Tales From The Borderlands: Episode One - Zer0 Sum Reviews
Although Tales From The Borderlands is a humorous and well written opening to the series, it often struggles to run at a decent framerate and suffers largely at the hands of an outdated engine.
Zer0 Sum tells the best story and introduces the best characters in the Borderlands series. As a Telltale game, the humor tends to fall a bit flat at times, and it lacks the drama Telltale do so well.
Tales From the Borderlands: Episode One – Zer0 Sum is one heckuva debut. Somehow, the developers allow the action and story to leap off the screen, and they give a sufficient amount of time to each. The visuals are superb, the soundtrack is excellent, the cast is worth knowing, and the overall atmosphere and style is vintage Borderlands with Telltale's obvious influence and flair.
Telltale has demonstrated that their knack for writing and developing characters is as solid as ever, even with the wacky 'Borderlands' license. With 'Zer0 Sum,' the first episode of 'Tales from the Borderlands,' Telltale got the story heavy take on the colorful world humming. The characters and script are smart and snappy, and elicited a chuckle from me more than a few times through the brief playthrough. If they can lock down the bugs cropping up in the technical performance, this would be about as good as it gets for an adventure game.
Tales from the Borderlands – Episode One: Zer0 Sum does a brilliant job of drawing the player into the world of Pandora. Both fans of the franchise, and players being introduced for the first time, will appreciate the engaging characters and their story.
Another hit to add to Telltale Games ever growing library.
From jail-breaking a Hyperion Loader Bot to teaming up with a rather familiar-looking vault hunter, this departure from the main franchise is off to an epic and hilarious start!
For established fans, Tales from the Borderlands is a great opening act. It has simple combat, snappy dialogue, and great voice acting. For players new to Borderlands, this is a decent appetiser but may well leave you feeling hungry. Either way, there's sure to be great demand for the next course.
Zer0 sum is like an impressive pilot to greenlight a TV show. Hopefully the rest of the season is just as good.
Overall, this first episode is a fantastic introduction to the genre's take on the Borderlands universe. While there are the occasional long periods of player inactivity, they do little to distract from the engaging story and characters, especially as you'll spend most of this time laughing. If this is what Telltale has to offer for episode one, then I can't wait for the rest of the series.
Tales From The Borderlands kicks off with a feel-good tour de force. Not only is Zer0 Sum a satisfying and frequently hilarious use of three hours, but it would have been strong enough to stand on its own as a masterful piece of interactive Borderlands fiction. As Zer0 might say... :D
Tales from the Borderlands Episode 1: Zer0 Sum sets the stage for another amazing adventure experience from Telltale Games. The title perfectly complements the shooters made by Gearbox while taking things further thanks to the special characters and the crazy adventures they go through. There are a lot of hilarious moments but also some really dramatic ones that are punctuated by the choices made by players.
The comedy, the story choices, the setup - it's all done well in Tales from the Borderlands: Episode One - Zer0 Sum. The next episodes can't come quick enough! Grab the season pass and enjoy waiting with baited breath for each episode to be released. The team here at Cubed3 certainly will be!
With three episodes still to go, Tales from the Borderlands has plenty of time to inject extra thrills into the story and hopefully introduce some more compelling gameplay elements. All the same, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into episode three, thanks to the compelling characters and hilarious dialogue.
Predictable and glitchy as all get out, it's still fun
Telltale didn't hit the same heights with this year's releases that it did with the first season of The Walking Dead, but Tales from the Borderlands, despite being tonally very different, is off to an incredibly strong start.
By seamlessly weaving creative humor, some of which is entirely player-driven, into a narrative that constantly leaves players guessing, "Zer0 Sum" is as good of a pilot as we've seen in an episodic game. Regardless of where Rhys and Fiona's ridiculous journey take them next, hysterical one-liners, tense moments, and intense struggles are sure to follow. The biggest question here isn't whether or not Tales from the Borderlands is worth your time; it's when will Telltale's incredible run finally come to an end?
I will say that Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 1 - Zero Sum didn't immediately grab me as a must see piece of game art like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us did. However, it did grab me as a well written piece of game comedy, and those might be even rarer than the dramas, horrors, and mysteries we have seen throughout gaming's history. Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 1 - Zero Sum is undeniably fun, and I can't wait to see what further episodes bring. Until them, I AM THE CAPTAIN OF THIS POOP TRAIN! I'M GOING TO FILL YOU UP WITH BEES AND PLAY YOU LIKE A HARMONICA!
Telltale Games bring their trademark style of adventure gaming to the chaotic wastes of Pandora in Tales for the Borderlands, a surprisingly refreshing take on the world made popular by Gearbox Software's first-person, role-playing series
It's the perfect blend of Borderlands' humour and Telltale's penchant for great writing and narrative-driven gameplay, and I'm eagerly awaiting the rest of the season. I just hope that Fiona will come into her element soon, the way Rhys did right from the opening credits.