Tales From The Borderlands: Episode One - Zer0 Sum Reviews
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.
Predictable and glitchy as all get out, it's still fun
Telltale avoids a complete flop with a more engaging second half and a well-done finale
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written opening to the series, it often struggles to run at a decent framerate and suffers largely at the hands of an outdated engine.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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!
Another hit to add to Telltale Games ever growing library.
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 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.
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
Tales develops an interesting world filled with rich characters that was imprisoned within the shoot & loot framework of Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Free from those constraints, Tales is already well on its way to telling a damn good story, and that's the best kind of loot there is.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Admittedly, the QTE portions won't be for everybody. I've also noticed minor glitches like character lips not moving sometimes during dialogue. If you like point-and-click adventures, however, Tales from the Borderlands is another solid and entertaining addition to Telltales' lineup of games.