Tales from the Borderlands (2014)

My favourite Telltale game behind The Wolf Among Us, and probably objectively better than it. Also absolutely concur with everyone who says this is the best Borderlands game, because by far and away it is.

I have my issues with Episode 5, but they're entirely personal and subjective ones. This game is genuinely funny, full of personality and with a plot that kept me engaged and invested in its characters and outcomes. Rhys is one of my favourite protagonists of all time, and I genuinely love how different he can be as a person depending on your choices (although, and this is one of my aforementioned issues with Ep5, he does end up railroaded into A Good Guy Accepted Into Found Family in the end no matter what because it's clearly the path they Wanted you to go down with him, which sucks, but it is what it is). Generally in Telltale games you have a protagonist who's a set kind of person and you can only lean them a little in other directions (for instance, Lee from The Walking Dead could be angry with people but he was always fundamentally a decent guy who cared about protecting Clementine), whereas here, with Bigby from TWAU as the only other instance that comes to mind, Rhys can genuinely be a sweet, well-meaning dork or an ambitious, backstabbing asshole.

I wholeheartedly encourage people to try the Trust Jack path - I genuinely think that it's more interesting, engaging, and funny than the Trust Fiona/hostile to Jack alternative, and opens up more interesting choices.

I played this before I ever played the main-line Borderlands games, and didn't go into it with a lot of knowledge about series lore. I think it did pretty well keeping things clear and giving me the necessary context, and I didn't struggle to follow along at all, so you can definitely get into this without playing the FPS games first if they're not your kind of thing. The only thing you'll really miss out on are full appreciation of some character cameos and in-jokes.

Ultimately, this is Telltale at their absolute peak, and it's genuinely sad that more people haven't played this and given it a chance.

Borderlands 2 & The Pre-Sequel were 85% loot-shooting ("shlooting"), 10% fart jokes, and 5% good story.

Tales from the Borderlands is really just 100% good, funny, and entertaining story (which hits surprisingly hard at times, given the intentionally-dumb reference material it has to pull from). The fart joke type of humor from BL2 & TPS is mostly absent here, so the tone does seem a bit discordant from the rest of the series. But it's still my favorite Telltale game to date (Though I guess I really only have The Walking Dead #1 and The Wolf Among Us to compare it with)

There are no challenging puzzles or difficult action sequences -- you're just experiencing a story that is affected by your choices. There are lots of QTE sequences, but they're extremely forgiving -- even the ones that give the illusion of requiring precise aim and timing.

If you've played Telltale Games before then you're no stranger to their excellent writing.

Tales From The Borderlands is a fantastic episodic journey with the comedy of Borderlands and the gameplay+narrative from Telltale. Makes for the perfect breather between those massive RPGs or hectic action games.

It's not a must play but definitely has its moments. Slow down life with a fun 8-10 hour story that gets over pretty quick.

There have been better Telltale games in the past but this isn't bad. It's pretty okay, just as a break from other stuff.

What I like the most about the world of Borderlands is the colorful world and coloful characters. In the main games of the franchise, I miss how the main characters don't have a real arc and how the backstory is relegated to audio logs. I mean, I love the old shootin' n' lootin', but I want a little more.

Tales from the Borderlands gave me what I wanted. Characters with actual personalities, goals, fears and evolution. I never thought we could tell a story in this world without guns to interact with it, but I was wrong and happy for it. There's even a hilarious scene with 'finger guns' that mocks the reliance on bullets of those games.

I fell in love with Rhys, Fiona, LoaderBot, Gortys and Sasha (I would have fallen in love with Vaughn too, but his voice actor is not a good person). They made me want to explore more of Pandora without relying on old mechanics. I want a Borderlands racing games, or a combat cars game, a walking sim, a dating sim, and open world adventure. Gimme a text adventure! I'll take it!

And the music. Oh my god. The main songs of each chapter are PERFECT.

What about the gameplay? Standar Telltale stuff based on dialogue choices. I like that a lot, but won't try to convince you if you don't.

Only thing I kinda dislike is the last episode. I'm not a fan of the way things were solved. It ruined a climactic moment to give us a time jump. But I still enjoyed it.

And did It told you I got a crush on Sasha?

I would have been pleased with a good TellTale game. Instead what I got was a game that rivals The Wolf Among Us as TellTale's best. We get fun settings (a combination of Mad Maxian desert-punk and Tron-ish sci-fi whizzings), great characters that play out well on screen, and the cutest goddamned robot you've ever seen.

I've only played a bit of the first Borderlands game, so I don't know how Tales from the Borderlands fits into the series, but as a standalone title it works really well. You play two characters--a con artist and a corporate middle management grunt. Natural enemies who, through a variety of circumstances, find themselves working together to find a big payload.

The plot is fine enough, but its the writing of the characters that elevates Tales from the Borderlands above other Telltale or similar games. It's in that upper echelon of the genre populated by the Wolves Among Us's and Lifes Are Stranges.

It's also the TellTale game that controls best within the built-in TellTale limitations. The sequential button presses and rapid-taps and gesture-like stick swoops feel natural within the context of the game. And the choice-your-own-adventure dialogue options feel urgent; few options will kill you, or even spin the narrative totally out of whack, but they do feel important at the time and influence the relational dynamics and how the plot ultimately stitches together.

The best narratives, regardless of genre, leave me in an emotional funk. Tales from the Borderlands did that for me. It wrapped me up in its world. It got me to care about the characters, their personal progress, and how they relate to each other. It got me invested, driven to bring them to a good conclusion. And, in the end, I feel like a better person for having consumed it.

When I heard that Telltale was making a Borderlands game I knew I had to play it. I have played multiple of their games before and regardless of the source series they pull from they always seem to make an enjoyable game with a great story. This game was no different.

Since this game is story heavy, I won't really elaborate on the story itself outside of my enjoyment of it. I thought the established characters were really well written and performed and the new characters felt realistic (within the universe) and they were all interesting. The humor from the original series was done well in this story and overall I enjoyed the pacing and the character development. While it isn't the best story Telltale has ever written, it stands strong with their lineup of games.

Gameplay, as usual, is pretty much an afterthought to the story, but that's fine with me. Some may not enjoy the way this game is played, but like most visual novels (which is the closest thing I can compare their games to) the gameplay is not the focus here. Since I played this game a year or so ago, I honestly can hardly remember the gameplay itself but it wasn't obstructive of the story and the flow, so that works for me.

Overall I believe anyone who is into good stories and enjoyed the wacky and weird world of Borderlands will enjoy Tales from the Borderlands. It visually resonates with the core Borderlands series and it has a fun story that fits in with the standard game lore. If you are a borderlands fan who doesn't like Telltale's signature style of game, don't worry about missing out on core story elements of the series, because this story could be skipped and the main storyline of the series won't be affected. It's a cool side story that is really fun to explore and fans of Telltale games will not be disappointed (assuming they have some familiarity with the Borderlands lore).

The title says it all - this game blew any expectations I had out of the water. Telltale looks as if it settles into tired ruts as of recent, but this title shows they can take a universe that doesn't have an immediately present universe and give it a shot in the arm.

For an adventure game that's mostly cinematic/walky simulator, the story takes the main focus, and what a story it is. What starts out with a bunch of unlikeable characters soon morphs into an incredibly strong cast, with emotion and humor at every corner. The world of Borderlands wasn't incredibly appealing as an FPS, but this game proves just how rich the world of Pandora can actually be from an adventure standpoint.

The mechanics are similar fare to what Telltale's given before, but little tweaks customized for each character (keeping track of funds, scanning with the eye implants) along with some well-handled action packed moments where the player feels less guilty more than excited to try out new outcomes. It's a refreshing difference from the "oh god I'm doing everything wrong" feeling that some series like The Walking Dead tended to turn out.

If you were hesitant about playing this game because you don't do the gunny-shooty thing very well and thought Borderlands was this confusing, expanded universe thing, fear not. This game is highly accessible and a brilliant stand-alone adventure. If Telltale reinvents the wheel, may there be more wheels like these.

Rating: 5.5/10

I love Borderlands. I always anticipate new installments. I love the looting, the RPG elements (though I feel they could go a little deeper with them), the sense of humour, some of the characters (mostly NPCs or villains) and the world of crazies that they've built.

What I don't love is the actual story. Borderlands had a generic, maybe even sub-par plot, and Borderlands 2 had a better one but it was still mostly because of characters like Handsome Jack. The pre-sequel was more of the same.

The dialogue and the way the characters interact is fun, but I'm not invested in the plot because there's not much there. So that's a big reason why this is only getting this score for me.

It's a good time, has some funny moments, and the characters are sometimes interesting, but unlike The Wolf Among Us, it was hard to really care. I was mostly just making choices without caring too much what the consequences are.

The action sequences are uninspired and clunky. Borderlands is a shooter series, I don't think this type of style fits it. The shooting parts just don't work and the action sequences where you fight people aren't as engaging as in The Wolf Among Us. They shoved these elements (like a currency and looting) into this game where it, weirdly, didn't belong. I never thought I'd say looting didn't belong in a Borderlands game.

I still love the world, but my initial fears were right; it's a decent Telltale game, but it's the wrong property to do this. They've done better.