Tales from the Borderlands – Episode Three review: Tame jokes, lacklustre action, the worst Telltale episode yet
National Post Tech Desk - Fri, 06/26/2015 - 09:44
The strength of Telltale Games’ episodic Tales from the Borderlands series lays entirely within its wacky yet weirdly digestible humour.
Its heroes are often daft, but also familiar and even loveable. Its violence is frequently gruesome, but in unexpected, giggle-inducing ways. It’s like watching our friends playing sci-fi shoot-em-up.
However, as the sci-fi series crosses the midseason hump it’s losing some of this charm.
RelatedOur protagonists – middle manager Rhys (a cyborg carrying the electronic ghost of his former boss) and his geeky buddy Vaughn, along with soft-hearted hustler Fiona and her sister Sasha, all still trying to lay their mitts on the alien riches of one of planet Pandora’s famed Vaults – remain likeable, but are strangely static in development and surprisingly short on wit.
The third episode sees this unlikely quartet making its way to a domed biological facility to find something called an Energy Chassis (the latest in a series of uninspired McGuffins) for Gortys, a new robot companion now leading them to the Vault.
Unfortunately, little else of consequence happens this two-hour adventure, save – should the player choose via the dialogue tree – a hint of romantic development between two main characters. And there aren’t even many laughs to carry us through the slow spells.
The problem is that our heroes are a little too earnest this time out, more interested in exploring who they are and respecting each other’s feelings than cracking jokes at one another’s expense. For the first hour or so Vaughn endures an admittedly laugh-aloud predicament quite fitting of the Borderlands milieu, but once it’s resolved I’m not sure I did much more than smirk at any of the company’s disappointingly mild barbs and quips.
What’s more, the writers seem lost as to what to do with the format they established in the first two episodes, whereby the bulk of the adventure is related by Fiona and Rhys as flashbacks from their personal (and often conflicting) perspectives. The duo only significantly disagree once regarding the circumstances of recalled events. The format is almost completely forgotten for much of the final half of the episode, during which we switch between controlling Fiona and Rhys regularly without jumping back to the present to change the teller of the tale.
Then there are the action sequences, which, as usual, rely heavily upon onscreen cues and quick-time taps. Telltale’s designers have managed, if only sporadically, to make this interface fit the Borderlands vibe in previous episodes – like the hilarious stun baton sequence in Episode One – but not this time. The action is mostly lifeless and, worse, frequently frustrating.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwiEKpLuCbU&w=640&h=390]
Within minutes of the intro players find themselves following Fiona and Rhys in a hallway guarded by sentry turrets that will instantly and repeatedly kill those of us whose quick-time skills have rusted over since the last episode. Later, a climb up collapsing scaffolding is made needlessly complex via a bizarre mix of button inputs that are both unintuitive and needlessly confusing.
The episode’s big and lengthy finale is, thankfully, less annoying. But it’s also – save for a fun little scene that involves controlling the movements of a character suspended upside down with feet bound – mightily uninspired.
The imaginative, over-the-top nature of the violence of previous episodes is simply missing. Anything resembling the brilliant Loader Bot battle of the first episode is nowhere to be seen. In its place we’re given run-of-the-mill firefights that require dodges and a bit of quick targeting and not much more. The introduction of a wonderfully intimidating looking but not particularly potent new villain named Vallory just feels like a tease.
To top it all off, Catch a Ride feels like one of the most unpolished episodes in any series Telltale Games has yet released. I encountered overly long loading screens. A character who spoke without moving her lips. Discrepancies in volume when switching between characters and scenes. At a crucial point a (very predictably timed) Xbox Achievement notification popped up and pretty much completely obscured a timed dialogue decision at the beginning of a new scene, forcing me to choose an option at random.
And remember that Telltale is taking its time delivering Tales from the Borderlands. We’ve seen an average of about three-and-a-half months separating each episode so far. You’d expect something a little more release-worthy, given all those weeks.
Tales from the Borderlands: Episode Three – Catch a Ride isn’t without moments of mirth and fun, but by and large it’s a pretty big disappointment. The series hasn’t lost my interest quite yet – I’m still hoping Loader Bot has at least one more outrageous save-the-day moment in him – but its penultimate episode has some damage to repair.
