Reader Opinion: Was the Strike on Iran an Urgent Necessity?

On February 28, 2026, the statewide newspaper, The Oklahoman, published a request for reader opinion on the question of "Was the Strike on Iran an Urgent Necessity?". Below is my full response as originally submitted on March 1, 2026. [I have added links and/or images to the blog that could not be submitted with the opinion piece.]

     Was the strike on Iran an urgent necessity?

    The short answer? No.

    The long answer?

        Last June, following the first strikes against Iran, the White House released a press statement headlined: “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated – and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News”. Two nights ago, when making his statement from the podium to the American People regarding these new strikes, President Trump again invoked the threat of a nuclear Iran as a justification for action. This begs the question: Was the President lying last June or is he lying now?  

        If the Iranian nuclear facilities had been obliterated and had set their nuclear ambitions back "many years" as was claimed eight months ago then there was no urgent nuclear threat by Iran. There were no indications that Iran was planning to make any moves of aggression against either the United States or Israel. Iranian leaders had been negotiating in good faith and expected that the United States was doing the same. The very afternoon before the strikes Oman’s Foreign Minister, the mediator in the negotiations, claimed there had been a breakthrough in talks and that they’d progress to further technical talks between Iranian leaders and the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. [As an aside, it is worth remembering that there had been a nuclear non-proliferation agreement in place between the United States and Iran but then President Trump, in his first term, ripped it up for no reason other than the fact it had been put in place by former President Obama.] It appears these negotiations were naught but a ruse by the Trump Administration to lower the guard of the Iranian leadership until Israel determined the best time to launch their “preemptive joint strike”.

         With the Ayatollah now deceased, the United States is responsible, once again, for creating a power vacuum in the Middle East, as we did in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. While the Iranian people are dancing in the streets today, just as Iraqi people danced in the streets when the United States deposed Saddam Hussein, there are no guarantees they will see a stable government take hold. Simply plugging in the old Crown Prince is unlikely to achieve lasting success at creating a new, US and Israel friendly, Iran. If recent history in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya is any indication, the people of Iran are in for a rough future of regional infighting and civil skirmishes. After the Iraqis finished celebrating they picked up the same weapons as Hussein's Republican Guard and pointed them toward the very people who had liberated them. Libya has been mired in a near fifteen-year long civil war since the toppling of Gaddafi. 

        During the 2024 Presidential campaign, President Trump campaigned heavily on no new wars and distancing the United States from foreign entanglements. In a 2023 opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, then-Senator J.D. Vance praised Mister Trump claiming President Trump’s “best foreign policy” was not starting any wars. The Trump campaign published campaign materials of the Trump/Vance team as “The Pro-Peace Ticket”. Stephen Miller, senior advisor to the Trump campaign, repeatedly posted on X that a vote for Trump was a vote for peace while a vote for Kamala was a vote for World War 3, and that a potential Harris cabinet would be full of warmongering neocons. 

 

        Yet, after inauguration, it is President Trump who picked up the neocon playbook and ran with it. In the first thirteen months of President Trump’s second term, he has bombed seven different countries, bombed narco-boats and seized foreign oil tankers in international waters, launched a shock-and-awe military campaign to remove Venezuela’s president, threatened military action against other Latin American countries (notably Columbia, Cuba, and Mexico), threatened military action against Greenland, signed budgets that continue to provide billions in aid to both Ukraine and Israel, and now has the United States in what appears to be a protracted engagement of regime change in Iran. As President Trump performs these actions his most ardent supporters in the White House, Congress, and on social media contort themselves into pretzels in order to explain how his actions are justifiable and still part of the “Make America Great Again” agenda.  

            There is nothing “great” about running roughshod over the international community with rampant tariffs or by saber rattling. President Trump has betrayed his promise of being a peace President, destabilized both the Middle East and Latin America, and has made America, if not the world, demonstrably less safe as a result. As a center-right Independent who voted for Trump in 2024 primarily on his economic and pro-peace campaign promises, I am appalled at the direction he has taken since his inauguration. I am equally appalled at the Republicans in Congress who instantly fall in line to defend or justify President Trump’s behavior.

        The upcoming midterm elections will not be kind to the incumbent Congressional Republicans wishing to hold their seats. One can only hope they take the time to reflect as to why.

SNAP "Junk Food" Waivers: Performative Government At It's Worst

    As of 19 December 2025, eighteen states have been approved for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) waivers restricting the purchase of "junk food" with government-funded SNAP benefits. While I'm fundamentally in agreement with why these states have applied for these waivers, I find the entire implementation to be nothing more than performative government posturing at its worst.

    The argument that the government should restrict junk food from SNAP benefit purchases stems from the idea that many of those individuals who use SNAP are also more likely to rely on other government-funded programs for their healthcare, such as Medicaid, Medicare, or heavily subsidized Affordable Care Act marketplace plans. Likewise, there have been many studies, such as this one by the National Institute of Health's Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition from 2014, which prove that individuals on SNAP are more likely to be overweight or obese and eat a poorer quality diet than those not on SNAP. 

    In other words, by allowing junk food to be purchased, the government is not only spending billions on the front-end but also spending billions on the back-end when SNAP users' poor eating habits turn into inevitable poor health outcomes such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and other chronic ailments. I cannot argue with that logic and agree fully with it. However, the way which these current crop of waivers are being implemented will not improve health outcomes.

    I currently live in the State of Oklahoma, which was approved for one of the stricter SNAP waivers. Where most of the other states' waivers are for soda and soft drinks only, Oklahoma's waiver also includes "candy". Per the latest information on the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) page regarding SNAP waivers, Oklahoma's Department of Human Services (OKDHS) has defined "candy" thusly:

 "Candy" means any product marketed or sold as candy, including but not limited to chocolate bars, gummies, caramels, taffy, licorice, mints, chewing gum, or similar confections. This includes candy bars or any products with wafers, cookies, or flour components when they are primarily sold as candy.

Candy also includes non-bakery items that are dipped, coated, or covered in chocolate, yogurt, or other candy coating, such as chocolate-covered raisins, almonds, or similar products.

This definition also applies to equivalent items, including private-label or store-brand products, that retailers categorize or market as candy.

Candy does not include:
    • Baked goods such as cakes, cookies, muffins, brownies, pastries, or bread;
    • Items primarily sold as baking ingredients, such as chocolate chips, baking chocolate, or cocoa powder. 

    One may be thinking: What's the problem?

    Consider:

    Under the definition of "candy" presented above, Hershey bars and TicTac mints are considered junk foods to be banned, while Tastykake products and Pop-Tarts, by virtue of being "baked goods", are not. Can anyone argue with a straight face that Tastykake Chocolate Dipp'n Sticks are less junk than a Hershey's bar? Even if one were to try, the mandated Nutrition Facts of both would disprove their argument immediately: A serving size of one Tastykake is 200 calories, 11 grams of fat, and 27 grams of carbs with 14 grams being added sugars, while a serving size of two snack sized Hershey's bars is 130 calories, 8 grams of fat, and 16 grams of carbs with 13 grams being added sugars. Don't get me started on the ingredients lists for each. As for the TicTac mints, they have so little sugar that they are legally able to be classified as a zero calorie food; 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of carbs, 0 grams of added sugars per serving size but now classified as "junk".

    I can think of myriad other "foods" that are as much junk as the candy that is soon to be banned: Sugared breakfast cereals, ice cream and frozen dairy products, breakfast pastries, potato chips, corn chips, cheese puffs, mass produced donuts, cookies, and snack cakes, just to name a few. Yet all of those examples will still be perfectly acceptable under the new SNAP waiver. This is without getting into my issues with the way soda and soft drink restrictions are being put in place (chiefly that diabetics have been told for decades that they need to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, only to now have artificially sweetened drinks ripped away from benefits the same as sugared ones).

    This is why I call these waivers naught but performative government action. Banning high profile "candy" (and "soda" and "energy drinks") scores political points but does nothing to address the issue they claim they're attempting to solve. If the government were serious about improving health outcomes via restrictions on government-funded food subsidy programs, these waivers would be much more strict. 

    By restricting only some things while saying other junk is perfectly acceptable, the only thing these waivers will accomplish is confusion and anger amongst consumers. They won't have any meaningful improvement in health outcomes, nor will they have any meaningful financial impact to the companies peddling junk to the public on the taxpayer dime.

    I'm old enough to remember the pre-EBT days when "food stamps" were actual books of green paper stamps that could only be used at select grocery stores or farmer's markets and only on select items. Returning to that would be better than this half-assed approach. Either go all-in on nutrition restrictions or don't bother at all.  

On Transgenderism and the Armed Forces

 This past Tuesday, 6 May 2025, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration can enforce its ban on transgenderism in the United States Armed Forces. The reactions on social media can be grouped into three distinct categories:

1. People screaming that this ruling is horribly discriminatory and who believe anyone should have the "right" to serve in the military. These are usually far left voters who have never served.
2. People gloating about this ruling because they'd love nothing more than to see transgenderism completely and utterly erased from existence. These are usually far right voters who have never served.
3. People who have either served or who grew up in a family with someone who served (parent/spouse) who fully understand how the military works and why this ban is justified. These folks are across the political spectrum (although, to be fair, many skew conservative rather than liberal).

 I am firmly in the third group. 

DoD Instruction 6130.03 - Volume 1; "Medical Standards for Military Service: Appointment, Enlistment, or Induction" provides an extensive list of health and medical conditions that disqualify candidates from serving in the Armed Forces. Here are a handful of examples that are permanent disqualifications (PDQs):

• Food allergies such as peanut or shellfish allergies.
• Drug allergies, such as a penicillin allergy.
• Skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, and acne rosacea.
• Asthma that persists beyond the age of 13 years.
• Inflammatory bowel disorders such as Crohn's, Ulcerative Colitis, or diverticulitis.
  
• Anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and depressive disorders. 

These are but a few from the list. Note the common theme of these conditions: These are all chronic medical issues that require persistent access to medication and/or medical care.

The primary role of the military is to be prepared to defend our country by force. As such, this requires all members be "deployment ready" at all times, even if the likelihood of deployment is small. Chronic medical conditions that need daily medications to manage run in opposition to being deployment ready. Someone who needs regular access to medications or medical care isn't capable of being deployed to an active area where those resources may not exist. If those with chronic medical conditions are allowed to join without any consideration, it becomes a logistical nightmare for the DoD to manage each and every servicemember's conditions in order to accommodate where best to deploy them. So it's best to just set very strict standards instead.

Which brings us to the transgender issue.

Forget the debate about whether or not transgenderism is a mental illness as that's a dead-end, and politically polarized, argument. The issue for the DoD is that transgenderism, and gender-affirming care, is a chronic medical condition that leads to life-long dependency on medical care and prescription medications. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) becomes a daily necessity. Men who undergo penile inversion vaginoplasty must dilate their newly created 'vagina' several times a day for the first year post-surgery and then must continue to dilate at regular intervals for the remainder of their lives. Missing normal dilation sessions can lead to severe urinary and skin infections. In addition, many transgender individuals must maintain regular psychotherapy and/or psychiatry sessions as studies have shown that transgender individuals are significantly more likely to suffer from depression and suicidal ideations, and the risk of suicidal ideations increases after having gender-affirming care.

This is why the transgender ban is justified. If asthmatics are PDQ for merely needing to have access to an emergency albuterol inhaler, or if someone with a peanut allergy is PDQ merely for needing to have constant access to an Epi-Pen, there is no way to contort logic and allow transgender individuals -- who need far more daily medical management and have a very high rate of mental health comorbidity  -- to join the Armed Forces.

Contrary to the claims made by the far left, this is not discriminatory. It's completely in line with DoD medical best practices. There is no "right" to serve in the Armed Forces, and the Armed Forces are not an Equal Opportunity Employer. They are the epitome of a meritocracy, and it must be that way to remain effective.

Transgender individuals are free to live their best lives Just not in the United States Armed Forces. Like the rest of us who were PDQ'd or separated for medical issues.

On the Weaponization of Words to Push Ideologies

phobia (n.):
an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation

Those of us of a certain age, meaning my age (45) or older, can remember the gay panic and hysteria surrounding the AIDS epidemic in the late 1970s through the late 1980s. People, including the media and health professionals, legitimately believed they could catch "the gay" by merely being in the same room as a gay person. HIV was painted as a "gay's disease" and misinformation about how it was spread was pushed by media outlets, health care professionals and the government. Misinformation was even spread by the now-deified-by-the-left Dr. Anthony Fauci.

That is the origin of the word "homophobia" and that word aptly describes the way society behaved at the time. Irrational, illogical, fearful. But as it is with many words in today's English language, the meaning of "phobia" has been twisted to target those who do not agree with specific ideologies and paint them as bigots with no meaningful discourse.

Take the present cause du jour of the progressive left: transgenderism. No one believes they're going to catch "being trans" by sitting next to a transgender individual, nor does anyone believe they're going to catch some weird disease sitting next to someone dressed opposite of their presenting sex. Those who are legitimately afraid that transgender ideology is breaking apart societal norms, erasing spaces women fought hard to obtain, and leading to outcomes such as the grooming of minors have had their fears (1) confirmed (2) time (3) and (4) time (5) again (6), proving that their fears are not irrational (and thus not a "phobia").

Anyone who fails to fall in lock-step with the cause is decried a "transphobe" and has an accusatory figure pointed at them without so much as a discussion on the topic. Look no further than how JK Rowling went from a celebrated figure to the modern day equivalent of Lord Voldemort simply for saying that women deserve to have their own spaces free of the influence of men, including transitioning men who believe they're entitled to the same access as women. Ironically the arguments made by the trans rights groups -- especially trans women's groups -- are very similar, if not nearly identical, to the very same arguments made by so-called men's rights activists. Trans activism is little more than liberal-approved misogyny repackaged into a more socially palatable form.

There are those who understand that, outside of very rare genetic mutations, a human is born either male or female. Then there are those who believe they can swap between them at will and are deserving of the rights of both based solely upon their feelings. The former is reality, not a "phobia". The latter is pure delusion.

The twisting and weaponization of words such as the redefinition of "phobia" (or vaccine, or recession) is Orwellian newspeak that has no basis in reality and serves no purpose except to misinform, mislead, or silence others.
 

The Broken Washing Machine Saga

When we moved into our new place back in October of 2020, I reached out to an independent appliance dealer who was advertising on Facebook Messenger regarding an ad for a refurbished washer and dryer set. He got back to me, we agreed on the price, and that weekend he brought the units out and installed them.

Two weeks later, the washer developed a significant leak at the bottom of the drum. I contacted the dealer and he got back to me saying that he could not repair it on site and he didn't have any other refurbished units. He then offered to sell us a brand new Hotpoint washer for the difference in price and he'd throw in a five year warranty for free. I agreed and set up an appointment for the install. The dealer showed up, took the old washer away, installed the new one, and left.

I heard nothing since then, nor did I believe I was supposed to.

Fast forward to May 13th of this year: While doing a normal load of laundry the agitator began sounding like someone grinding gears in a manual transmission car. The more it ran the worse it got. Once the load was complete, I contacted the dealer in order to file a warranty claim via the same Facebook Messenger chat that I saved explicitly for such a potential issue.

At first, he tried claiming he didn't remember ever selling anything to me, let alone offering a warranty. I was forced to screenshot the entire conversation from October/November of 2020 and send them to him, at which point he had no choice but to concede that he did make such an offer. He then asked me if I filed a claim with the warranty company. I asked him what warranty company he was referring to because after he left I heard nothing further about the washer and believed any warranty claims needed to go through him and/or his dealership.

It was at this point he admitted he had never filed the warranty paperwork with the extended warranty company and that he would need to do so, 18 months after-the-fact. The next day he contacted me and said he had filed the paperwork and submitted a claim, and I should hear from the warranty repair company within 5-7 days.

A week went by and I heard nothing. I contact the dealer again and he says he'd have to check with the warranty company, but he wouldn't be able to do that until the following Monday. Monday comes and goes -- no phone call. On Tuesday, I get a massive welcome packet from the extended warranty service with all the paperwork for the warranty enclosed. To my shock, the dealer had listed the sale date of the item as 4/13/22, not the proper sale date of 11/15/20. 

Tired of trying to get anywhere with the dealer, I call the warranty service company directly and explained the whole situation to them. Because the dealer listed the date of sale as 4/13/22, the warranty service said they weren’t going to do anything because the washer was still, by their documentation, under the manufacturer's warranty. When I explained that I bought it in 2020 not 2022, they asked if I had a bill of sale or invoice from the dealer to prove it. I told them no because he sold it via Facebook and didn’t give any paperwork. Nor did he give me the phone number of his place of business or even an address for his actual shop. The customer service representative was shocked when they pulled up the warranty file and realized he had never provided a business number or address on any of his warranty sales either.

I told them all I could give them as proof was screenshots of the entire conversation -- the same screenshots I had to send to the dealer to jog his memory plus the conversation after where he admitted he was filing the warranty late. The representative added her supervisor to the call and recapped the entire situation and the supervisor told me to send the screenshots as my proof of sale. I sent them as requested along with notations showing the actual washer and highlighting the timestamps of every segment of the conversation.  The supervisor said they would forward the entire incident report to the office that deals with warranty claims and I'd hear back between 2-4 business days. 

This 'dealer' is clearly trying to scam both buyers and the warranty service. Meanwhile, the dealer has stopped responding to any communication via Facebook Messenger.  And that's where I sit. In limbo, with a broken washer and laundry piling up.  I am becoming increasingly skeptical that I'm going to get any repair done and I will be forced to either pay for the repairs or a new washing machine out-of-pocket. At this point I'd be happy if this extended warranty place just gives me one repair and then drops the plan. Hopefully they cut off doing any further business with this shady 'dealer'.

Horizon Forbidden West -- Post-game Thoughts (Spoilers)

After the phenomenal job Guerilla Games did with the world and character building of Horizon Zero Dawn (HZD), I went into Horizon Forbidden West (HFW) expecting a bit of sequel-itis. The story for HFW was all over the place so I'm glad I had set my expectations lower. The writers give us three different antagonists -- Regalla, the Zeniths, and the AI HEPHAESTUS -- and none of them feel as particularly interesting as Helis and HADES did in Zero Dawn. I saw a review somewhere that said "Feels like they're desperately trying to be Mass Effect 2", and I agree. All the characters essentially had their own form of loyalty quests, just without the ME2 style payoff where loyalty mattered for the final push.

My problems with the game's story centered around how HFW erases everything that made Aloy unique in the world they had built for HZD. Spoilers will follow so if you don't want to have story elements spoiled, back out now or fast forward to the paragraph about game mechanics. 

In HZD, only Aloy and Sylens had functioning Focus units, and Aloy's "gift of second sight" was one of her major defining characteristics. So much so, that second sight is referenced repeatedly by non-player characters in HFW. HFW picks up six months following the conclusion of HZD where Aloy has inexplicably found an entire bag of functioning Focus units which she promptly hands out to any of her closest allies like Halloween candy.  Meanwhile, Sylens apparently has found a treasure trove of Focus devices as well because he surreptitiously gets them in the hands of the Sons of Prometheus, a villainous faction who teach Regalla's rebels how to 'tame' machines. And then we meet Alva and the Quen, a far east tribe whose entire culture is built around having Focus units, albeit outdated ones. "Second sight" no longer feels special or unique now that everyone that matters has access to it.

The character of Beta being introduced as another Elizabet Sobeck clone. This was the other major defining characteristic of Aloy: The fact that she alone was the genetic identical to Sobeck, thus granting her access to things in the world no one else could ever see. With the introduction of Beta, that uniqueness is gone as well. But they went a step further and basically rendered both Aloy and Beta redundant by...

Having HEPHAESTUS destroy the usability of Sobeck's Alpha Clearance level, thus requiring the acquisition of Ted Faro's Omega Clearance. The ease with which Aloy retrieves Faro's clearance level means anyone with a Focus device and some basic hacking skills -- like, say, Sylens or Alva with her updated Focus -- could have done the same. And at the end of the game, with all but HEPHAESTUS and the destroyed HADES reunified with GAIA, Sobeck's unique genome is all but meaningless.

Also, with regards to how things wrap up, I was not a fan of the APOLLO historical database being recovered. This gives Guerilla Games an excuse to 'modernize' the game later and introduce things like guns. If Sylens was able to create the Zenith anti-shield device based solely on what he learned from HADES and his own wits, imagine what he could do with the totality of the APOLLO database at his fingertips. The story at the end spins it as a necessary thing for the forthcoming Nemesis fight, but meh... I would rather the group fight Nemesis in the next game with their own wits than use the APOLLO database to inevitably introduce some 'old world' MacGuffin. Between HFW's Ted Faro/Quen tribe story line and the recovery of the APOLLO database, HFW feels like it diminishes many of the really important revelations in HZD. I genuinely wish APOLLO had been permanently lost.

Kotallo was probably my favorite of the new companions introduced. I did like the concept of the Utaru tribe and Zo's "Healing the Land Gods" was probably my favorite of all the loyalty quests.  I hated how Regalla's story arc felt hurried and I hated how little effort they put toward her character toward the end of the game. Angela Bassett did a great job voicing her but she could have been so much better. Carrie Anne-Moss as Tilda van der Meer was okay but I couldn't help but feel like she was just reprising her role as Aria T'loak from Mass Effect 2 and 3. Seems Carrie Anne-Moss is drawn to playing cold, calculated, narcissistic femmes who live for a thousand years -- at least in video games that is (her only video game work outside of Matrix Trinity reprisals are Aria and Tilda).

This may sound silly but I'm happy that both HZD and HFW don't have romantic subplots with Aloy. Even though it's clear characters like Erend, Avad, and Petra have feelings for Aloy, I find it nice that Aloy's general attitude is "I've got too much important shit to do" so we don't get sidetracked with hackneyed romance story arcs.

Mechanically, I think everything except climbing mechanics were a step up from HZD. Combat felt better, weapons felt more satisfying, melee skill trees made the spear more than just an afterthought or a stealth weapon as it was in HZD. However, there were a lot of the Valor Surge special skill abilities that didn't feel particularly useful so I mostly stuck to a revolving set of the same three or four throughout my playthrough. Climbing felt like utter dogshit and I don't know why they felt the need to change it. Most of my deaths came while climbing or the game thinking I wanted to climb as soon as I'd get near something with a ledge.

Other than climbing, my gameplay complaints are the Arena and the Melee Pits, specifically the final one in the town of Thornmarsh. The Arena, I feel, unlocks far too early for the player and/or is significantly overtuned. I played through the game on Hard but had to turn down the difficulty just to get through the Arena challenges. I tried sticking with Hard, got absolutely wrecked, and figured my gear just wasn't good enough. I came back to the Arena many levels later with better, fully modified gear, and still got my ass handed to me. After a while, I just came to the conclusion that it was poorly designed; The machines are far too aggressive, their knockdown/knockback too strong, there are too few opportunities for stealth or combat planning, and the traps too weak for the amount of damage you need to do to hit the timers. As for the Thornmarsh Melee Pit, nothing shows how wonky the melee combo delays are like that particular area. At no other point in the game did I get frustrated with the melee combat as I did there. Not even when fighting "The Enduring" with all her cheesy moves.

While I enjoyed the game enough to platinum it, I doubt I'll pick up the game and replay it again until DLC comes out. That stands in stark contrast to HZD, which I 100%'d twice on PS4 and then again on the PC release. HFW was a good game, better than a lot of single player story games that come out, but it was missing the spark that kept me interested in HZD.

All screenshots are my own - PS4 Pro, Photo Mode.

"Tina Tina's Wonderlands" Review (Xbox Series X)

 Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a game born from the zany Borderlands franchise and asks the question: What would happen if we mash up the Borderlands gunplay and looting with the pretend fantasy table top RPG Tina loves to play, Bunkers and Badasses? The end result is a game with magic, mystery, guns, and lots of explosions. Unfortunately, much like many first time TTRPG player's character sheets, what sounds good on paper isn't necessarily good in practice. 

Spells and melee weapons are a welcome change to the Borderlands formula and I have to say that I vastly prefer spells over the grenade system. Will Arnett, Wanda Sykes, Andy Samberg, and Ashly Burch bring their best voice acting performances to something any of them could have easily phoned in. However, the game is short, overly repetitive, and way too easy even on the hardest difficulty level. While the campaign is a fun romp, it's largely forgettable and outside of the Dragon Lord, none of the bosses, or any of the NPCs you meet along the way, are very memorable.

The new overworld system was interesting initially but by the halfway point of the campaign it simply felt like a chore designed to pad playtime. Fast travel is a downgrade from the old Borderlands system. If you fast travel back to Brighthoof and want to go anywhere other than where you came from (because the game is nice enough to put a portal to your last location), you have to hoof it (pun intended). Even with the walking speed shrine increase unlocked it's annoying to traverse long stretches of the map. Early in the game Tina mentions a lack of vehicles in the world, hence the overworld, but I'm left wondering what Gearbox could have done had they put forth a bit more effort. They have a world of fantastical creatures and, instead of giving us mounts, thought this bobblehead world map was the best solution? The box art, after all, shows Tina riding a wyvern so it didn't seem too farfetched to wonder if we, the heroes of this adventure, would get a wyvern (or at least a sea worg) to help get around the overworld map faster (and in style). Alas, all we can earn is a permanent sprint speed increase.

Compared to the Borderlands franchise, the campaign is probably the shortest since the original Borderlands. That, of course, was the first game in an all new property with no expectations; Wonderlands is a spinoff of a wildly successful franchise that's now over ten years old and was marketed as a full featured "next-gen" title. I completed the campaign, all the side quests, and all the collectibles (except the dice, still missing 60) in 22 hours of game time. A good 6-8 hours of that was likely spent meandering around the maps looking for the aforementioned collectibles. The main campaign and all side quests alone is probably a 15-16 hour affair. I guess it's a bit longer than Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel but that feels like a backhanded complement since we knew TPS was a bulked up Borderlands 2 DLC that was being sold at a budget price.

The shortness of the campaign and the obscene amount of collectibles (especially the dice) prevent me from really wanting to roll another character. I don't really want to go through the progress of collecting everything all over again but if I don't then my loot luck and overall build will be handicapped by not having the passive bonuses the collectibles unlock.

End game, the Chaos Chamber, is, in my opinion, tedious and wears out its welcome after a few runs. It's a glorified version of the Circles of Slaughter from prior Borderlands games, only with random locales, mobs, and bosses chosen from the various campaign areas. It's a standard horde mode with no major innovations to keep anyone invested for prolonged play. It gives players an illusion of choice regarding buffs and debuffs between some of the rounds but that's the only thing that stands out. It's a series of 60 to 90 second long randomized arenas, some of which suffer from significant issues with mob density. Some of them are Obliesk levels where you're being zerg rushed, others are spread out areas where you have to hunt down one or two mobs at a time. The latter is particularly frustrating when you get an optional side-objective like "kill all enemies in X time limit" or "kill enemies in the sanctified areas".

At end game there's no reason to go back to the overworld map for anything other than picking up any collectibles you might have missed along the way. I suppose you could farm the random campgrounds/outposts that respawn but since the Chaos Chamber is built on the same encounter design as those camps, it doesn't seem worthwhile to bother. You can go back to any of the zones but there's really no reason to because the named bosses of those zones are gone; You can't farm bosses like older Borderlands titles, those bosses can only be fought again through random chance encounters in Chaos Chambers. No end game bounties. No end game randomness. Just the chambers.

At higher Chaos levels, the balance seems utterly out of whack. If you're not using some kind of dark magic spells to regenerate your health, I feel like you're going to have a bad time no matter how many points you put into Constitution and health/ward talents. Frost slowing and fire damage over time falls off fast once you start progressing -- lightning was rarely good to begin with, and poison is only slightly better. Dark magic is the least resisted magic type and the most potent for survivability regardless of class. This was also the only time where I really felt like the game was difficult. Throughout campaign and the first 9-10 Chaos Levels, everything was easily steamrolled.

As I was grinding the Chaos Chamber to increase my Chaos level -- a system similar to Borderlands 3's Mayhem level -- a question kept nagging me: Is there anything in Wonderlands' end game that would make me want to play IT over any other existing looter? Unfortunately, the answer is no. It doesn't have anything that stands out and makes it unique or worth coming back to long-term. Wonderlands' end game is a one-trick pony (pun intended again) and feels dated out of the box. I suspect many will reach end game, grind enough to unlock one (or both) of the associated achievements, then never return.

Moon Orbs are added as an end game currency but are only used to enchant and/or re-roll gear. Why not have a Moon Orb vendor who sells rare, wonderous loot similar to the Seraph crystals in Borderlands 2 or Eridium in Borderlands 2/3? I have most of my gear enchanted for class and skill synergy so I'm almost perpetually at max Moon Orbs until/unless I get a new item that replaces an old one. Maybe they'll add something in DLC later but right now Moon Orbs are too limited to be useful.

There are also a handful of technical problems that plague the game. The UI feels trapped in the past; There's no auto-loot, auto-junk, or any other quality of life things Borderlands players have requested for years. The end result is slogging through sluggish menus to mark all your junk gear for sale. Performance problems abound thanks to poorly optimized particle effects and Gearbox's shoddy SHiFT server implementation. In certain levels (most notably Mount Craw), the amount of elemental effects can cause severe frame rate issues while the current problem of the SHiFT servers constantly disconnecting causes frame stutters and coop disconnections. The performance problem are really inexcusable for a game that, by all accounts, isn't that much different than Borderlands 3, the engine it was built upon. It shouldn't be so demanding as to cause issues in both Performance and Resolution modes. Hopefully these issues can be patched later but for now know that on both Xbox Series and PS5 optimization is lacking.

Although I enjoyed the campaign for at least one playthrough, it's not a game I'd recommend at full price. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands feels like a budget Borderlands title and should have been priced as such. If someone's on the fence, I'd say wait for a sale, especially if you're looking to get it on console. Chances are physical console copies will be on sale soon, as it seems a lot of releases these days have sales within a month or two.

Rating: 6.5/10. 7 feels too high, 6 feels too low. Worth playing through for 25-ish hours of entertainment but not at the current asking price of $60-$70.