Mortal Kombat X - Mobile Edition

[Moral Kombat X (mobile), NetherRealm Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2015]

The Violentest Game Ever Comes to Your Apple and Android Device

That's right, the title that brought us the E for everyone, E10+, T for teen, and M for mature game rating system has finally come to your mobile device of choice, and not in a throwback nod to the original 1992 version, but in the form of a massive 1.1 Gigabyte, state-of-the-art addition to the wildly popular console title of the same name. Although it requires a hefty bit of free memory to download, it's worth every penny. By that I don't mean to insult the game. That was my witty way of saying, "It's FREE!" That's right, for once a game that isn't made for 6-year-olds that involves colored, avian balls or talking cats. This one is for the Mature gaming audience, down to the inclusion of the ever-controversial Fatalities. If you haven't had the pleasure of witnessing the brutal, match-ending murders that take place in this title, let me be the first to tell you that they maybe the most violent thing I've ever seen in a video game to date including the multitude of Calls of Duty, Auto Theft of the Grandest Kind, and their ultra-violent cousins in the gaming universe. 

First, a Little History

Not only is Mortal Kombat singly responsible for the ratings system we now have on all games, but it was the proud owner of the highest opening weekend sales for a short time following the release of Mortal Kombat II. Not only that, but it signalled a shift in financial paradigms. The debut weekend sales of $50 million marked the first time that a video game surpassed Hollywood movies in opening weekend sales. In the summer of 1994, it topped every last Hollywood blockbuster from that year including Mask, True Lies, Forrest Gump, and Lion King. Considering the acceptably arguable statement that this list includes both Jim Carrie's and Arnold Schwarzenegger's best films as well as the best thing Disney has done in decades, then top it off with a six-time Academy Award winning film that garnered Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director awards, among others. 

MKII didn't just beat a bunch of humps. That list makes up one of the best ever in combined quality of summer blockbusters. Go ahead, tell me you'd rather see Avengers 2, Furious 7, Jurassic World, and the remake of Poltergeist for the first time instead of getting a second chance at reliving your first viewing of that list from 1994, but be prepared to be called a stinking liar. Fair warning. 

MKII didn't just create a new set of laws about what kids could and couldn't play with it's murderous violence, it was THE pioneer in a change in the way investors look at our top two forms of entertainment. What had been seen as the purvey of sad loners and prepubescents busted onto the scene with blood-dripping savagery, proving that this was an art form that would not be ignored. Yes, I believe games, especially the really good ones, to be a form of art on par with film, television, literature, comics, photography, painting, and any other traditional and/or non-traditional undertakings that require great creativity to produce. The trend that was started in 1994 by the most violent video game created up to that time has continued and the gap in revenues between games and movies has only grown since that time. 

Pop culture they may be, but I challenge you to play Valiant Hearts and not cry at the touching emotion found within, or Contrast and not spend the next several days contemplating the possibilities of the multiverse and all the variations to existence that title implies. My old man might argue with me, but he doesn't believe that Hip Hip is an art form, either. My immediate retort is, if rhyme isn't an artform, then what was Shakespeare doing penning those 34 plays and 154 sonnets that are nearly all about sex, violence, war, and murder? His answer is always Gangsta Rap. My answer is Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, and pretty much the entire Ninja Tune catalog. He doesn't know I'm speaking English. The saddest part about that is that we're all inevitably going to turn into our parents. Argh. Oh well, enough losing the plot, let's get back to the game!

 

I Used to Know Every Fatality in the Game

I even knew the Babalities and other alternative endings. However, that was in 1994-96 or so. Along with the free mobile versions of Mortal Kombat X, I also purchased the Xbox One version, but I've spent twice as much time playing the iPad version as I have on the console one. One of the big reasons for that, I suspect, is that I have forgotten the vast majority of special moves and Fatalities. Luckily, that doesn't matter in the mobile version. Anybody can pick up this game and be decent at it. You don't have to spend hours memorizing controller combinations then practicing them in two-player mode against nobody. The control scheme for the mobile title is exactly what all successful mobile title control schemes are: simple. You tap the screen with one finger to attack and hold down two fingers to block. That's pretty much it. There are occasional prompts to swipe the screen for extra moves as seen above 

and successful attacks build your special attack meter, which appears on the bottom left as seen below. 

So It's Easy to Play, What's the Game About?

What is any fighting game about? Kicking arse and leaving the dead in your wake! Like all previous Mortal Kombat Games, they attempt to put some unintelligible plotline together about Elder Gods, invading demons, some evil God, and some sort of tournament for the future of "Earth Realm." It falls as flat on my 2015 ears as it did on my 1994 pair, but it doesn't really matter. If you're playing Mortal Kombat for the plotline, then I'm afraid it's you who have lost the plot, seriously and to an unrecoverable point. 

Force + Form

The gameplay itself takes on a singular form with several small variations. Basically, you pick a team of three fighters and they face off against three others. The fighting character can one of the two remaining ones if they have sustained too much damage or you just want to switch it up. There are three tiers of character: bronze, silver, and gold. Their attack, health, and recovery levels increase significantly with each jump in the corresponding metal's worth. You can also purchase increases in these statistical categories for individual characters using "Koins" (See what they did there? :-) or by earning equipment through battle. The equipment can be moved from character to character, but the statistical category increases can not so choose wisely, unlike this poor Nazi sympathizer. 

There are usually two main types of gameplay with a special offering going on now for a limited time. The first is Battle Mode. Here you move from tower to tower taking on (usually) six groups of opponents that contain three fighters each. There are 33 such towers and you must beat every group in each of them to beat the game. The second is Faction Wars. This takes you online to fight against other real players' teams. While it's not a true online multiplayer in the same sense as Call of Duty or Elder Scrolls Online where you are facing off against other players live in real time, it brings an interesting aspect to the gameplay in that you never really know who you're going to face. Sometimes you get three bronze level characters who belong to a level 4 player. Other times it's two golds and a silver that have been carefully crafted by a level 35 opponent. Although I would prefer live face-offs against real opponents, I'm not sure that mobile platforms are up to that challenge yet, at least with a game of this size and graphic superiority. I'm afraid it would cause lag of unbearable proportions that would make the game mode unplayable.

Whatever the developers' reasoning, they have mostly made up for the lack of true online battles with the addition of factions. You join a particular faction at the beginning of every week. Depending on how many points you get for your faction and how well the team does throughout the week, you will get a certain set of rewards. If your team comes in last, guess what? Sucky rewards. First place, though, and it's rare equipment and statistical increases out the wazoo, not to mention the money. 

Finally, there are the limited time Character Challenge Towers. This week completion of the challenge will land you Raiden, my personal favorite character in the MK series. You have to complete five increasingly difficult towers in order to earn the elusive character types, and keep your eye on that clock, because if you haven't completed every last one before it runs out then you're S.O.L. 

Summ Fun, Huh?

I had initially planned to review the console version of Mortal Kombat X, but while in the Play Store looking for a companion app, I discovered this free game and decided to give it a try, especially considering I haven't discussed a mobile game for some time now and there are considerably more readers with smartphones out there than next-gen consoles. I was afraid I would quickly lose interest and long for the console game, but that hasn't happened. If anything, it's a relief to not be forced into re-learning special moves and Fatalities combinations that I used to know by heart but have long since forgotten. Don't get me wrong, the console version is far and away the best fighting game I've played in years. That said, NetherRealm Studios did a fantastic job in creating this game and not trying to push the control scheme past the abilities of the platform to handle. There's nothing I hate more than trying to play a game on my phone or tablet where the controller is drawn onto the screen. My thumbs continually slip off their appointed areas and it's nearly impossible to control them with any semblance of dexterity. So, if you're looking for a mobile app that is high on action, graphics, and gameplay options, give Mortal Kombat X a try (unless you're too young). Even if you haven't played an MK title since high school, you should be able to pick it up quickly and easily, and you'll have a lot more fun than flinging around a flock of angry pigeons in the process. 

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for vastly exceeding my expectations and making a really solid mobile version that could very easily have turned out to be nothing more than a piss-poor carbon copy of the actual game.

Penalties: -1 I almost feel bad for taking a point away for this, but if you're going to call it "Fight Online" then you should supply an online opponent, not a team of Avatars that someone else created. That said, I don't know the logistics of online match play on mobile platforms, especially for a game of this size and memory requirements. I'd like to give them a pass, but I've got to take off for something. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention.

See here for our scoring system. 

Destiny - House of Wolves

Destiny's 2nd Downloadable Content Pack

[Destiny - House of Wolves DLC, Bungie, Activision, 2014]

Wow! A Real Plot!

House of Wolves finally delivers what so many people have been clamoring for in Destiny...a serviceable story line! I know, I know. I was a bit surprised, too. First, some backstory. You knew something was fishy when those Fallen were serving the Queen on the Reef in the original release (For the uninitiated, that's a race of aliens, a matriarch, and an area in space that another race, the Awoken, call home). Well, it turns out your instincts were spot-on. They have started a rebellion against the Queen under a Kell (read: king of a Fallen House, kind of like the Targaryens but much nicer to one another) named Skolas. He has declared himself the Kell of Kells and hopes to overthrow the Awoken and unite the Houses of the Fallen under one banner. Wait, I've seen this before somewhere. It's the Passion and Braveheart mixed up with a smattering of Mass Effect thrown in for that futuristic feel! Sneaky buggers. 

It starts out with the first real mission on Venus. A girl named Petra whose haircut looks like Gary Oldman's from Fifth Element serves as the equivalent of the Awoken Queen's National Security Advisor sends you after the Kell of Kells. Skolas runs from you like a little girl in this mission, but it wouldn't be much of a story if you killed your nemesis and the final boss in the first mission, now would it? Then again, "not very much of a story" has been kind of the theme with Destiny so it wouldn't be a complete shock. Ba-dum-ching! 

From there, you go chasing Skolas around the universe and performing bounties for Petra to earn some pretty worthless junk like shaders and banners. The bounties are actually a pretty nice addition because Skolas' Wolves spawn at certain locations around the galaxy and you don't know exactly when or where they'll show up. When they do, they're tough as nails and require a little help from at least one other player to take down most times. I won't go into spoilers on the rest of the story line, but suffice it to say the plot is significantly better than the paltry offering in the first DLC, The Dark Below, and it's a lot more clear-cut and understandable than the one from the main game. When it comes to the tale they tell, Bungie finally got it right with their new flagship title. 

The Good, The Bad, and the Downright Aggravating 

There are four portions to the House of Wolves, and Bungie has made two of them nearly completely unplayable for the solo gamer. Not only that, but without these unplayable portions, you're stuck at level 32 while the rest of the community moves up to the new cap of 34. Have fun playing PvP with first-gen gear while everybody else is running around with weapons that are 30% more powerful, you loser! Most of their other multiplayer options have come with a component called “matchmaking” that automatically hooks you up with the needed number of players (between 2 and 11, depending on the game mode) to take part in whatever multiplayer mode you choose, be it a Strike Mission where you have to face off against some of the biggest bosses in the game, or the Crucible that contains various types of team vs. team games and an every-man-for-himself option. However, for some reason known only to the programmers at Bungie known forever-onward as elitist punks, certain game modes do not offer the option of matchmaking. There is a reason that this is a major issue.

Bungie has changed the weapon upgrade system, again. The exotic weapons, which you can use in only one slot at a time for your weapons and armor, still just take an exotic shard to max out. Those can still be purchased from Xur on the weekends or by disassembling another exotic. Legendary weapons are where the changes have taken place. They require something called Etheric Light, a substance that has not appeared in the game until now, to max out. In order to level up, you have to max out your armor in order to raise your "Light" level. Therein lies the problem. 

There are only four ways to get Etheric Light: Beating the Prison of Elders on levels 34 or 35, winning the Trials of Osiris, finishing the Weekly Nightfall Strike (a level 32 mission with five enemy modifiers, which give them extreme advantages over the average alien), or reaching levels 3 and 5 in the Iron Banner. Only the fourth offers matchmaking, and it has level advantages disabled so players who have gained Etheric Light in the previous three modes are significantly more likely to win the match. 

Due to the lack of matchmaking, unless you have a Rolodex of friends who have been playing this game since it came out, you are essentially finished with it until September when the next add-on comes out. Either that or Bungie will have to add matchmaking to the parts of the game that offer Etheric Light. Sure, you can play the same Crucible and Strike missions some more, but an entire portion of one section of House of Wolves and 3/4ths of another are unplayable since Bungie, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to make the only parts of the game that allow you to level any higher than 32 impossible to reach for the solo gamer. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Even games that were designed from the ground up as multiplayers like Left 4 Dead and its sequel are playable in solo mode. 

Who Are You, My Mom? 

You Should Get Out There and Make More Friends, Brad!

Does Bungie have some investment in my virtual social life? I'm married with plenty of real friends. I honestly don't need someone to force me to meet people online. Actually, I find it pretty insulting, not to mention annoying, that they would create the game add-on in such a way that nearly half of the content is unplayable for me unless I go out and track down some strangers to play with me. Have you used your headset in an online game of Call of Duty lately? The only people you run into are 8-year-olds with mouths like a sailor, loners that somehow still think teabagging you after they kill you is funny, and people who want to quite literally come to your house and fight you. And potheads. Let's not forget the massive number of gamertags with "420" in them. It's got to be the most common three figure combination on all of Xbox Live and the Playstation Network by a 100:1 margin. I paid the same $20 that every lazy parent of the 10-year-olds online kicking my butt did. 

Should I be penalized because I'm an adult with a job and a life outside of gaming? Apparently Bungie says, "Yes," and that's why I'm finished. I'm done. I'm out. I'll freely admit that I've really enjoyed this game up until now, but I've never felt quite so screwed over by a game developer since I bought E.T. for my Atari. I'll have to think long and hard before I buy another game from Bungie unless this strange requirement to find fellow players somewhere other than inside the gamespace is ceased. I bought House of Wolves without reading too much about it. I just knew it was going to be bigger than the first DLC. However, you can bet I'll do my homework before I shell out any money for the rumored Comet: Planet of Darkness expansion in September. As much as I love being purposefully handicapped or forced into playing with some foul-mouthed kid who drops F-bombs like I take breaths, I'd better be able to play the entire package on my own or using matchmaking, or I'll be leaving Destiny alone for good. 

Thanks for the second DLC rip-off, Bungie. First they gave us half a story. Now they give us half a game. It just doesn't make sense to me at all. Most developers want to include as many players as possible, but they've managed to get rid of this one, and I suspect a few others along with me. Destiny has already caused as much controversy as Grand Theft Auto used to with its paper-thin plot and $20 mini-DLC, The Dink Below. One would think they would want to be as inclusive as possible so as to justify the game's record-setting $1 billion price tag, but apparently they don't need any more players because they've done an excellent job of turning them off and getting rid of them. Honestly, I feel like Bungie owes me ten bucks since I won't be playing half of this game, not due to a lack of desire, but because of their decisions. When I buy a bad game, I'll take the hit to my wallet. When I'm purposefully excluded from an arguably good game I've spent WAAAY too much time playing (We're talking hundreds of hours here, and I don't mean two hundred, or three, or five. Put it this way, when my wife did the math the other day, she just started laughing at me and didn't stop for several minutes), I don't feel completely out of line saying that. I don't expect it, of course, caveat emptor, but I feel like I just got ripped off by someone I'd grown to trust. It's not cool, Bungie, not cool at all. 

Sure, I have friends with Destiny. I'm a nerd, but I'm not a total loner. I have 35 friends on Xbox Live, but only seven of them bought Destiny. Two sold it back because they didn't like it. Three didn't get the House of Wolves expansion pack, and the one who did isn't enough to make up the necessary three-man team needed to play the Trials of Osiris or the Prison of Elders. We're left with one option, get on message boards and search for a third player. I've tried this several times, to no avail. I've pretty much given up on the game at this point, which is too bad. I've been playing it pretty regularly since its release, but as I can't progress any further there's not much reason to keep playing. 

I Guess I Should Talk About the Game

Since this is a review, I'll quit ranting and discuss the new additions to the game. The four new modes are:

• The story line, which I've already covered. It's tough and flushed out, but unfortunately the only major piece of House of Wolves that really shines for me. You had better have maxed out your character(s) if you want to stand a chance. I already had, so that wasn’t an issue for me, but for players who might have still been working on it in the mid-20s or lower, there’s no way they could make it through without first grinding for a month or so to hit the old level cap of 32.

• The Prison of Elders. This mode opens upon completion of the main story. It takes place in an actual prison under the Reef, home of the Awoken. It contains many wolves of the various Houses, but it also holds Fallen, Vex, and Cabal captives that have supposedly attacked the reef at one time or another. After Skolas' uprising, the Queen decided she wanted to clear it out, so you and two other players get dropped into an airlock that opens up onto the four branches of the prison. Once one of the doors opens, you have to go in and kill everything that moves. It could be any of the races, and they all have guns for some reason despite being imprisoned, or even a large Vex boss. There are level 28, 32, 34, and 35 challenges. The level 28 challenge includes matchmaking. The other three do not, and therein lies the crux of my issue with this game add-on.  

• The third new section is called Trials of Osiris. I would love to tell you about this game mode from personal experience, but unfortunately it doesn't include matchmaking so I haven't been able to play it. However, I've read up on it so at least I can tell you what it's about. It's like Skirmish, where two teams of 3 players each battle, but with several important differences. Unlike most Crucible challenges, level advantages aren't disabled, so you can get spanked by higher-leveled characters. Also, there is no re-spawning so once you're dead, you're dead. You play until you win nine rounds or lose three, whichever comes first. Reaching nine wins is one of the few ways to earn Etheric Light, and it doesn't sound easy. 

• Finally, they’ve added a Level 28 strike mission. Luckily, it has matchmaking. Sadly, it doesn’t offer you a chance at Etheric Light, either. It is fun, as strikes go. It’s somewhat similar to the Cosmodrome strike where you have to take out Sepiks Prime. That's a big, purple ball that's a lot more dangerous than it sounds. In that mission, you and two other players (who were usually combined into a team using matchmaking) have to survive several rounds of attacks from hordes of enemies, then beat a huge robotic walker that looks like a 60-foot beetle, and finally the purple ball itself. In this strike, you must face off against a Kell named Taniks in the first round, another walker in the second, and finish Taniks off in the third because he ran away from you in the first (running away seems to be a thing with these Kells). 

Summary

While I found the story to be wholly satisfying, it wasn't worth the aggravation of being stuck unable to play the other two large portions of the game without lots of online begging and a little luck, one of which I hate and the other I totally lack, apparently. I can only hope that one of the upcoming patches solves this issue, because it's ridiculous not to have matchmaking in all the game modes. They have the technology. They can rebuild it. The question is, after spending a billion dollars making the thing, do they have six million left over? 

The Math

Objective Score: 4/10. I'll give them the benefit of calling the new strike mission a fourth section and only half the game unplayable, but it's a stretch. Therefore, I've got to take half their points away from the get-go. 

Bonuses: +1 for finally getting the whole "story thing" right.

Penalties: -1 for, well, if you don't know by now then you haven't been paying attention at all and I'm not going to repeat myself. 

Nerd coefficient: 4/10. Problematic, but has redeeming qualities.

Tales from the Borderlands - Episode 2: Atlas Mugged

[Tales from the Borderlands - Episode 2: Atlas Mugged, Telltale Games, 2K Games, 2015]

The Art of the Cliffhanger

Ah, the lost narrative style of the cliffhanger. I have only just started with Telltale's Game of Thrones series and while Walking Dead is on my playlist, it hasn't made it to my hard drive yet, so I can't tell you if all of their titles contain this type of plot device, but through the first two episodes, it appears to be a staple of the Tales from the Borderlands series. Just as Episode 1 left players with their jaws in their laps, Episode 2 has a similar, "What the frack?" ending that serves to deftly re-employ the ancient, somewhat lost art of the cliffhanger. 

L'Histoire

<Episode 1 Spoiler Alert>

When we last left Ryhs and Fiona, they were trying to get away from Vasquez, Rhys' Hyperion nemesis, fittingly-voiced by Patrick Warburton of David Putty (Seinfeld) fame. Warburton does a fabulous job of playing the part of the scummy, yet somehow amiable corporate ladder-climber who keeps crushing Rhys' dreams of a bigger and better future. Much like his counterpart on the long-running sitcom, while you wouldn't ever want to be seen in public with Vasquez for fear he would say something awful and put everyone in earshot in a state of extreme discomfort, you can't help but enjoy the completeness of the character's persona. 

Anyway, Rhys (and his sidekick Vaughn) and Fiona (plus her partner Sasha) manage to avoid Vasquez's attempts to corral and kill them and end up falling into the Gortys Project, a room full of Atlas tech introduced by the former Hyperion headman and current inhabitant of Rhys' brain, Handsome Jack. All of this takes place as a retelling by Rhys and Fiona to an unknown captor who is holding them hostage and forcing them to recount all the details they know about the mysterious Gortys Project. Some of the more fun parts of both episodes 1 and 2 take place when the two protagonists begin to argue about the details of the story. It also serves to remind the gamer that he is re-playing a story rather than experiencing it first-hand. It is an interesting plot device and one you don't see outside of literature very often, certainly not in video games. 

<Spoiler Complete>

Episode 2

I will go into more detail about this episode in the upcoming review of Episode 3. I hate to spoil the fun for anyone who has yet to play it, but I don't like leaving out major plot-points for the sake of avoiding spoilers, either. I guess that's a prime reason the serial format lends itself to game reviews. By the time the newest episode has been released, you can pretty much assume that 90% of the people who were going to play the last episode have finished it already, so it's spoilers...AWAY!!! Until then, I will just give a brief synopsis while trying not to divulge too many details and stick to telling you what I think of the game. 

Episode 2 finds Rhys still suffering with random appearances of his unwanted AI implant, Handsome Jack. Since Rhys is the only one that can see Jack, he's kind of like Jimmy Stewart stuck with the six-foot rabbit, Harvey, where everyone else believes he's either having some sort of psychotic break or just putting them on. If he could only convince the right people at Hyperion that Handsome Jack's intelligence continues to survive inside his head, it could be his ticket to Easy Street, but unfortunately he's on Pandora and the only people he can tell are his lackey friend Vaughn who is in even less of a position to do anything for him than Rhys himself, and Vasquez, who could care less if the presence of the Almighty himself was inhabiting Rhys' brain so long as he gets his vault key. 

Again, I don't want to go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that Rhys, Fiona, their respective counterparts Vaughn and Sasha, and the ever-loyal Loader Bot who is always there to lend a hand continue on their quest to discover the meaning behind the Gortys Project and, hopefully, uncover a vault key in the process. They are hotly pursued by Vasquez and his lackeys who have all the ethical standards of a Ponzi scheme plotter. Also, this episode ends with an even greater cliffhanger than the first. Not only are you left wondering what's going to happen next, but what the heck just happened. It leaves you hanging with all the skill of the best Saturday morning serial from the movie theatre glory days of old. 

The Mechanic's Shop

One place where this game both shines and leaves something to be desired is in the gameplay mechanics themselves. It's more of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story that takes place in the Borderlands universe than an actual Borderlands game. You have to make dialogue decisions a la Mass Effect that change the way the story goes and can have series-long consequences for your protagonists. Not only that, but the dialogue choices are on a short timer, so you are extremely pressed for time and only given a few seconds to make a decision that could alter the entire game experience. That said, it's not an RPG, it's not an FPS, it's not a looter. Basically it lacks all of the components that made Borderlands so addictive and gave it virtually neverending replayability. 

The only action, controller-wise, in the game is limited to a series of button-mashing commands, controller swipes, and the occasional matching of a hexagon with the indicated spot on-screen before you had to hit right trigger/R2. There are also small portions where Rhys uses his bionic eye to investigate the area, but the solutions are fairly obvious and present little in the way of a challenge. It's not like Borderlands required the complicated melange of button mastery needed to keep from getting constantly annihilated in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, what with its cryosuit boosts, slides, powers, grenades, and the like, but it certainly asked more of a player than smashing down on the X button until a green circle was filled in to keep the play continuing. This lack of anything but the simplest mechanics may be acceptable in the mobile gaming market, but for consoles with controllers boasting ten buttons and three directional controllers, it's just too simplistic. 

I realize that these Telltale Games titles are available on mobile devices, as well, and maybe it was the cross-platform requirements that restricted the controller options on the XBox One, PC, and PS4. However, as a long-time Borderlands fan and addict, it has been somewhat of a letdown, albeit a minor one as the games contain the same brand of off-color humor that make the original and it's pre- and post-sequel some of this reviewer's favorite titles of the last generation. That said, I'll be honest, I'm looking for a little bit more in a Borderlands game. I guess I shouldn't complain given the price and the ability to return to Pandora one more time for just a few bucks. It's well worth the money for any fan of the series. I don't see Tales From The Borderlands bringing in many new fans, though. If you have a miniature ClapTrap sitting on your desk, then these are definitely for you. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should probably consider looking elsewhere, or just waiting for Elder Scrolls Online to finally hit consoles this summer...maybe. 

The Math

Objective Score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for showing us a part of the Borderlands universe that was, as yet, unseen. So far, everything has been from the Vault Hunters' perspective. It's nice to see what an average Hyperion employee goes through. 

Penalties: -1 for a control scheme that would leave one of the three buttons on a Sega Genesis controller mostly untouched, nevermind today's complex pieces of ergonomic artwork. 

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10. A mostly enjoyable experience. 

Read about our scoring system here. 

Tales From the Borderlands - Episode I: Zer0 Sum

[Tales From the Borderlands - Episode I: Zer0 Sum, Telltale Games, 2K Games, 11/2014]

What-tale Games?

I'll be honest, until The Walking Dead, I'd never heard of Telltale Games, yet now they seem to be dominating the market on some of the biggest titles in all types of entertainment across the board. From The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us to Borderlands, Game of Thrones, and the upcoming Minecraft series, none of which has yet to receive anything below an 80 on Metacritic, Telltale has put together what may be the most impressive library of titles in recent memory. They're making EA look like a small, indie production company that just figured out how to make Hexic into a high definition game for the PS3. On top of their plethora of quality releases, Episode 1 cost a whopping $2.50, which is quite possibly the best deal in gaming since The Orange Box. 

Choose Your Own Adventure...Wizard or Warrior?

One of the new gameplay additions that makes this Borderlands game different from the others is the ability to affect the outcome through decisions you make throughout the game. Unlike other games where your decisions can alter the plot, your decisions about how to respond to situations immediately effect how other characters feel about you and parts of the story as immediate as the following scene.

Is This REALLY a Borderlands Game? 

While making game-altering decisions is a great new addition to the gameplay in Borderlands, Episode 1 just didn't feel like a Borderlands game without the massive arsenal at your disposal, discovered and earned through hours of tireless grinding and mission completion. Although it's pretty clear the future episodes will contain plenty of the old-style FPS game mechanics that made the first three games so much fun to play, but they were sorely lacking in the first go-around in Telltale's 

Borderlands product. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't have the feel of the Pandora we've all come to know and love. 

So If It Doesn't Play Like a Traditional Borderlands Game, How DOES it Play?

It honestly did remind me of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books, except you couldn't go back and switch to the other outcome if you didn't like what happened as you could with the books. Once you'd spent that ammo or made that other character angry, you were stuck with the repercussions. On top of that, you didn't get much time to consider your responses, like maybe five seconds, tops. Not only does this add to the sense of immediacy each time you are presented with a challenge but it raises the replayability significantly. This is due to the fact that you want to find out what would have happened if you had just been nicer to that one character or showed more of a spine with another. Although it felt as though many of the "choices" were just going to end up with you getting insulted no matter what response you chose, there were plenty that definitely affected how the game progressed. It will be interesting to see if they carry over your decisions from the first episode into the next four or if the decision-making effect is limited to each episode. Hopefully it's the former. 

A Little Bedtime Story

As usual, I don't want to get too far into the story line so as not to spoil the game for those who have yet to play it. I have to supply a little bit of backstory, but to give away the ending would probably get my figurative Interwebbian head chopped off by crazed jihadi gamers. To that end, I'll just give you the setup and some critique and let you decide if it's worth a play or not based on that. You start the game as Rhys, a lower-tier suit-and-tie at Hyperion who has dreams of middle management. However, instead of the raise and promotion you were expecting, you quickly learn that your former boss has been "Blown out of the g@&&^m airlock," to borrow a phrase from Aliens, and replaced somehow, repercussion free, with your arch-nemisis Vasquez. 

Needless to say this doesn't do good things for your career, with you ending up as Vice President of Janitors. You and your sidekick, Vaughn, come up with a quick plan to get back at Vasquez by stealing a deal he has set up to purchase a vault key for $10 million. Things get a bit off track from there and you end up trying to salvage what you can from the leftovers. 

At the same time, Fiona is a con artist that lives on Pandora alread. Rhys is lucky enough to at least live on the space station where there are working toilets and people don't eat one-another's eyeballs. Fiona is working with some other shady characters trying to set up the deal for a Vault Key planet-side. However, all hell breaks loose and you're being dragged through the desert that looks strangely like the male version of Princess Leia's bounty hunter from Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi. You know, the one that's holding a thermal detonator and says, "Yoto, yoto." 

"Where am I?"

"Jabba's Palace." 

"Who are you?" 

"Someone who loves you!" 

Anyway, sorry for the Star Wars flashback. Back to the game. While I will admit to being a bit disappointed with the lack of a real control mechanic and firefights, the place where this game really shines is in its story. Whereas Borderlands 1 and 2 seemed to be a bit disjointed at times when you got off on a side quest run for a few hours, Tales From The Borderlands never suffers from such side trips off the main course. Telltale Games was free to focus on creating a top-quality story set within the Borderlands universe, and they squeezed every ounce of goodness out of the opportunity. This game is fraught with the irreverent, sometimes dark humor of its predecessors. Where it lacks in control scheme, it more than makes up for with a hilarious and overwhelmingly engaging tale of Pandora and its unique and often freakish inhabitants. The only real problem I have with this game is waiting for the next installment to come out!

The Math

Objective Score: 9/10

Bonuses: +1 for having possible the best Borderlands story to come out yet and leaving me starving for more.

Penalties: -1 because, come on, Borderlands is a first-person shooter. I can count on one hand the number of times I fired a weapon in this game. Heck, I'd still be able to count the shots on one hand if half my digits got sheared off in a thresher accident at age nine. I know there are guns coming to the series from hints in the story, but I was a bit disappointed in the almost total lack of them in this episode. 

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10. A standout in its category. Very high quality. You should REALLY go buy this game, especially for just $2.50! If you don't like it, I'll personally refund your money. 

(But not really.)