Tales from the Borderlands Review: It'll blow your mind and break your heart.

 I never get episodic games day one. The same way I never get season passes on day one. I'm not going to pay for something I can't have yet. But I have a weakness for The Borderlands. I also have a weakness for glowing reviews. Ultimately the chocolate got in the peanut butter and I couldn't stay away.

I'm glad I didn't. This is singularly the best episode TellTale's ever done. Full stop. I'm seriously wondering if they blew their budget on it. I thought it would end 3 stunning action sequences before it did. This is a true labor of love and only makes a great series of games even better.

I'm no fair weather fan either. I've been there since their Monkey Island reboot back in 2009. As much as I love their work on The Walking Dead (which was honestly better written than a third of the actual show) it's clear form the first 20 minutes of TFBL they've been dying to be funny again.

What we have here is a taught comedy thriller set in Gearbox's world of Pandora. This point and click adventure fits seamlessly into the background of the main series's signature first person shooter framework. This is a world where nobody needs half of a reason to shoot someone and take their stuff. A perfect setting for the classic "deal of a lifetime gone wrong" scenario. Our duel protagonists are a malcontent Hyperion junior executive who's just had a decade of brown nosing rendered pointless; and a native Pandoran con artist looking to pull the right job that can set her and her kid sister up for life.

"Hold still, this baby has one hell of a massage setting."

They both unreliably narrate the chain of events that lead them to be hogtied together while a masked man points a Conference Call at their faces. I know, I know. "Hyperion." "Pandora." "Conference Call." That's all jargon you don't need to know. You don't need to know anything about Borderlands going in to enjoy this game. In fact, I've always believed Telltale interactive narrative games are the perfect gateway for folks that can't stand video games. I'd love to see what my dad would make of this if he earnestly gave it a shot. It's story is effortlessly gripping because a lot of the heavy world-building lifting has been done in three feature length games already.

Like I said, you don't need to know what the best shotgun in Borderlands 2 is to appreciate Tales. But there is some amazing behind the scenes fan service if you've got sharp enough eyes. Like how Rhy's dialogue choices have a holographic Hyperion look. Whereas Fiona's stick to a folksy wooden style. A Jakobs, style. Jargon again, apologies!

Credit where credit is due, this is the best cast TellTale has worked with. No matter how good The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us were, and they were both damn good, the background characters always sounded a little flat. Wolf had it the worst, half that cast had me checking my watch. I feel TT knew about that, because there's no other explanation for every every single character in this one episode being so awesomely on point. The random bandits you talk to, besides the first one who's clearly Keith Szarabajka being predictably gruff and delightful? All hilarious.

And you just know he double parks.

And you bet that's Patrick Warburton from Family Guy as that smug Hyperion exec. You know that's Chris Hardwick as Rhys's right hand, Vaughn. Rhys himself is the never-not-stunning Troy Baker. And that August character was totally Nolan North. Sure TT nailed down the biggest names for their Game of Throne's adaptation next month. But these are great lesser-appreciated talents they've probably had on a shortlist for years. They did not waste the opportunity.

Oh, and the soundtrack has been kicked up like nobodies business. I won't beat around the bush... The Walking Dead's score was garbage. Absolute. Garbage. This is not. While some tracks are recycled from BL2, there's a great techno Morricone-esque theme for the menu screen and a few other gems sprinkled throughout the more action oriented sections. They really stepped up their game all over the place this time.

I've also been getting earfuls from some holier-than-thou critics calling this the best borderlands game, period. I get that they didn't like the shooting and looting from the main series and they'd be right if they were just whipping the first game's confused shrug of a story. But 2 and the Pre-Sequel were so much more than that. These games have always had sharp characterization. Perhaps they went for the laugh more often than story, but so what? It's about time a role playing game had a damn sense of humor instead of a phone book's worth of po-faced lore. My point is that TFBL shows Pandora in a light that a shooter never could. A different angle on what was a fun and fascinating world, already. TellTale didn't magically make it relatable and three dimensional all of a sudden.

Now that I got that rant out of the way... I guess I should ask what you're still doing here. Why aren't you throwing $25 bucks at your monitor or phone right now?! I'm not futzing around, this 2 1/2 hours of content is totally worth that much. There's 4 more coming down the pike at some point... maybe 6-8 months from now. I mean, they will have to work around Peter Dinklage's schedule now, so it's gonna be a long haul. But it's also gonna be a hell of a ride, folks.

So strap in.

The 302 Post Spectacular!

Well look at that, I passed the 300 mark without blinking an eye. I'm pretty proud of my little blog. Even if it's a 90% bounce-to-hit ratio echo chamber, sometimes, somehow, somebody reads some random junk I threw up on the internet for 5 to 10 minutes. That's so much more than enough. That's as if I had a  miniature cival war recreation set I poured over for years and somone just showed up to admire it one day.

I didn't ask for it, but I got noticed anyway, and it feels amazing. Here's to 302 more!

"There are... contingencies." Behind the scenes of Tales from the Borderlands.

You're going to want to stay to the end of this one, as there are eggs of easterly nature. Plus it looks like the game's coming along swimmingly, as it fixes the biggest problem I had with the walking dead season 2. I.E. the in game soundtrack was terrible. The soundtrack for this trailer is not. It's techno-bluesy fun and I could not be more on board with all this by now.

Oh... and they're doing Game of Thrones at the exact same time. Damn, guys... let someone else have the world on a string for a while!

I'm Not Dead!

Just crazy busy with work... and Inquisition. It's so good, too good. Gooder than even the most of the critics are saying. I mean, I don't know what IGN's problem with the villain was. I think he's great. Or at least the presence of him in the story through 2 thirds of the game is a refreshing change of pace for Bioware.

The original Mass Effect was their last central villain and that was almost 10 years ago! But seriously, one of our guys just quit and I've been swamped.

I'll get back when I can, Crackpot!

I've got some time off!

And I don't want to give away too much information about my private life, but here's a hint about what I'll probably spend most of that time doing:

The Tales from the Borderlands trailer is here, and it's really funny! Also, Patrick Warburton.

Who's that handsome heterochromic devil?

This is the best season of South Park in Years.

I've been watching South Park since I was Stan's age. It's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. While I'd argue it's been a better show longer than the Simpsons, I wouldn't disagree that the past 5 or 6 years haven't exactly measured up. I've seen em' all at least once because there's always something about each episode that's worth watching. I may hate that Honey Boo Boo one, (why does everyone spit on Randy Newman so much?") but I could listen to that James Cameron song for hours.

But this season, free from the demands of both their admittedly solid video game and their career defining block buster musical, they have come back to the show with their guns drawn. Ready to shoot down their harsher critics.

Most of the episodes this year have had a shared continuity. Whether it's the gym being burnt down by Butters or Randy secretly being 18 year old singer songwriter Lorde, it's been a refreshing season so far. But I guess I like Nathan and Mimsy more than most people. I mean, come on, the wacky races with alternative fuel cars was damn good work.

But it's with Grounded Vindaloop that I feel I need to blog about South Park, which is oddly something I've never done before. Hands down, this is the best story driven episode in years... maybe ever. It's not funny, or at least it's only funny for about a 6th of the time. It's a testament to the show's commitment to it's characters that we can follow them down a virtual reality rabbit hole and not even care that's not gonna go for a belly laugh. Not to rag on the Simpsons too much, but making Homer progressively stupider over 20 years did not a compelling character make.

This has been a great year for South Park, a humble creative renascence the likes of which shows more than 10 seasons deep never see. I'd say it's worth coughing up some dough to Hulu+ to check it out: