Where were you when the world descended into chaos, riddled with peril as the shadow of death cast its dark cloud over the earth – were you there to stop it, did you even bother? Given a second chance, will pick yourself up out of the turmoil to try and restore what was lost?
Many post-apocalyptic stories tend to place this overbearing dilemma on its main protagonist as they search for an answer to fix a broken world that others seem content in just leaving it well alone. In the Sony-exclusive PlayStation 4 game Days Gone created by Sony Bend, the main character Deacon St. John (buoyed by a refreshingly off-hinged but heartfelt performance by Sam Witwer) embodies the latter ideal – a former biker gang member-turned-wasteland wanderer eking out a life as a nomad bounty hunter in a zombie apocalypse with little care for making things right. He has no qualms riding civilisation’s broken road down a path of apathy and even violence if it ultimately serves his survival.
Unlike the much-acclaimed The Last Of Us from developers Naughty Dog, Days Gone avoids heavily treading the “finding the cure to save mankind” scenario. Instead, the inner emotional turmoil Deacon experiences as he wrestles with the ‘loss’ of his wife Sarah and his slight glimmer of hope in finding her alive after learning of her potential survival is the major driving force of the overarching narrative.
Given a second chance, will pick yourself up out of the turmoil to try and restore what was lost?
Along the way, Deacon interacts with different encampments scattered around the Oregon-inspired open world which inadvertently fosters a trusting bond between them. This endeavour pays off in the climax of the game when Deacon, seemingly left without allies, is suddenly bolstered by the presence of these different encampments as he mounts an assault to save Sarah.
That’s what Days Gone ultimate message is – the power of community. Banding together not to save the world, but to make it a better place to inhabit despite its harsh realities. All you need is one person to light that candle in the darkness.
There is always that one game that every one of us video gamers would own only because we instinctively purchased it for a cheap price point on sale. That one game that is probably sitting idly on our shelf or digital library right now, either collecting dust or occupying our consoles’ hard drive space. It is that one game that neither intention nor prior information of it existed in our minds before the purchase, and we only bought the game due to either of one of three things; it was included in a game bundle or deal that had the game you desired, it was too cheap for us to ignore it, or it was a game that mildly peaked our interest only because it may contain an exciting concept or it’s from a publisher or developer that we know and adore. For me, Telltale Games’ Tales of the Borderlands falls in the last two categories. I purchased the game digitally from the online PlayStation Store on my PlayStation 4 during one of the mouth-watering ‘Flash Sales’ that the online store promotes almost monthly, where video game prices are slashed down to unbelievable low prices, so much so that passing up on this opportunity would have been a disservice to myself and, ironically, my wallet. I purchased Tales of the Borderlands along with another Telltale Games’ game, Game of Thrones, as I have always enjoyed the light gameplay aspects of Telltale Games’ adventures which allowed me to solely focus on the story being told in the game. At the time of purchase, I was only interested in diving into Game of Thrones, designating Tales of the Borderlands as a game I would only play if I was in the ‘mood’ for it. Months later, I managed to finally muster up some motivation to sit down and plunge head-on into Tales of the Borderlands during the Chinese New Year break, and it was a comical joyride unlike anything I have ever experience in my years as an avid gamer.
Firstly, a little background information about Tales of the Borderlands. All five episodes of this interactive sci-fi western adventure game by Telltale Games, in collaboration with Gearbox Software (the developer of the main Borderlands franchise), was released in the period of November 2014 to October 2015. Thus, you can clearly see how late I was to the party here, but then again I was never a fan of the main Borderlands franchise so naturally this game flew under my radar of anticipation.
“I truly believe that it is one of the few games that I regret not playing earlier.”
This was one of the main reasons why, on completing the first episode, I did not feel as invested in the characters and their specific motivations as I had hoped for. It wasn’t that the franchise was alien to me, because if it was then I would at least have had an open mind going into it. It was the fact that I was familiar with the franchise beforehand, and I couldn’t have cared less about it before. However, after finally finishing all five episodes and reflecting on my time spent in that virtual world, I truly believe that it is one of the few games that I regret not playing earlier, even if the franchise it was borne from was unfamiliar to me. This can be mainly attributed to the comedic nuances of the game’s narrative.
The story of Tales of the Borderlands’ innovatively utilises flashbacks to tell the brunt of the game’s narrative, as both the main characters, who have been presently captured by a strange bounty hunter, recall their tale with pure hilarity and wit peppered with laugh-out-loud moments as our titular heroes mightily exaggerate certain parts of their retelling of the main tale which takes place sometime before their capture. From Rhys’ overly riveting speech as he cunningly celebrates convincing August to tearfully hand him the prized Vault key to Fiona entertainingly mimicking a conversation that she assumed went down between Vaughn and Rhys about being bros (Personally, one of the funniest moments of the flashback sequences in the game), the flashbacks successfully highlight the excellent writing of a story that could have been told chronologically, and yet thankfully was not, as the story would have lost its great pacing that always kept it fresh and engaging without it necessarily feeling like plain exposition. The consistent comedic tone of the game also engaged my attention so much so that when a non-comedic moment occurred, whether it was tender and romantic or sad and gloomy, the moment felt earned and it positively jolted me from a sweet state of comedy bliss into a state that demands more emotional sensitivity and rumination. To this point, the story constantly keeps you attentive and it never feels too stale or draggy.
However, the game’s story isn’t the sole factor that makes this game the comedic genius that it is, it also lies with the wily comedic thrill that is packed into almost every other aspect of the game, from the character’s personality and dialogue, to the mega action set-pieces, and even managing to bleed into the player’s user interface (UI). Regarding the game’s various personalities, you play as both Rhys, a jovial but clumsy ex-employee of the greedy Hyperion corporation, and Fiona, a sly and charming con-artist of the planet Pandora, in a hilariously wild adventure to find a key that leads to a Vault that holds treasures beyond their imaginations. Along the way they meet a colourful cast ranging from allies like Fiona’s badass sister Sasha and the timid yet valiant Vaughn, to foes like the mobster queen Vallory and her right-hand man August (who is also Vallory’s son). My favourite character of the bunch is the naively child-like, spherical-shaped robot Gortys, which I felt that, upon her introduction in Episode 3, stole the show and added a breath of fresh air to the narrative by not only bringing her charming innocence to the table but also altering the narrative stakes in an interesting way which I won’t spoil here. Together, these characters find themselves in all sorts of dangerous and eccentric shenanigans throughout their escapades on Pandora.
The crew (From left to right): August, Sasha, Loader Bot, Fiona, Rhys, Scooter, Gortys, Kroger and Finch
In addition, the action set pieces do not fall short of the spirit of the game too. A tense chariot race that can be best described as Ben Hur meets Mad Max (how cool is that!) is filled with constant wisecracks and physical comedy. A Pacific Rim-esque boss battle at the game’s climax becomes playfully meta, whereby our team of heroes, in a huge robot, battle a kaiju-like beast using controls reminiscence of old school arcade fighting games. Therefore, the comedic tone of the game is maintained from the dialogue sections to the action sequences which allowed me to thoroughly enjoy the brilliant comedy without it losing its momentum.
“Interacting with the world through a satirical lens”
And the fun does not stop there, as even the game’s UI contains its own sense of humour that informs you about the virtual world you’re interacting with through a satirical lens. This is best represented in the game when you play as Rhys and use his Echo Eye to scan for additional details on certain highlighted objects in the environment. At the end of Episode 1, an A.I. hologram of Handsome Jack (a big baddie in the Borderlands franchise) released by Rhys fuses with him and starts to mess with him in various ways including distorting Rhys’ Echo Eye vision. From then on, every time you try to scan something in the environment, it gives you hilarious inputs from Handsome Jack himself from his “Jack-apedia”. For example, scanning a cannibalistic killer plant would give you details such as “I want one” or “I wanna feed orphans to it” while doing the same to Rhys’ buddy Felix provides you with Jack’s response about Felix’s abs. It’s unconventional to witness a UI overhaul of this scale, where objective (albeit minuscule) information that the player assumes they would extract from scanning their virtual environment is basically thrown out in favour of more nonsensical quips that don’t serve to inform the player about anything of relevance. Maybe it’s a statement that the small, irrelevant details that your Grand Theft Autos and Witchers may more blatantly present is in itself a bit nonsensical, as it ends up being more of unneeded technical flexing than it being of any actual help to the players themselves. If that’s the message Telltale were going for, then I have even more admiration for them.
By the end of Tales of the Borderlands, I felt thoroughly engaged with its world, from its characters, set-pieces and even its UI, and its largely thanks to that thorough comedic thread that the game extended to me over the course of my playthrough, a thread that I have not overwhelmingly felt in a videogame before, and that unique connection is what’s keeping me continuously invested in this series as I giddily anticipate season 2 of Tales of the Borderlands.
Titan Passions 