Game Review: Tales from the Borderlands

The game that I am going to review today is one that I've been really interested in playing for awhile, and it happens to be one of the funniest games I've touched in many years, it's called Tales from the Borderlands. This game is based off the Borderlands series (Which I'm sure most of you could tell), though not directly influencing those games and is more of a spin off title that has interwoven bits and pieces with the main games. Tales from the Borderlands uses an episodic format, with the game being broken up into 5 different episodes. This might seem familiar to you, which wouldn't be surprising as Telltale games was the one who developed and published this game, and they are known for their other works such as Telltales The Walking dead and The Wolf Among Us which use this same type of format. 

Tales from the Borderlands genre would have fall in between a mix of adventure/sci-fi/comedy, though these Telltale games are more of interactive cinematic experiences, in my opinion. The games first episode saw a release back in November of 2014, becoming available to play on just about every platform available including the last gen consoles (Xbox 360, Playstation 3), android and apple marketplaces, and everything in between basically. It had it's final episode released to play in October of 2015, so just shy under a full year for the entire game to be released. I tend to wait awhile on picking up Telltale series games for this reason, as I hate having to wait months to pick up from where I last started. 

Now, if you've played some of the past borderlands games you'll probably have noticed that they aim for a goofy, wacky type of style with their gameplay and narratives. There's always just these absurd, silly bits injected here and there every 15-20 minutes to keep a grin on your face while you play. So, I definitely was expecting Telltales take on their universe to be at least equally comedic and entertaining. And, I can definitely say that they didn't let me down in the least with the ridiculousness of this game. 

The game opens up while in the midst of the story, showing our two main protagonists named Rhys and Fiona getting kidnapped by a masked gunman. The two have an antagonistic type of relationship, arguing and bickering non stop, even while being interrogated by the gunman who wants to know about their relationship and experiences with the Gortys Project. This is what brings us into the start of the first episode, where we play as Rhys, who happens to be a Hyperion employee on their moon base called Helios. 

Rhys ends up getting a demotion by his superior, a man named Hugo Vasquez, who'm he overhears talking with a man named August about purchasing a Vault Key.  This leads to Rhys stealing a briefcase of money so that he can head to Pandora and get it first. He also happens to bring along his friend and coworker Vaughn, who isn't filled with quite as much enthusiasm about the idea as he is. After meeting up with August, however, they realize that the Vault Key is actually a fake, created by con artists Fiona and Sasha, who are led by their mentor Fenix. 

The money ends up quickly stolen, leading to Rhys, Vaughn, Fiona, Sasha and Fenix forming an alliance until the money is recovered. Along the way Rhys picked up a Hyperion ID chip which he thinks he can integrate into his cybernetic parts, hoping that it will help them find the briefcase. Instead, it leads to him falling unconscious with seemingly no other side effects happening. After some other events pass and information comes to light, they end up finding the money inside of an Atlas facility, with Felix taking it for himself and betraying the group. 

He ends up triggering the explosive lock on the case, and his fate is left up to the players choice. The rest of the group makes their way deeper into the facility, finding a secret chamber inside that contains the core of the Gortys Project. A hologram soon appears which only Rhys can see, depicting Handsome Jack (The villain from Borderlands 2, who met his timely end at the end of the game.), who announced that they've found the Gortys Project which will help lead them to a Vault location that has yet to be discovered and looted. 

The first episode then comes to and end, giving us a great start to the series. We get a great look at our characters with the first episode, and you'll quickly realize that the game is more character driven than the typical Borderlands game. The game is not serious by any means, and finds its amusement through jokes that the characters make rather than the absurd cartoony violence which we see a lot of in the Borderlands games. That isn't to say there aren't hilariously, gruesome deaths in the game, because there are. However, Telltale has easily made a stand alone entry into the Borderlands universe with this comedy/adventure game which works extremely well thanks to the interesting characters and great storytelling which they've shown they can do in the past. 

Of course since this is a Telltale game, a big aspect of the gameplay is what choices you're going to make throughout the story. These are usually quick time choices where you're given a very short amount of time to make a choice, and having to react to on screen button prompts. Telltale games have been referred to as being the equivalent of choose your own adventure games, but I don't really equate that with this game (Or, well, most of their games actually). 

Your choices alter the details of your story, as well as some of the characters actions, how they perceive the story, and even their personalities to an extent as well. But, the ending isn't truly affected by your choices in this game, which is why I say it's more of an interactive cinematic experience, rather than being considered an RPG. You can make Rhys choose not to vie for corporate power within his company, or you can allow him to listen to the artificial voice in his head who is teeming with violence. But, making this choice isn't going to stop the plot from progressing to it's set point, it's only going to change the ways in which it gets there. 

Now, if you aren't a fan of the Telltale series of games, then I'm not sure you'll really enjoy this game either. There isn't much of a change in format from their Walking Dead series, or any of their other recent series either. While I personally dig the format and think it's an interesting choice based game that gives multiple angles on the plot from different viewpoints, I could see why this wouldn't be for everyone and some people could be disappointed by it. 

I mean, the actual gameplay of the game is entirely basic and doesn't require much effort from the player to complete. You do a little bit of walking around and exploring your environment, trying to check for every and any little clue that will lead to your next conversation prompt. The conversations themselves give the same style formula just about every time, which is choosing the tone of the conversation, then choosing whether or not you want to tell the truth or lie once that prompt comes up, and then of course make a few statements that really don't impact your story. So, yes, I can see why this wouldn't be for everyone. 

However, this game does add a few new things here and there, and I honestly think the heavy comedy elements of it do elevate it to a different status than Telltales past games that have used this format. I honestly loved the story, characters and dialogue that was used for this a lot more than I have with past Telltale series games. I feel conflicted on whether or not I should recommend people who have tried The Walking Dead series or The Wolf Among Us and didn't like them to try this or not. It definitely feels like a different beast due to the setting and tonal shift from their other games. 

One of the new features this game uses is Rhys cybernetic vision due to his cybernetic parts. Now, it is required to be used to get past a few points in the game, but you can discover some interesting and funny notes when looking at items of interest in your environment. While I don't think it was utilized to the best of its ability, I thought it was a cool little feature to be tossed into the game and showed they tried to do something a little bit different than their normal formula. 

And, while it isn't a new feature exactly there seems to be a lot of different ways that the ending can play out depending on each characters choices which you make. Now, I'm sure that you'll end up in the same place with the same type of ending no matter what, but in past games they did there wasn't really any variables to the ending that could happen besides a few pieces of dialogue. So, I can appreciate them letting it play out in so many different ways. This also brings interest in replaying the game to see what kind of choices and scenarios you missed, which definitely adds a replaybility factor. 

Those are as far as the "new" features go though. The combat of the game itself is the same as their past games, where you'll just be hitting the right button or key when prompted, or clicking/toggling on the appropriate item for the scenario which usually ends up being you shooting something to blow something up or to finish off an enemy. It doesn't have any challenge to it, and anyone can do it basically. I find myself surprised that I enjoy the game so much, considering I really enjoy coming up with strategies and learning the patterns of enemies. I think the comedy and humor of the game really come out on top with this one though, and it distracts from the monotony of the button mashing. 

The game itself has a fairly long amount of playtime for what it is, with each episode giving you right around 90-120 minutes of gameplay each. And, thankfully since the episodes are all already released, you won't have to wait long periods of time in between each! In total, you'll be looking at around 7.5-10 hours of gameplay depending on how long you explore, look and talk with people. The finale episode is a bit longer than the rest of the episodes, and leaves on quite a strong ending for the series. 

If you enjoy the first few episodes, then have no worries about the rest of it letting you down. Even if you have no interest in the Borderland series as a whole, I think you'll definitely enjoy this game as it certainly can stand on its own. However, if you don't like the format of Telltales previous games, I dunno if I can recommend this. I would check out some gameplay online first, and see if you're interested or not. I mean, if you want a hilarious, entertaining cinematic experience then I'd definitely say check this out. It is filled with a ridiculous amount of laughs, and is just a fun game overall. 

Thanks for checking out my review! Hope you've enjoyed it!