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SpoilSport – Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

SpoilSport – Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Telltale Games always asks us to not spoil their games in our official reviews. Good thing this isn’t an official review then. But since we are trying to be nice, I’ll warn you again. GO AWAY IF YOU DON’T WANT ANY TALES FROM THE BORDERLANDS SPOILERS !!! Then again, the name of the piece is “SpoilSport” so… I think if you keep reading you will get what you deserve.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, Gearbox decided to milk the Borderlands franchise for all it’s worth. While Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is satisfying every shooter fan out there, Tales from the Borderlands is an actual sequel style sequel, even though it’s still told via flash back and you never really get to shoot anybody.

The game follows the adventures of Rhys, Hyperion Douchebag #1, and Vaughn, Hyperion Douchebag #2. They are out to screw over their boss Hyperion Douchebag #3, Joe Swanson from Family Guy… I mean Vasquez. Vasquez is making a deal for a vault key down on Pandora, and Rhys decides to try and buy it out from under him by embezzling a boat load of money.

Unfortunately, the vault key was a fake created by Fiona, a surprisingly hot grafter chick, and her sister Sasha, an equally surprisingly hot grafter chick. They were raised by a master thief and tinkerer, let’s call him “Uncle Backstabby.” Fiona and Sasha are all absolutely certain that Uncle Backstabby would never betray them… certainly not for a boat load of money… like the boat load of money Rhys and Vaughn embezzled. Nope! Not a chance.

Through some absolutely hilarious hijinks, Rhys manages to insult a bunch of bandits who try to kill him. Then he wanders through a museum and picks up a random janky ID chip from a dead Borderlands 2 DLC character, and then some bandits try to kill him. Then he tries to make the deal, but a poorly placed EMP makes his electrical arm short out, making him drop the fake vault key, revealing it was a forgery, and then… some bandits try to kill him. In fact, pretty much every other event in the game is punctuated with “some bandits try to kill you now.”

More hijinks ensue, resulting in Rhys and Fiona teaming up to try and get the money back from bandits. Oh did I mention that bandits stole the money? Well they did, thinking it was just a mystery box. Of course, the box is locked and there’s a bomb in it that will go off if it’s forced open, but THEY don’t know that.

For a brief moment there, everyone is worried that they won’t be able to track where the money is going. To try and solve this problem, Rhys jabs the ID chip they found earlier, wantonly into his skull… and promptly passes out. Then they track the money off-screen. Well, that couldn’t possibly have been a plot point quickly forced in to somehow explain why Rhys ends up walking around with a virtual reality copy of Handsome Jack in his head could it?

Could it?

COULD IT!?!?

SpoilSport – Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Yes it could, because Handsome Jack is awesome, and at this point he is one of the few reasons you are sticking with this franchise. Well… that and lines like “I HAVE THE SHINIEST MEAT BICYCLE!”

Speaking of meat bicycles, the party then takes a hard left into Death Race 2000 territory. Everybody dresses like a bandit and decides to enter some sort of weird competition, and the prize is getting their money back. Oh yeah, and the Assassin from Borderlands 2 is there and he is looking for something called a Gortys. This is really awesome if you played that class, and kinda just a throwaway if you didn’t. But I played that class so WOOHOO! SLICE SOME BADDIES UP!

… Then some bandits try to kill you.

So you go through another long quick time event trying to get the mystery box of money. You fail, as you are want to do in Borderlands games. Instead, Uncle Backstabby gets his hands on it and OBVIOUSLY NOT MOTIVATED BY ANY SELFISH REASONS decides to take the box for himself, open it up, and … hey wait a minute wasn’t there a bomb in that box?

Oh well, as Mr. Torgue Hi-Five Flexington would say… EXPLOSIONS!!?

It just so happens that this explosion was in just the right place to drop you into a storehouse of ancient Atlas tech and goodies. Among those goodies are a few weapons, a map to a new Vault on Pandora, and a strange interlocking device that looks like it’s important and probably is that Gortys thingy, because plot convenience.

And then just as everything is starting to look up, your Handsome Jack mind buddy comes out to play and says he is probably going to kill you all, and everyone lives happily ever after… until Handsome Jack kills you all.

The End…

Well not really. You still have to shell out 20 more bucks for the next four episodes which will come out once every two or three months over the next year, but by then you’ll be distracted by Telltale’s Game of Thrones game, so this is basically like the end. Blowing up bandits and searching Pandora for loot is about as much fun as you can have, outside of the serene metaphysical pleasure that is staring at Peter Dinklage’s sweet, sweet ass.

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