I love bad jokes. Dad jokes, terrible puns, and on-again, off-again ...... All of them are fascinating, which is why the world of "Borderlands" is always so painfully funny. I still laugh about the town of Buttsville in "Tiny Tina's Wonderland". The original "Tales from the Borderlands" was both heartwarming and hilarious, and thanks to its adventure game structure, it actually introduced new characters with a purpose and story. And even though the genre had changed, the game was still very Borderlands in every sense of the word: vault hunting, scams, capitalism, guns, and bizarre humor.

"New Tales" is as funny as ever, but there are too many overlong jokes and the whole thing feels a bit rushed; it's clear that Gearbox tried to emulate the pacing and storytelling style of "Tales," but instead, characters who never appear again appear, or plot points that end in loopholes.

The narrator of "New Tales from the Borderlands" introduces the three main characters as stupid and dumb, and he is not wrong. These three "heroes" may be the most annoying protagonists I have ever played. Each character is played in turns, and the group setting controls the various conversations. Lou 13, the assassin robot, also appears in most of the story, but I never got a chance to play him, which is quite disappointing.

Meet these goofballs: there's Anu - a nerdy doctor, worrier, and socially awkward weirdo - and her brother, Octavio, a kraut chaser. If TikTok existed in the world of Borderlands, he would be the app's most annoying creator. And then there's Fran. She is a confident person who makes it her mission not to snap at the other two idiots every five seconds. She laughed at a lot of naughty jokes and once made a shocked face at Pikachu.

"A New Tale of the Borderlands" shares a similar theme to the rest of the series: one mega-corporation is trying to conquer the other while searching for the Vault and the treasures that lie within it. Elysium, the most popular commodity in Borderlands, can be moved around in New Tales. But the shard is inhabited by angry beings separated from their death-dealing cosmic twins. And did I mention that Tediore managed to get his hands on it and a seemingly sentient shard is haunting Anu and no one knows what to do with it.

For once, there is not much focus on the backstory of the main and supporting characters, which is very refreshing. We don't really care much about who these losers were before they became bomb experts, snipers, and taco stand owners. The introductions of the characters are fast-tracked and only briefly reappear in montages. There are many montages, one per act. I wish it had been a playable sequence, and the music used in it was good, but the music was not used extensively to enhance the scene as in other "Borderlands" games.

Whether it is a budget issue or time constraints, there is a lot missing from "New Tales". All episodes are available in advance, so you won't have to wait months for their release, but you will still find them lacking. In one sequence, Anu and Fran are in a shark tank, and Fran kills the shark. But it's all QTE, narrated by Octavio, and we only see a bit of blood seeping into the tank, but no action at all. Fran's mood is "I will not break my ban on anger," so it was a real shame that we ended up with a behind-the-scenes event.

QTEs seemed to be used a lot. Were the QTEs really necessary as part of a quick-time sequence to hit the cage bars or a gratuitously over-the-top "science experiment" to see if the healing shard really works, when there could have been some really fun moments hidden behind the QTEs? The difficulty of the QTEs can be tweaked in the menu, and failure does not automatically result in death or game over, but it does affect the story, which may not be apparent until later.

As always, New Tales is full of toilet humor and genuinely funny, but if you don't like memes, you probably won't find it funny. In particular, Fran and Lou13's one-liners were enough to make me pause the game and laugh. Between the usual awkward, *fingergun* type laughs, such as the well-timed use of the phrases "[in-house scream]" and "I'm thirsty," there was a reference to OnlyFans (if you thought it was OnlyFrans, well done), with a look that broke the fourth wall, There are insults about playing story-driven video games.

On the flip side, there are many sex-heavy jokes that never quite land. Also tedious is the fact that the characters are put in almost the same situation each time. Anu freaks out and becomes a super jerk, Octavio plays buzzword bingo by himself and acts painfully inept, and Fran probably makes the situation sexually tense for a reason. For the most part in New Tales, we see real growth in the characters, but somehow they never seem to want to learn. Or maybe I just made some really bad decisions for them.

At the end of each episode, you will see a rating of how well each character has bonded, and Lou 13 will rate your team's morale on a scale from zero to skateboarding. When asked "Why skateboarding?" the only answer is that Lou 13 tries very hard to be radical, but unfortunately all the cool chatter is inherited from Octavio.

However, the Vaultlanders action figure mini-game is great; the Vaultlanders are action figures of characters from previous games like Maya, Fl4k, and Brick. Each has unique offensive and defensive abilities, as well as some ultimate moves that can be used in battle. The figures are basically "Mortal Kombat," but made of plastic. The action figure is knocked off the opponent, dodges attacks, and hits with critical attacks until a K.O. is given.

There is a recurring character who, for reasons never explained, is found in many cold storages. Finding him will result in a battle, and if you win the fight, you can take the Vaultlander figurine from him. Once you win your first fight with him, if you want to step away from the story, you can select the Vaultlanders match from the main menu. Unfortunately, the encounter with the badass superfan falls into the same repetitive story trap as the non-QTE section: you finally get to walk around freely, loot some boxes, and a small prompt tells you that a Vaultlander or two are hiding in this small area.

Badass Superfan and the rest of the Teddy Ore soldiers are the best tertiary characters. Their banter is so silly and funny, I laughed ugly many times. Reminiscent of Jake Peralta and the Brooklyn 99th, the comic, incoherent nonsense is hilarious. One of the soldiers forgets his teammate's name and just yells "Doug". Wait, that's Anthony, isn't it Doug Anthony?" but the absurdity of it actually happening during a rather tense stealth QTE mission made it all the more hilarious. There is a good mix of really dumb humor and serious decision-making and QTE events throughout the story that keeps it from becoming soulless, but it still lacks something.

Sadly, there is no Telltale magic. There are predictable twists and surprises throughout the story, successes and pitfalls aplenty, but Gearbox doesn't have a good grasp on pacing. Chapter-based games are always sluggish, and parts of this film were downright painful. You can't skip dialogue to move on, so you're trapped in a series of QTEs until they start or you can finally roam freely in a small, limited area. It is hard to understand who the target audience for New Tales is, other than older millennials with a cynical sense of humor. I laughed a lot, but equally, there were too many parts where I wished it would end already, and much of the fun was sucked out of the show.