New Tales From the Borderlands review: Charming characters, no room to breathe

A new story from Borderlands I want to please you.Its script is brilliantly delivered by the game’s voice cast and maintains the rhythm of the jokes to match beep for pure frequency. In the roughly ten hours it took me to complete the game, I lost count of pop culture references. babe And only fan. You may not like all the jokes (I didn’t like one particular fart joke), but the funny thing is, there are more than enough jokes here. Have get to

A new story from Borderlands As the name suggests, it is a spiritual successor. Tales from the BorderlandsDeveloped by Gearbox, not by Telltale Games, but if you’ve played any of these branching story games, you’ll feel right at home here. You control the trio of Anu, Octavio and Fran. Sibling pair Anu and Octavio are clearly enemies. Anu is an anxious scientist who hates animal testing and violence of any kind. Octavio, by contrast, sits comfortably in an adorable clown archetype, and he claims to be street-smart to Anu’s book-smart (although the evidence for their alleged smartness is thin). Finally, Fran is Octavio’s friend, former employer, and overtly sexual frozen yogurt purveyor with anger issues. The trio joins supporting characters along the way, but their interrelationships form the central driving force, both narratively and mechanically. new tales.

The first of the five episodes (and for my taste the game’s best episode) does an excellent job of introducing these three episodes on separate tracks. Anu is shown in a highly stressful scenario that establishes her commitment to animal rights just before a dramatic confrontation between two rival companies takes center stage. Presented with LOU13, a robot assassin who for some reason needs to hear your full name before shooting you in the head. It appears to us in moments of everyday frustration that send her towards the heights of.

Their stories were slowly pieced together with a patiently that felt like a novel, and the script took its time to feel confident enough about each thread before weaving them together. As it turns out, the gang ends up together, but crucially, in addition to some shared history between individuals, they’re still getting to know each other.

At least until Episode 2 kicks off, we’ll see a montage (set to great music) that culminates in the central cast plus LOU13 hanging out, wordlessly bonding, and doing waves. It’s a funny and silly image, but the group has its own dynamic when they regain control of their characters after the music video. Fran, who had just met Anu the last time he saw her, is now used to making the same kind of jokes. The scientist’s tendency to overthink, as does her own brother. While the first chapter felt patient with the plot and characterization (especially with regards to the deliberately picky Borderlands aesthetic), I felt the follow-up was entirely too convenient.

Image: Gearbox Software/2K Games

This may sound like an overly literary complaint. But in this genre, story is the main driving force of gameplay. In these Telltale-style games, players, as fiction writers, must create first drafts and make intuitive decisions about how and why their characters do what they do. The rest of the interactions are secondary to those decisions. new tales, non-narrative segments usually take the form: An action figure/fighting game mish-mash that plays exactly the same the 7th time as the 1st. Or put the player in a spot where they can walk around and interact with people, things, and the occasional garbage bag containing money. (This is Borderlands, after all.)

Finally, new tales It suffers from pacing issues, both on a character and plot level. Team cohesion is introduced as a mechanic to influence the beat of the story, but by the time I failed the first backstage dice roll, a cute dog-like character died (OK, dog-H is), in the short amount of time given, I struggled to see when and where I made a mistake.

The plot loses momentum in Episode 3. shark tankjust getting to the frenzied episode 5, the significant character loss stacks up alongside story developments that I wish I had fleshed out more. For a character who expresses the fascination with , it suffers from a frustrating mix of over-reliance on acting out sexuality for the sake of comedy. Great bits like the slow-burn jokes involving Maude are overshadowed by the all-too-frequent jokes about how much she loves sex.

Image: Gearbox Software/2K Games

Still, the game has plenty of laughs. The dialogue is snappy and well-voiced, and when the jokes hit, they hit. In particular, the repeated gags of soldiers you keep finding in freezers, morgues, and ventilation shafts always prove to be hilarious. Jean Parmesan Fergus is an unpaid Chippendales-esque intern who dances to the song “Free Labor.” late capitalism.

Anu and Octavio’s journey as brother and sister was also great, but as the story progressed, I found myself overwhelmed by the more magical elements of the game, putting aside the quiet, emotional dialogue in favor of the more traditional dramatics. I just finished a video game, plotting one involving debris and glowing green energy.i really liked it A new story from Borderlands and its characters. I wished I had a little more time to breathe life into their stories.

A new story from Borderlands Releases October 21st on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. This game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by 2K Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, but Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased via affiliate links.discoverable Additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy can be found here.