Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 1, Zero Sum
Tuesday saw the release of the first episode of Tales from the Borderlands, Zero Sum. After playing the small demo at PAX Prime, I was champing at the bit to play the whole episode and it did not disappoint. Telltale Games has a great knack for these directed narrative games and I’m far from alone in being a fan. Combining this kind of storytelling with the already interesting and amusing setting of Borderlands was a recipe for soaking up so many awards from so many sources that I can’t even begin to conceive of it all. Whoever came up with this idea needs to stop now because they’ll never top this one.
As I’ve stated before, my disappointment with these games comes solely from not seeing as much divergence from a core story as I’d like. That was a year ago, and I’ve come to terms with the way these games are bound to play out. They’re no less entertaining just because each choice I make isn’t world shattering. I blame you, choose your own adventure book from my youth, for making me want to see every choice feel deeply meaningful and giving me a plethora of endings to wind up on. Jerks. Now I know why there were never any sequels to those things. Could you imagine the size of a third volume in a series with so many options? Book five would be a massive, blunt weapon used to assault idiot criminals that try to rob you on Christmas eve. Same issues apply to the narrative in these games. Agency is awesome, but games would start getting into the terabyte range pretty quick.
A quick synopsis of Tales from the Borderlands: all of the story, none of the grinding and random loot. (Or the loot hoarding, because I always seemed to have a full inventory in those games.) They take the dialog that made the FPS franchise so good and distill it down into a concentrated, narcotic-like dose of comedy and intrigue. If what you want is all of the style and humor of theseries delivered in an entertaining two hour movie, this is your game. Yeah, episode 1 takes about two and a half hours to play through, give or take a half hour depending on how much time you want to spend examining everything. You don’t get any cheevos for that, so just stop it and keep the story moving.
Troy Baker as Rhys and Laura Bailey as Fiona make for an excellent pair of rogues trying to pull one over on each other. The rest of the voice cast for Zero Sum includes Chris Hardwick, Nolan North, Patrick Warburton, Erin Yvette, and a slough of other talented actors that breathe life into the harsh realities of Pandora. It’s a seriously top-notch group delivering an unforgettable experience. The writing is phenomenal and the music is perfect. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that the Borderlands games were already visually similar tot the other Telltale story games because this one fits seamlessly into the world. Is there anything bad to say about the game? Not really.
Mechanically, these aren’t particularly complex games. If you’ve played The Walking Dead or Wolf Among Us, then you know exactly what to expect in Tales from the Borderlands. If this is your first Telltale Games rodeo, it’s kinda like a really long cinematic with quick time events sprinkled throughout. At certain points a set of options will be presented with a time limit to make a choice. At other times, it’s a simple case of pushing buttons according to the onscreen cues. There’s no problem solving or complex puzzles involved so it’s a perfect game for the less hardcore of gamers among us.
There’s violence, comedy, and betrayal all wrapped up into one neat little episode. It’s a lot of fun playing both Rhys and Fiona as they forge a necessary alliance and try to find a way to come out on top and there are four more episodes to come. This season is going to be an excellent chance to expand the Borderlands universe and I really hope that we’ll see more seasons out of this collaboration in the future. I personally played on PC through Steam, but Tales from the Borderlands is also available on PS3, PS4, and Xbox One with Mac, Xbox 360, and mobile version coming by the end of 2014. Episodes are $5 each on consoles (bundles are also available), but if you want to play on Steam you’ll be buying the whole season at once. I took advantage of the 10% discount for pre-ordering, but you can still get that discount as part of the Steam Exploration Sale if you buy before December 2nd.
