Having recently mentioned my acquisition of the two newest episodic game series by TellTale Games, the time has come for me to write about them. I purchased the season passes for both Game of Thrones and Tales From the Borderlands, and that means to this point I’ve had three episodes to play through (2 from GoT) and today marks the release of episode 2 for TFTB, so I’ll have even more to write about shortly.

Being my first experience with a TellTale game in some months, it was interesting to see the evolution of their game mechanics take another step forward. Playing some of their older titles like Monkey Island or Back to the Future, you’ll note that the game was a little more open and free form, but that tended to slow up the narrative quite a bit. Then Jurassic Park changed the formula again; it leaned heavily on QTEs (quick-time events) instead of puzzles. It was frustrating at times, and they learned from their mistakes, dialing back the QTEs but making the narrative a bit more linear in The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. I’m pleased to report that Tales From the Borderlands has found a near-perfect mix of exploration, narrative and action, along with capturing the humor and personality of the Borderlands world. With that said, on with the play through.

I’m going to attempt to keep this write up of my game experiences from totally ruining the game for you, but the major decisions screen will be found below, and those are what I’m going to talk about, as they are the major points of emphasis. I’m still not going to go into explicit detail about anything, but you should still consider that there are POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!

The game spilts your play time up between Rhys, a Hyperion suit-type, and Fiona, who is a Pandorian hustler. Their paths cross through the story, and is being told through flashbacks, while in truth they are both relating the tale after the fact. You start out controlling Rhys, so I’ll dive into my choices while playing him.

I made the less popular choice in instructing the Loader Bot to self-destruct. There was a point when it was obviously going to be lost, so I used it to blow up our attackers. It seemed like the logical choice, it being a machine designed to do that sort of thing. The majority of players would disagree though, as only 37% of us chose this way.

Later, meeting Sasha who is related to Fiona (and part of the reason the two protagonists’ stories intersect), I was also in the super small minority of people who didn’t instantly trust her. I felt like if I was really a Hyperion employee, I wouldn’t trust anyone on Pandora, period. Roleplaying 1, The other 85% of you, 0.

Vasquez, a rival, proposes a deal which will implicate my friend but make me a ton of money. For similar roleplaying reasons, I took the deal, because Hyperions are scumbags, usually. Less than 10% of players picked the same way. Damn, my roleplaying must make me a dick.

When calling down the Loader bot in that particular scene, we were presented with options to equip the bot. I went with a Riot Shield and Grenades, which seems to be a combination only 10% of players picked. It seemed to make the most sense at the time, however that could be the reason I ended up having to make him self destruct in the previous decision.

It looks like I played Fiona more like most people would, or at least I did a bit better when you look solely at the percentages. So what choices did I make here?

There’s a guy named August who is helping to facilitate a deal. We are trying to sell a vault key, and August attempts to touch it. I had to stop him, as I was instructed to not allow him to touch the key. Almost 60% of you did the same.

Later, you run into a character named Shade, who is a rather creepy looking guy who resembles a meth addict. He is creeping around with you, and asks to accompany you. Of course I would have preferred some distance between us, he had a good proposition, so I let him come along. The majority of players felt the same way.

Felix, your mentor and friend for years, betrays you. I don’t know if I was roleplaying or going with my gut on this one, but I let him die when the opportunity arose. Cause fuck you Felix, that’s why. Only 30% of you let him die. Why don’t you just let everyone walk all over you?

There is a point in the story where you get to pick a mask that resembles the ones most bandits on Pandora wear. There were three choices, I went with the Skeletal Mask. Seems like a less popular option with only 22% making the same choice.

As I mentioned earlier, episode 2 came out today, and I’m downloading that now. I’ll play that and add it in a new article. I’ve also already played through the first two episodes of Game of Thrones, which I can say is a great game as well. I’ll be adding my play through info and choices in separate articles soon. All of these posts can be easily found on the “ongoing series” page which you can find at the top of the site. My older TellTale game play throughs are present there as well, in case you’d like to compare my choices with your own.

#talesfromtheborderlands #telltale #interactivestory #narrative