Tales From The Borderlands: Episode One - Zer0 Sum Reviews
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!
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.
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' brings the franchise's trademark humor to a new genre - even if it's not what Telltale fans have come to expect.
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.
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written opening to the series, it often struggles to run at a decent framerate and suffers largely at the hands of an outdated engine.
Telltale avoids a complete flop with a more engaging second half and a well-done finale
Predictable and glitchy as all get out, it's still fun
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.
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.
Tales From the Borderlands might not pack the emotional punch of The Walking Dead at its best, or the style of Wolfamongous in full swagger, but it's bloody good fun.