really need to reacquaint myself with the game and my character.

Randy Kalista | staff writer | Twitter @randykalista
Tutorials: done. Now, essentially, I'm free to pursue any personal or corporate objective I can think up in EVE Online. Just listening to chatroom chatter, though, tells me there's no money in scavenging for salvage. Still there's something about scanning down hidden sites around solar systems, poking my ship into darkened space ruins, and hitting occasional paydirt that appeals to my inner archaeologist. 

The Walking Dead: 400 Days will serve as "connective tissue" between the first season of the game and the second.  The DLC will be about the same size as a normal episode of the game but will be broken down into five different stories which occur at various points during the first 400 days of the zombie outbreak.
 
Each story will focus on a new character but all of them will somehow connect to the Atlanta truck stop from the first game.  As you would expect the decisions you make in the DLC will impact what happens in Season 2 of the series but what you might not expect is that the decisions from the first season will impact what happens in the DLC. The TellTale team was mum on what those could be so we'll have to wait for the game to be released next month to find out.
 
The short presentation we saw at E3 featured Vince, a man who apparently kills someone at the start of the episode and  is captured, convicted, and sentenced to jail time.  I use the word apparently because this is The Walking Dead and things are never as they seem.  Vince's story occurs on the second day of the outbreak and we find him on a prison bus with several other prisoners.  
 
As Vince chats with some of his fellow guests we learn more about them and the crimes they were accused of.  One prisoner is a white collar criminal who swindled $180M before being caught while the other was convicted of illegally touching a minor.  We also learn that the prisoners have been stuck in the hot Georgia sun conflict in a bus with windows that don't open.  As the conversation between Vince and his companions continues, the heat gets to two prisoners and as you would from a Walking Dead property people start dying and then coming back to life.
 
The tension of being confined to a prison bus with a flesh eating zombie is amplified significantly by the fact that Vince and his companions are chained to the floor.  The game immediately forces you to make difficult decisions about who lives and who dies and it's all classic Walking Dead drama. 
 
From what I saw it looks like 400 Days is going to be a great transition between the two seasons.  The writing is spot on and it leverages all of the familiar tropes of the Walking Dead universe.  It's also a subtle reminder for people like me that I need to go back and finish the first season of the game.  
 

I admit, I'm not very well versed in the Assassin's Creed series. Having not played any, I was going into the demo of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag with an open mind. Coming out, I was so thoroughly impressed that I became one who was indifferent to the series to wanting to purchase the game on day one.

The hands off demo focused on the exploration aspect of the game. We were shown the map of the entire gaming world, which is a large portion of the Caribbean. There's a three large cities to explore and a vast amount of seas to sail so you should have plenty to do in the game. The studio wanted to truly model the locale that would be hanging around and you could see that in the detail presented in simulating the population of the town.

The demo had Edward picking up an assassination contract, which is a side quest. Tasked with taking down twins, Edward proceeds to the area where the marker dictates where the two are. He quickly dispatches with one while the other target runs off. There are several ways you can dispatch your targets and the demo showed what happens when someone jumps on their boat and takes off. Edward proceeded to his boat and I got a taste of ship to ship combat.

Ship to ship combat is quite frantic in Assassin's Creed IV. The boats move relatively quickly and are quite maneuverable. The first part involves damaging the opposing ship enough so that you can board it. There are visual cannon path lines that you can adjust to see how the cannonballs will fire. You may sometimes opt for a straight shot, or you can lob cannonballs into the middle of the ship. Once enough damage has been done, the two ships link up for a boarding scenario.

Before Edward jumps over to the other ship, he can take a small cannon and pick off some soldiers on the other boat. Now, the amount of crew you have is important here as with more crew, there's less fights you need to do so it's prudent to keep a large group on your ship. The person playing the demo displayed Edward's effortless movement vertically and horizontally as Edward traversed the masts and sails to get to the other boat. Once the other target has been dispatched, and in the demo there was an incredible dive from the sail posts down to the target, you're given a few choices. Beforehand, you could use a spyglass to look at a boat and see what salvaging possibilities there here. With that knowledge, you can then decide what you would like to do. One possibility is to use the boat to repair the damage on your own boat. You could also capture this boat into your fleet and set it to work for you. It's really up to you and the ship combat before the final siege is truly exciting to watch.

The weather in Assassin's Creed IV is dynamic and can play a part in helping or hindering you. The demo showed off the quick and sudden change to a hard rain and off in the distance was a hurricane. If you're savvy enough, you can use the hurricane to your advantage, but it's a dangerous proposition. 

Some islands can contain alive or dead NPC. With those that are alive, you can recruit them and loot them. Dead ones can also hold valuable information. For the demo, a dead person on a remote island had a treasure map on him. Now viewing the map only showed a few clues, and it's up to you to figure out what it means. Edward was then lead to the place where the map was referring to and some of the new items were shown. Edward has a dart gun that he can use with various poison darts. The one used caused the enemy to go crazy and attack his friends, causing a good distraction for Edward to walk by. After fighting some enemies and finding he area designated by the map, Edward was able to dig up the treasure containing a large amount of gold and blueprints for a more powerful weapon. 

I should mention while sailing to the island with the treasure, I saw a whale jump out of the water near the boat, which was a pretty impressive sight. You can than relay information about the whale back to your base to get them to hunt the beast if you so desire.

The game looked absolutely gorgeous though. The lush Caribbean landscape combined with the incredibly rendered seas made for a beautiful game to watch. Also, the way Edward almost glides between areas as he traverses the terrain is almost hypnotic. Assassin's Creed IV is a visually impressive game to behold.

They were also demonstrating the second screen option for Black Flag as well, which seems to be a hot trend this year. You can use a tablet to see where your ship is on the map as well as direct some orders to your base. Also, any treasure map hints can be shown on the tablet so you can easily reference it without having to do it in game as you are playing. I was pretty impressed by what you can do and see with the second screen option and I think I'd use it a lot while playing Assassin's Creed IV.

As Calvin Candie would say, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. I was pleasantly blown away by what I saw with the demo and I'm now anxious to pick up the game. I guess I should play the first few to get a handle on the series, but I'll definitely be seeing the full game on my PC once it's released.?

Where do you go after such an incredible experience with Batman: Arkham City? Why you go back to the beginning. And that's what Warner Bros Montreal has done with Batman: Arkham Origins. 

Taking place Christmas Eve in the early years of Batman's existence, Black Mask is offering a rather large bounty to anyone that can kill the Batman. The amount of money draws all sorts of criminals to Gotham and Batman has to survive them all hunting him down trying to collect the reward.

I was able to sit down and play through about a 30 minute demo of the game. The graphics look about the same, but I was told there were some minor improvements that might not jump out to anyone. It still looks really, really nice to me and I've become quite fond of the art style that this series uses to portray the Dark Knight. 

The first half of the demo feels very familiar as you are introduced to the combat system. That free-flowing style that makes Batman such a joy to watch when he's fighting is all here and nothing's change. Warner Bros Montreal specifically stated they didn't want to change anything that's worked so well in two games so they pretty much left that alone with some minor improvements. Having not played Arkham City in so long, it didn't take much time for me to feel comfortable in fighting a group of thugs and taking them down with extreme prejudice.

Two new enemies were on display in the demo. The first one is a big brute with armor, that can't be taken down until the armor has been removed. You need to do three cape stuns to bring the brute down and then a multitude of quick hits to finally be able to pull the armor off. Only then can you finish the brute off, and of course you have to deal with the multiple foot soldiers that surround him at the same time.

Another new enemy is a karate expert and in the demo there were two I had to deal with. When alone, they were a handful as they did many quick hits as well as countering your hits. When the two are near you, you can almost expect a pounding as they work together well in punishing you with quick hits. 

Now, what got me a little excited is an improved detective dynamic. Walking around, I witnessed a helicopter go down in front of me. Using improved detective vision, I scanned an area near the site of the crash to get a clue. With that evidence in the computer, the crime scene gets recreated in front of you, but only in small parts. You're able to fast forward and rewind the bit that's recreated to show you even more clues of what happened. The crash site had the helicopter tail missing so I did a search to see that it hit a sign before it went down. Examining an area in the crime produced more data points, thus recreating more of the crime scene to view. Rewinding again, I found the tail section missing in the other area. Scanning the tail section revealed a bullet hole which led to the recreation at the point of the bullet striking the helicopter. Seeing the laser from the sniper scope, I swung over to the origin of the laser to find a dead SWAT sniper. Scanning the sniper, I found that it wasn't him that shot the bullet, but it was a bullet that ricocheted from another area that took out the SWAT member and then the helicopter. Only a select few can do this and this lead me to the conclusion it was Deadshot who was behind this all along. So, this was a simple example of piecing together clues to solve what happened at the crime scene and tapping into the detective element of the world's greatest detective.

New gadgets, of course, will be making its way into Arkham Origins. The one thing I played with during the demo was a batarang with a line attached to it. You can use this a few different ways. For one, you can shoot it between two gargoyles and create a line where Batman can walk on. You can use this to drop down on unsuspecting criminals and take them out. Another effective way is to shoot it at an enemy and latch it to an exploding barrel making for an easy takedown. That's just one example of a new gadget that's going to be available in the game.

The final part of the demo revealed the Joker as he toys with Batman and blows up a large, uninhabited building. The Joker's design seems more sinister than the last few games with a more jagged look on parts of his face. That infectious Joker laugh and humor ends the demo and my time with the game until its released date.

It's maybe a new studio, but my quick time with Batman: Arkham origins is one of my most memorable from the show. As a big fan of the first two games, I have very high hopes for this one and playing the demo hasn't dashed any of that. Let's hope that it lives up to the others upon release in October 25.

Also I have to make a quick mention of Blackgate, the Sony VITA game that's also coming out taking place in the same universe. While I didn't get a chance to play much, I thought the game looked fabulous on the hand held. It takes place three months after Blackgate and features some minor spoilers if you haven't finished Origins. The quick scene I saw had Batman meeting Catwoman for the first time. Like I said, it looked pretty good with the short amount of time I had with it, but I definitely need to play more to really know how well it holds up.

Bethesda's going into the survival horror genre and who better to lead this charge than Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil series. Mr. Mikami was on hand to talk about his latest project in that he wants to take survival horror back to its roots with this game. He wants you to experience unimaginable fear and to feel that triumph when you overcome those fears. That means you're low on resources, low on ammo, and low on the feeling of being safe for any amount of time.

The Evil Within has you playing Detective Sebastian Castellanos in a third person view and what was shown was the beginning of the game as well as a sequence from later on. For the beginning, you arrive with a few fellow officers to the Beacon Mental Hospital. It's raining outside with plenty of empty police cars in the parking area in front. As you enter the hospital, you see plenty of dead people strewn about and Sebastian makes his way to the security office. In there, he watches a security camera where three officers get brutally murdered by some ghostly apparition. Suddenly, the apparition appears behind Sebastian and knocks him out.

Sebastian then wakes up, hanging upside down, in a room with a very disturbing figure who I'll call the butcher.This hulking figure wears a white tank top and some weird contraption that surrounds his head. You hear, but don't see, him take a cleaver and cut off the upper half of one of the bodies hanging in the room and watch him drag it to a table for more mutilation. Detective Sebastian is able to cut himself down with a help of a knife sticking into a dead body hanging near him and proceeds to stealthily steal a key from the butcher to unlock his way out of the room.

Unfortunately, as Sebastian is trying to sneak away, he trips an alarm alerting the butcher who grabs a chainsaw and starts to chase the protagonist. What follows is an intense scene where Sebastian runs down a corridor and the camera is focused on Sebastian from behind. You hear the butcher getting closer and closer with his chainsaw in tow. The butcher catches up to Sebastian and takes a swipe, cutting the back of one of his legs. From now to the end of the first part, Sebastian walks with a heavy limp, making him even more vulnerable.

Sebastian then continues to sneak around the hospital area as the butcher searches for him. There's the often used scene of hiding inside a locker and seeing the butcher walk by through a slit, hoping that he doesn't turn around and open the door to your hiding spot. The limping causes more tension as you know you won't be able to run away from the butcher quickly, should he find you. After some more intense sequences sneaking around the butcher, Sebastian finally gets away, barely, in an elevator only to walk outside to see a devastated city.

The second scene shown has Sebastian walking through an old building. Zombies come slowly lumbering towards Sebastian and he's able to take one down with a headshot. With another, he fires enough bullets into the body to knock it down and then proceeds to burn it with a torch. A nice sequence shown is the ability to set some traps. Sebastian uses some mines placed under windows and doors to fend off a hoard of zombies coming at him. In another area, Sebastian is walking down a hallway when suddenly a wave of blood comes rushing towards him.

When it clears, Sebastian is in another place. Instead of an old, dilapidated building, he's now in some medical facility. In the middle at the end of the corridor lies a pile of bodies. All around, there are blood streaks and bloody hand prints. Suddenly, a monster made up several appendages come ripping through the bodies and chases you. Thus ends the intense demo of The Evil Within.

?The game uses both video and audio effectively to convey a sense of fear. There's a grainy film like view to the world and intense music as well as disgusting sound effects combine together to really set the mood. The visuals seem very Resident Evil like to me and the designs of both the creatures and environments make for a truly horrific looking experience. All told, The Evil Within looks incredibly intense and a game that can offer up a truly horrifying experience.

I wrapped up the main campaign for Borderlands II a few months after the game was released and haven't been back since.  Some of the DLC has looked interesting but nothing has really screamed "Play Me"  That is about to change as playing the first 25 minutes of Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep has convinced me to return to Pandora.
 
The upcoming DLC has the vault hunter sitting around with Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai  back at Sanctuary playing "Bunkers and Badasses", a Dungeons and Dragons like game.  Tiny Tina is the "Bunker Master" of the game and leading the crew through their first game. 
 
What hit me immediately was how good the writing was as the dialogue was spot on with a perfect mix of humor and sweetness.   I can't say more without ruining one of the major plot points of Borderlands 2 but there's a wonderful exchange between Lilith and Tina that I hope pays off later in the game.
 
The actual game action is you fighting your through the game that Tina is running.  This isn't just a linear quest though, the world changes as she changes her mind about what the question contains.  She starts out with a happy village (complete with a rainbow over it) before changing it to a dark and dreary world.  All of this happens in real time which adds a almost Looney Tunes feel to the game (this is a very good thing). 
 
The game does take a few shots at the traditional tropes of D&D like having to roll for initiative but it's done in a loving way.  Even the first set of enemies are typical D&D fare as you face hordes of skeleton archers and swords men.  You also run across Skeleton Minotaurs or "Skeletaurs" which brought a quick smile to my face.
 
I will admit that I was a bit disappointed when my time with Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep expired as I was having a lot of fun.  I'm looking forward to seeing where the rest of the plot goes  as I have a feeling that the DLC is setting up a pretty emotional moment but I won't know until I get a bit further into the game.  Even if it doesn't this looks like a must have pick up for Borderlands 2 fans.