The third episode of Tales from the Borderlands hit not too long ago, and it’s safe to say that this is my favorite thing Telltale has done to date. Some spoilers ahead!
Episode 2 of Tales from the Borderlands (https://www.sknr.net/2015/04/10/tales-from-the-borderlands/) had our trusty heroes tracking down an old Atlas facility for something called the Gortys Project. Stakes were left rather high, ending with a couple of life-or-death choices and a cliffhanger ending. While it has been a signature of Telltale games to show you different paths based on your previous choices, things are radically changed depending on your decision at the end of Episode 2.
Atlas base discovered, the mysterious Gortys retrieved, the protagonists are backed against a figurative wall by Vasquez and his goons – with guns aimed at friends and comrades. Trust Fiona, and you’ll follow her on a haphazard and mostly improvised escape plan. Trust Rhys/Jack, and you’ll see an entirely different kind of chaos.
In one of my replays, Vaughn got shot with some sort of paralytic and did… pretty much nothing for the entirety of the chapter. It made for a great recurring joke throughout that play through, and I was thrilled to find that choosing the other path would result in a completely different outcome. Vaughn was fine and dandy!
As a nice twist, the little orb named Gortys turns out to have a mind of its own as a friggin’ adorable robot that, once awakened, begins leading the crew to a fabled Vault (your MacGuffin!). Gortys might be my favorite addition to this series so far, up there with Loader Bot.
The crew has hopped out of the frying pan called Vasquez and into a fire called Vallory, a newly-introduced villain who was in on the original 10 million dollar deal that kicked off the entire series. Angry that she’s out the cash (and a Vault), she’s looking for blood.
The entire episode is jam-packed with action and humor, and I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard at a game in a very long time. What characters we’ve continually followed have remained perfectly endearing, and each new character feels like a breath of fresh air. I care about all of these characters, and it’s only been about 6 hours of gameplay thus far.
In terms of the changes in choice, I was surprised to find during a playthrough that Athena offered up some ammunition to Fiona, and I have to admit that the gamer in me felt a little cheated. Episode 1 puts some heavy emphasis on Fiona’s limited ammo to the point where you have an internal meltdown when faced with whether or not to take a shot. Episode 2 reloads your gun a couple more times, Now it just seems like they’ve switched direction completely, which might not be a bad thing. After all, you’ve already faced the choice of whether or not to expend your only bullets during critical moments. Now a new choice may arise: When faced with unlimited firepower, is it worth even taking the shot at all?
No word yet on the release of Episode 4, but as always I wait with great anticipation. The world of Borderlands allows for the writers to take things over the top, and it feels like each chapter somehow outdoes the previous one in terms of “crazy.”
All three episodes are currently available on PS3, PS4, PC, OSX, Android and iOS.
5/5
