Tales From The Borderlands: Episode One - Zer0 Sum Reviews
Tales from the Borderlands: Episode One – Zer0 Sum is a brilliant start to the season, showcasing a strong cast of characters, speedy pacing, while managing to sustain the Borderlands tropes without hurting what people like about the cinematic adventure genre.
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.
After playing the first episode for Tales from the Borderlands, I feel more excited and anxious for the next episode to hit than their other games. It's almost scary how well the Borderlands franchise translated into the style of game Telltale is well-known for.
Tales From The Borderlands is a chance for fans of the franchise to see Pandora in a new light.
Tales from the Borderlands may be light on gameplay, but it's long on entertainment. An easy recommendation for fans of adventure games and the Borderlands series alike.
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?
Tales From The Borderlands: Episode 1 - ZerO Sum is a strong debut for what looks to be another Telltale Games classic.
Praise be: Tales from the Borderlands has a really strong opening episode, and easily proves that Borderlands' unique blend of comedy and ultraviolence (and occasional dips into heartfelt drama) is a really good fit for Telltale.
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.
Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 1 – Zer0 Sum is quite possibly the strongest debut episode in Telltale Games' storied history. It combines a frantic pace with some genuinely funny dialogue, and offers more than enough fresh gameplay systems to make it stand out from the rest of the studio's output. Short of not being a fan of the Borderlands franchise, this an incredibly impressive outing – and the fact that it's not riddled with bugs is just the icing on the cake.
'Tales From The Borderlands' brings the franchise's trademark humor to a new genre - even if it's not what Telltale fans have come to expect.
Telltale has given us an excellent first chapter in what is gearing up to be one of their best series. While it had its hit and miss moments with the humor, and some of the choices outside of dialogue were less than impressive or nonexistent, I loved getting a different view of Pandora and the Borderlands universe. Putting you in the shoes of people who don't have the mindset of 'shoot-and-loot first, ask questions later' brought an experience that I didn't even know I really wanted on Pandora. I thought that I was content with how Borderlands told its stories, but Telltale proved that there is another side to hearing the tales of the vaults with a superb inaugural episode that barely lets up and ends on a note that left me wanting so much more. Let's just hope they can keep up the pace, humor, and bring more choice to the action for the other 80% of the season.
Not to be taken seriously, Telltale demonstrate the ability to shift between serious and comedic titles.
The first episode of Tales from the Borderlands is a lukewarm start to the new Telltale franchise, but that's par for the course in an episodic installment. Telltale hasn't disappointed yet, which is why I'm excited for what awaits us deep in the trenches of Pandora. If anything we'll get to see bandits performing insane acts of stupidity; that's always fun.
Gearbox's first-person shooter RPGs translate surprisingly well to a dialogue-driven adventure game – at least when the focus is on the dialogue
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.
A very promising start to what is mechanically just another Telltale adventure, but where the comedy and characterisation feels very different to their more recent games.
Telltale's trip back to its comedy roots is a triumph. Rhys and Fiona are a duo I want to spend more time with. Baker and Bailey do a phenomenal job of bringing them to life, with spot-on comic timing and just enough humanity so they don't simply feel like vehicles for jokes. Pandora is a world I'm enamoured with once more, and being able to explore it without grinding or shooting a thousand addle-brained enemies over and over again is a very welcome change.
Telltale avoids a complete flop with a more engaging second half and a well-done finale
Tales from the Borderlands: Episode One is just one (relatively) big nudge in the ribs to all Borderlands fans as if to say "did you get that reference? Did'ya?" Luckily, in true Telltale style, there's something good for the rest of us as well. It's a solid first episode that brings in anticipation for episodes to come.