So who bet on the Borderlands game being the better Telltale game this year than Game of Thrones? When the two games were first announced, the temperature in the room was that Borderlands looked like an obvious cash grab, especially with its release in such close proximity with the pedestrian Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Despite trepidations, what we got was Telltale's first entry since Walking Dead that is on that same level of quality.
You play as Rhys, a Hyperion middle manager who looks up to everyone's favorite psychopath Handsome Jack, and Fiona, one of Pandora's foremost con-artists. A scheme involving, what else, a vault key brings the two together, along with Rhys's best friend and co-worker Vaughn, Fiona's sister and resident gun nut Sasha, and a host of wacky characters as you'd come to expect from the Borderlands series. The game has the feel of a summer blockbuster in all the right ways, and it's a tone that fits very well with the Borderlands universe. The writing took significant step up from previous entries in the Borderlands series. The humor is strong, varied, and avoids falling into the meme-heavy hole the second game fell into at times while simultaneously avoiding relying too much on being wacky and random . While the game's humor is certainly still based around being off-kilter and often pitch black, it is executed well, and no joke manages to overstay its welcome. The game's title card sequences in particular may be the game's best moments.
But humor is not the only strength of the game's writing. The story is equal parts comedy, action, and drama. The cast is extremely likable. Tales even manages to add quite a bit to several existing characters from the series. Considering the temptation to rely on cameos in games such as this, Tales avoids this for the most part, save one moment around the middle of the game where it feels a little forced.
Tales is another one of "those" Walking Dead style Telltale games, so if you've played any of them, you know what you're in for. The game's mix of timed dialogue choices and QTEs works well, although the issue with some choices having too short a timer is as present here as it has in other recent efforts. Because the game is more action-heavy than other Telltale games to date, it relies heavily on QTEs. With rare exception, they are used quite well in the game, and there are plentiful checkpoints if you miss one.
Tales fared a bit better than the recent Wolf Among Us in utilizing the episodic format. Episodes end at logical points, and with the game's rollercoaster pace, breaks are actually beneficial in avoiding exhaustion. That said, Tales suffered from a really poor release schedule thanks to Game of Thrones being Telltale's priority this year. The "last time on..." style sequences at the start of each episode weren't quite sufficient to remind the player where things were left. Something akin to Max's diary from Life is Strange would go a long way towards helping avoid this issue. Episodes 1 and 5 were easily the strongest, with the middle chapters suffering from pacing issues. Chapter 3 was the weakest of the bunch, with much of the episode feeling like padding despite not a lot going on.
If you've played recent Telltale games, you're also likely aware most of their games rely on the "illusion" of player choice rather than featuring drastically branching plotlines. There is actually a little more variety in terms of where certain characters end up based on your choices than in previous games. In addition, the way your choices come together in the final episode represents the best utilization of player choice from a Telltale game to date.
With all the positives Tales possesses, the unfortunate reality is the Telltale Tool engine is really dragging these games down. When the Walking Dead came out in 2012 and was pushing the engine to new limits, plus was hampered by being on consoles reaching the end of their lifetime, it was easier to excuse. In 2015, it just smacks of laziness or plain unwillingness to put any effort into fixing the engine so they can spend more time churning out games as fast as possible. The Telltale hitch is ever present in Tales During one of the last episode's climactic sequences, the hitching got so bad it was like watching a video stream lurch every few seconds. And hitching was not the only problem I witnessed. In one QTE sequence in chapter 3, I missed a prompt, which seemed to reset Fiona to the start of the sequence, but leave Rhys mid-sequence, requiring me to restart the game. In chapter 5, using your retinal scanner as Rhys can break the game as well. You'll also get constant loading sequences, one of which took upwards of 45 to 60 seconds, though they're more typically around 10 seconds.
These issues aside, Tales is not only the best Telltale game since The Walking Dead, but may also be the best Borderlands game period. It certainly possesses the sharpest, wittiest writing in the series. While I'd really like for Telltale to take the next leap with their current style of adventure game, Tales shows there's still a little life yet left with the current formula.