Tales from the Borderlands - Zer0 Sum Review & Gameplay
Tales from the Borderlands - Zer0 Sum Review & Gameplay
2014-11-27
hey everyone this is nick from gamers
nexus net and i'm here to talk about
episode 1 of tales from the borderlands
called zero some tales from the
borderlands is you guessed it based on
the borderlands franchise it's made by
Telltale Games a company in San
Francisco that specializes in adventure
games sort of pork point-and-click
adventures that play out as episodic
content releases so this is episode 1
this is the beginning you actually play
as two characters one is named Rhys he's
a company man from Hyperion which is a
weapons manufacturer as you know from
Borderlands so Reese is coming to
Pandora because he's trying to basically
overthrow his boss the new boss who's
coming to Hyperion who replaced handsome
Jack from Borderlands 2 so that guy's
name is Vasquez and it's actually voiced
by Patrick Warburton the other character
that you play Oz is Fiona and she is a
Pandora native she's joined by her
sister Sasha and a mentor in this
episode named Felix so Reese and Fiona
have crossed paths the game actually
takes place in a series of stories that
happened over the course of will be
several episodes here both Rhys and
Fiona are sort of telling their sides of
the story they actually start the game
they're captured by somebody we don't
know who it is at this point and so
they're saying this is what happened to
me and then the other persist well it
wasn't exactly like that and then it
shows how the other character was
involved as well so it's interesting to
kind of hear their sides of the story
and you can even kind of influence how
that story leads off if you've played
the walking dead or the wolf among us
then the formula for this will be pretty
similar tales from the borderlands has a
cinematic approach to the action scenes
and in those scenes there are a lot of
QuickTime events that's kind of your
interaction with the game at that point
on the technical side I noticed that
there were a few stutters when the game
was automatically saving or when I had
unlocked in achievement so a little bit
of stutter right there it doesn't really
affect things too much but once in a
while it's kind of funny to hear the
character like actually repeating their
dialogue just because of that you know
that moment of the game works
saving in general I think that this
definitely comes across as a telltale
Game that happens to be written inside
of a borderlands universe as I mentioned
before we have two protagonists who are
non violent in nature really this is
exploring the relationships among
characters rather than killing a bunch
of faceless bandits and reap and reaping
the benefits of the loop that they have
around them so telltale has done a good
job of borrowing some of the humor some
of that b-movie aesthetic b-movie
presentation with over-the-top stylized
action and that all looks good and
everything but when it comes down to it
I'm thinking of this as a telltale Game
I'm not really thinking about it so much
as Borderlands there are a couple of
ways where telltale has kind of expanded
Borderlands these referees elements here
could actually make their way into a
borderlands game so for example Reese
has this ability called echo I and echo
I is a scanner that basically works like
infrared you know it's it's or a night
vision where he can detect items and it
enables him to scan them for information
and a lot of the information is
displayed in a way that's pretty
humorous with the borderlands way of
humours also as you would expect from a
telltale Game the voice acting is very
strong yeah you're actually going to
find some characters who are from
Borderlands 2 like those voice actors
return same guy who does the voice of
zero who is michael turner he's back for
the new characters we have Troy Baker
who voiced Booker in BioShock Infinite
Joel and the last of us many many other
big games he's been a part of so he's
Reese Laura Bailey who was who was reign
in blood rain and who is voiced chun-li
some of the recent street fighter games
voices Fiona our villain for the series
the guy who is Vasquez with his deep
authoritative intimidating sort of voice
is Patrick Warburton and if you don't
know who that is he's Joe from Family
Guy go to talks like this so it's kind
of fun seeing him making an appearance
in this game as well alright so just
some closing thoughts with zero sum
there might be some ways a telltale
kind of elaborate on things a little bit
more to kind of round things out by that
I mean perhaps when Reese uses his echo
I that actually gives them information
that he can use when he has to make
critical decisions or like I said
earlier maybe he maybe he or Fiona could
choose between different items to use in
an action scene so there's a little bit
more variety there again i think that
the references the tie-ins with
borderlands is good it doesn't dominate
the plot so much and that's kind of good
because then we're given a sort of fresh
plot line that we can be excited about
and we can make our own authentic
decisions we're not trying to just make
them because it's supposed to be this
way in the borderlands universe this is
the first of probably five episodes at
least for the first season and I would
hope to see this continue the way it is
we'll be covering the rest of tales from
the borderlands here on gamers Nexus be
sure to check out our videos to be
released upon each episode and be sure
to check out our written review for zero
sum alright guys thanks a lot
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