Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Decline Telltale's Tales from the Borderlands

Cyberarmy

Love fool
Patron
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Messages
8,402
Location
Smyrna - Scalanouva
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Some serious photoshop paint skillz!

1488012_10152414351058125_216906423_n.jpg
 

Tommy Wiseau

Arcane
Joined
Apr 7, 2012
Messages
9,424
Eh, why? Sam & Max was always a classic adventure game franchise. It wouldn't be of any benefit to Telltale to adopt an established IP meant for classic adventure games when they could work with any new property they choose to that doesn't have classic adventure games made after it, and so far they've only announced working with new IPs after TWD's success.
Just like how they kept sequels faithful in Thief,Fallout,Syndicate,X-Com(FPS version mostly),Sim City, Dungeen Keeper and many more franchises, Right?

None of those IPs have the same market as Sam & Max or Tales of Monkey Island do. You could use a recognizable sci-fi RPG setting or stealth game franchise to cash in on an action game sequel, but Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island appeal exclusively to classic adventure game fans.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
But most of the dialogue in the 30 minutes of Tales I saw (probably a 60/40 cutscene/game split) was clever without really being funny. Some of the other dialogue tried hard for for funny, but fell flat.
:hmmm:

The guy criticizes the game for most of the article and concludes with the title that it's 'worth the return trip.'
 

Tommy Wiseau

Arcane
Joined
Apr 7, 2012
Messages
9,424
Why do you dislike good developers, Metro? He mostly criticized it for not being Borderlands-y enough.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,109
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ltales-triumphant-return-to-its-comedic-roots

Tales From the Borderlands is Telltale's triumphant return to its comedic roots
Even if it follows The Walking Dead's template.

Having not played much Borderlands and only having cursory knowledge of the series, I approached Tales From the Borderlands at this E3 with a bit of apprehension. Sure, it would offer fan service to veterans of Gearbox's open-world shooting series, but two games and a smattering of DLC hardly seems like the sort of inviting, expansive universe of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead or Bill Willingham's Fables series.

When Telltale's Job Stauffer calls Borderlands "as big, if not bigger than and richer than something on the level of Star Wars," it's difficult not to raise an eyebrow at such an ambitious claim. Having only seen a fleeting glimpse of Tales From the Borderlands with its opening half hour, I'm not sure how well-realised the Borderlands universe is in relation to George Lucas' fantasy series, but based on my initial impressions it could be even better. This is Star Wars without the dry politicking surrounding trade tariffs, the solemn samurai oaths of the Jedi, or the Shakespearean familial tragedy underlying the space western saga. Instead, this is Star Wars: The Good Parts: the Mos Eisley Cantina, the kinetic battles with Jabba the Hutt's minions, the spiky banter between Han and Leia. I know, right?

But Tales From the Borderlands isn't just a fresh spin on space opera, it's also a fresh take on Telltale's formula too. The basic format is similar to what Telltale's been doing with The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us in that it's light on action and puzzles, but heavy on narrative and dialogue choices. The difference is that in Dead and Wolf you played as a relatively blank slate whose personality you were able to shape to a considerable degree so they'd operate as an extension of yourself. In Tales From the Borderlands, you play as something of an asshole Nathan Drake.

jpg

Corporate goon Hugo Vasquez is played with delightfully dickish relish by the great Patrick Warburton.

At least you do half the time. For Tales From the Borderlands follows a Rashomon-esque structure wherein you toggle between two characters: Rhys the grifter, and Fiona, the other grifter. Both are summoned by a mysterious masked fellow in an effort to reclaim a vault key - essentially a macguffin that will bestow you with an unprecedented amount of power. The problem is Rhys and Fiona absolutely despise each other. Why, you ask? Well, that's all part of the mystery, and each character tells a different version of events with the truth lying somewhere in the middle.

Let's get back to Rhys as the hands-off demo I see revolves around him. Set after Borderlands 2, Tales begins with massive mineral conglomerate Hyperion Corporation in need of a new boss after its tycoon Handsome Jack has been defeated. Rhys is just a "company man" who was after Jack's throne when his co-worker Hugo Vasquez, a "big corporate jerkface" with a haircut and ego that screams douchebag, promotes himself to CEO. Rhys overhears Vasquez's phone call about illegally obtaining a vault key, so it's up to you to intercept the contraband in order to piss off your boss and use the vault's power to become basically the new Donald Trump. That's your goal. Protecting Clementine, this ain't.

But it's fun to be the bad guy! Or at least a petty scoundrel with illusions of grandeur. This shift in perspective comes with a shift in playstyle, too. When you land on the bandit wasteland of Pandora with your pals Vaughn and Yvette, you need to ask a greasy-faced redneck for directions. Rhys callously calls the man "grease face" to his (greasy) face, which naturally leads to trouble.

"Look, fella. My friend is really, really sorry," says Vaughn. "He's got some kind of a condition where he says really stupid crap just to see what will happen." That's how half the audience plays these games anyway, so having a character that's a bit of a dick gives the player carte blanche to explore this more exuberant side of their personality.

When Rhys examines a sleeping or unconscious man's belongings and finds credits, there's no decision whether to loot the stranger or not. Of course you take it! This is Borderlands, after all: a galaxy run by greed.



Beyond its shift in perspective, Tales From the Borderlands integrates its art assets more gracefully than its adaptations of Kirkman and Willngham's work. This is because Gearbox made a lot of the assets in this collaboration and Telltale subtly alters its directorial touch to reflect this. One of my favourite sections involves a scrape with some local thugs where Rhys and company have to send in an attack bot. Here you see a weapon loadout screen that looks at home in Gearbox's shooter and you manually select what armaments you want for your mech. The scene ends up playing with your input mostly relegated to QTEs, but placing your own stamp on how the action choreography in the background transpires is a nice touch that goes a long way towards personalizing the adventure.

If you're worried that Rhys' antics may be too prescribed, don't be. Telltale still has plenty of wonderfully difficult interpersonal decisions laid out before you. The demo culminates in a back-alley deal gone wrong when your contact's suspicion is raised since you're not Vasquez. Things get even dicier when the dealer's girlfriend "has a bad feeling" about you. Do you tell the man to not listen to his significant other, play the calm and understanding type in hopes of reclaiming the couple's trust, or try to take the vault key by force? It ain't easy being a swindler.

While Tales From the Borderlands may seem like a departure for Telltale, it is in many ways a return to form. People have nearly forgotten that before The Walking Dead Telltale used to be primarily a comedy studio with its most well-known properties being modern takes on Monkey Island, Sam & Max, and Homestar Runner. It's a bit like Sam Raimi going straight from his goofy Evil Dead flicks to more serious fare like A Simple Plan and the Spider-Man trilogy only to return to his roots with the kooky horror comedy Drag Me to Hell. This isn't a knock against The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us (the former of which I loved), but rather a statement that this seemingly corporate crossover feels more like an honest-to-goodness passion project for Telltale while it catches its breath between the grim tragedies of The Walking Dead, Fables, and its upcoming Game of Thrones adaptation. It may not be for everyone (and indeed action junkies would best stick with Borderlands' upcoming Pre-Sequel), but this is for Telltale fans - whether they've played Borderlands or not.
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
13,069
Location
Azores Islands
If they are closely following the humor and tone of the borderlands series, then i dont expect much from this, and to Eurogamer making it sound like its anything beyond a cashin, good god for gaming journalists, these guys are getting worse by the day.
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
Joined
Dec 12, 2002
Messages
29,683
Location
About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Liked the first 'season' of The Walking Dead' and am going to give their other games a try now Steam is selling them for peanuts.* Borderlands games were lame with the best thing being their trailers. So perhaps a piece of entertainment made around that idea would actually work.

* Well, after I play through my scummvm collection of Lucasarts classics. And that Gemini Rue game.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,109
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Well, the first episode of this shit will be out today: http://store.steampowered.com/app/330830/

Cobbett review: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-25-tales-from-the-borderlands-episode-1-review

The catch is that even by Telltale's recent standards, the result often feels like it may as well be a straight-up movie, with far too many interactions limited to just pressing a key to dodge something or some equally primitive QTE. Moments where you just get to explore are few and far between and contain almost nothing to actually do, with Tales always desperately pushing you to the next scene, the next bit of action, the next plot twist. There's a little bit more to do than first appears, admittedly, like scanning items for jokes using Rhys' cyborg eye and hunting for money that Fiona can use to unlock options, but they're brief moments that are easily overlooked. This episode's showpiece scene especially is a real case of "Well, clearly you don't need me..."

It gets away with it - for now, at least - thanks to its burning energy. Rhys especially needs more than a well-timed button press to win a fight, with even success usually leading to humiliation like breaking his hand against an enemy's face or trying so, so hard to strangle a guard that even the guard feels sorry for him. Fiona meanwhile has an entertaining choice hanging over her head all episode - a gun with only one bullet, to be saved for an emergency. You of course get to decide when that is, in one of Tales From The Borderlands' more pointed reminders that you're just a regular guy and gal trying to survive on a planet of crazies, rather than a tooled up Vault Hunter with a kill-count measured in genocides.

Provided that you're okay with an interactive movie rather than a full-on adventure game, this is an excellent start to the series. Rhys especially is shaping up to be a great character who's always going to be pulled between his natural urge to be a shark and the chance to become something else, while Fiona's profession all but guarantees back-stabbings and dramatic swerves. If there's a disappointment, it's that when the overall arc of the story - so far - is hinted at, it's summed up with the line "One way or another, everything on Pandora is leading you to a vault..." Vaults are easily Borderlands' least interesting plot element, and hopefully there's something more interesting going on than just another treasure hunt. Whatever the destination though, it's looking like the journey there is going to be a hell of a ride.
 

Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
It's not actually Borderlands humour, this. BL was often funny. This isn't.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
After about twenty minutes I started skimming/fast forwarding. After another ten minutes of trying to find the entertaining parts I gave up and stopped watching. Not sure who wrote this but it's bland. At least the Walking Derp 'games' had semi-interesting narratives and tension between the characters. This is just a shallow Borderlands IP cash grab.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
981
Location
Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
This literally was a semi-interactive cartoon. It looked really nice, for sure - but it really didn't feel like much of a game. I think they did this with Dragon's Lair and Space Age, but with better animation by Don fucking Bluth.


Bt
 

taxalot

I'm a spicy fellow.
Patron
Joined
Oct 28, 2010
Messages
9,597
Location
Your wallet.
Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I remember frowning when the first Sam & Max came out about the episodic system being a gameplay simplification.

I'm very happy they aren't doing anymore Sam&Max games.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
:necro:

Holy shit is Telltale a joke. Remember when they pooped out these 'episodes' every month? They couldn't hold to that so with Tales from the Borderplands they said every two months... and here it is coming up on three months since episode one and they still haven't gotten episode two out. Why do people keep giving them money?
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Because it's fun showing up dumbfucks like yourself who love these shitty games and this joke of a developer.

Uh... Walking Derp and their older 'Adventure' games were on monthly release schedules... though they rarely made those deadlines.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom