Episode 1-4 were REALLY good, and it has a lot of potential, but I think Telltale dropped the ball. It makes me sad saying that because I likeEpisode 1-4 were REALLY good, and it has a lot of potential, but I think Telltale dropped the ball. It makes me sad saying that because I like Borderlands and Telltale games but…this is just ridiculous.
I am going to start by what I hated the most to what I hated the least.
!. QUEER BAITING: Game developers, PLEASE stop queer baiting. Stop having gay jokes. Stop implying that a character is homosexual/bi sexual/pan sexual/etc. and then make them NOT that. It’s insulting.
The whole thing with Rhys and Handsome Jack and Vaughn….that was queer baiting, sadly. And it’s not okay.
2. HANDSOME JACK: Handsome Jack’s scenes in this episode were amazing. They were powerful and well written. However, him being defeated so quickly kind of deflated the whole episode. Without Handsome Jack there was no internal conflict. There was no battle or threatening conflict. Jack was scary. Jack was dangerous. Jack was relatable.
If anything I would have had Jack’s defeat at the end. It would have been a nice cherry on top.
3. VALORY: I don’t understand her point. I mean I DO understand her point. She needed to release the vault monster but she also died quickly. We didn’t get to know her or her motive. We could have had more with her and August. But no…she just gets crushed.
4. PACING: Telltale is great at pacing. They have a great balance of quiet scenes and loud scenes. They needed a lot more quiet. There was too much time wasted on action and clichés that we’ve seen over and over. There should have been more intimate moments between characters. There should have been some breath where characters sat with their choices. Instead the story felt like it was sped up. Like it wanted to be over.
5. THE VAULT MONSTER: i do not give a **** about the vault monster. It’s not why we play telltale games. We play telltale games to see how characters overcome a problem. We don’t play it for very long, pointless fight scenes.
The monster should have been MASSIVE. It should have seemed like an impossible force. It should have loomed over them. It should have cast a long shadow. It didn’t. We just kind of defeated it relatively easily.
6. The “death” of Sasha: That was the most cliché scene I have ever seen.
7. THE WASTED POTENTIAL: Borderlands, as a series, has A LOT of potential. You have the narcissistic insanity of Jack, you have the inner conflicts of Rhys, you have the mysterious vaults, the awesome monster designs! You had the grandness and epicness that the series was trying to pull off.
When you play Borderlands things are always happening. You’re fighting until the end. You’re never sure if you’re going to make it. I didn’t get the same feeling for Tales. I didn’t get the feeling that I was going to loose it all.
I want to see Rhys crawl on his knees. I want to see them fight until they can’t fight anymore.
But they didn’t. It was just sort of “Eh”…. and I think that sucks.
If I had just played the beginning with Jack I would have been happening. Everything after was a huge let down.… Expand
