The Walking Dead: The Game

You messed up wih Sarita. I did the one thing sure to save her life: sloppily chopping off her hand with an axe that hadn't been sterilized or cleaned of the zombie blood already on it, leaving her bleeding and screaming in the middle of a zombie hoard with no way to stop the blood loss and no doctor to treat her. One hundred percent perfect plan.

One thing I've noticed is that I feel less bad making Clem do bad things while roleplaying her than I did when I was worried about setting an example with Lee. Anyone else feel that way?

I feel like Season 2 is just better at keeping the stakes high. Choices that are "bad" (loaded word) are easier to make because because Clem generally has to make them as on the fly with no time to stop and think of the consequences. The big moral choices for Lee (the fates of the St. John brothers and Lilly) aren't made in the middle of a chase or fire-fight. It's not an emergency. Danny's trapped, Andy is powerless, and Carly or Doug is already dead, so there's no rush in dealing with Lilly. It's not a matter of life and death, it's a matter of mercy and cruelty.

Reggie is Indian? I didn't see it.

I'm afraid that I'm turning Clem into some kind of hard-hearted stereotypical action hero, even more deadly because she looks so damn cute.

edited 16th Jun '14 4:33:14 AM by arcanephoenix

I object to people saying an autistic person was "coddled". I suppose someone in a wheelchair is "coddled", too?

Ok, I think Sarah has issues, but I don't think she's autistic.

I'll be totally honest, I wouldn't have thought she had any 'mental disorder' if it hadn't been stated; by my account, she comes across as very socially awkward and a bit lacking in the common sense department while also being incredibly naïve about things. Which, I know enough people that way going into college age that I really don't see it as something qualifying as 'mental disorder'.

I do think that, to some extent, she has been 'coddled' or, as a better word, sheltered far too much from the world BY HER FATHER (which is VERY clear the second he tells Clementine not to mention the outside world to her) as it is that she simply wouldn't be able to function and survive without relying her entire well being on others. Is this a bad thing? Not entirely. It presents an immediate issue, but she can learn, though doing so through force isn't going to work with her and that's very obvious.

I do wonder how the game would present/treat a character in a wheelchair, now that it has been mentioned. Though, I suppose its worth considering that there may not be many left.

arcanephoenix: Wait, sorry, he's Pakistani. I couldn't remember where Kumail Nanjiani (his voice actor) was from.

Another Guy: The supposed coddling comes from the fact that basically the first thing Carlos does is forbid Clem from referring to the walkers in Sarah's presence, and he continues to display similar behaviour. To go with your analogy, it's like you got to the group, found out they had a kid in a wheelchair with them, and the kid's dad forbid you from calling the zombies "walkers" around the kid.

Yeah, I'm going to say that people who have trouble escaping were probably among the earliest victims the walkers got to, right after people who stopped to help people who have trouble escaping.

Not always, obviously. The comics and TV show have both had a character lose a leg and survive for a while (Dale and Hershel). In fact, Hershel didn't even die because of walkers in the show. The Governor cut his head off. And way back in season 1 there's the Vatos, holed up in their fortress protecting the elderly. But as a general rule, getting out of a situation quickly is the most important skill in the Walking Dead universe, and people who have trouble doing that are the ones who are going to get bit.

edited 16th Jun '14 9:30:26 AM by BadWolf21

Show me a wheelchair-bound person in the Walking Dead, and there'll be people helping him/her get over his/her disability by, say, picking them up and helping them around.

Show me a girl with panic attacks and a complete innocence of how exactly the zombie apocalypse works, though, and I'll show you a father too afraid to break her in to the new world, who wants others to maintain the illusion to her too. Carlos is, strictly speaking, a coward, though I don't know how many would blame him for it.

Both are limitations to actually living independently, something that you may have to do in a WD scenario. You may find such people in TWD, but not outside groups, and not without at least one person vital to the group who loves them dearly.

It's a nice look at how Clementine could've been if Lee hadn't followed Chuck's advice back in 103 and had instead completely sheltered her from the world.

edited 16th Jun '14 1:48:10 PM by arcanephoenix

I'm not seeing a complete innocence on how the apocalypse works. If you inform her of Pete's death, she has a minor panic attack but still accepts it as part of life now. She understands she should learn how to use a gun to survive. She panics when Carlos dies, yeah, but I wouldn't believe for half a second our more experienced characters wouldn't act in a similar manner. They might not panic, but they'd have an emotional breakdown. Sarah knows how everything works, aside from picking up on social cues, she still cannot handle them. She knows what a zombie is, that it will eat you, and a bite means death. She knows people die a lot now. She still panics.

If Telltale wants us to think Sarah is just a sheltered fifteen year old, she is a very unconvincing character who acts much younger than she should realistically, sheltered or not.

edited 16th Jun '14 2:20:21 PM by SilentColossus

Sarah was definitely sheltered too much by Carlos.

But if anyone tries to suggest to me that he should have hit her, or that Carver was right to make him do that to her, I will flip my shit.

And I agree that he sheltered her - and that yes, he made her more unprepared for life than she otherwise would have been. Sarah has shown much more willingness to learn than either he or the fanbase have given her credit for, however, and I can't view her as a lost cause because of it.

Well no, clearly that was a terrible decision.

I think it goes back to what arcanephoenix said: Carlos is fundamentally a coward. He will always choose the path that is immediately safest, even if it's a worse choice in the long run. He shelters Sarah from the outside world as much as he can, because he thinks she can't handle it (she is, of course, more nuanced than that). He regards anyone outside the immediate group with intense distrust, whether they're an injured little girl, people who are quite fine on their own in their ski lodge, or a suspicious, able-bodied stranger who just happens to find them. And he can't stand up to Carver when ordered to do something as unthinkable as striking his own daughter.

Sarah clearly has some kind of developmental disorder. She doesn't make sense as a character if she doesn't. But her complete inability to handle tough situations is because Carlos used that disorder as an excuse to hide her in a tower where he thinks the dragons can't reach her (spoiler alert: they can) instead of taking her out into the world and showing her that the dragons can be killed.

It's in spite of her father that Sarah is actually somewhat adjusted to the world, not because of him. She's adventurous, and shows a eagerness to learn. She could take care of herself, if Carlos had taken the time to teach her. But he didn't, and now we have to deal the consequences.

edited 16th Jun '14 5:21:33 PM by BadWolf21

This is what I've come to like about Season 2: the fact that Telltale have finally figured character study using non-obvious methods.

Seaaon 1's characters weren't one note, but were much more willing to open up themselves to Lee, than the new guys are to Clem. Makes sense, too.

A cursory look at Carlos gives 'Doctor, father of Sarah, very protective' but there can be more to it than just that.

I still haven't completed season one. Someone please help me.

With what?

I paid 24 dollars for this game but a voice told me it was possessed by the devile and I threw it out. Is that true? Will I go to hell for playing this game?

... I don't know how to reply to that...

...Or, more specifically, I don't know how to reply to that in a way that isn't rude...

I'm... going to assume you aren't trolling, despite my better judgement, and assure you that no, you will not go to hell for playing this game.

Technically, you don't know that.

Okay. I am extremely nervous saying this but I wasn't trolling. I was frightened because I thought for sure you see something very similar a devil worship symbol. It's easy to miss. Near the beginning of Episode 4.

Ummm... So???

Ok, I saw a devil worship sign in a game? I be going to hell everyone!

There are lots of games with 'Satanic' symbols, usually to say 'This is a bad place and bad people live here' and other things. Not like it makes the players suddenly terrible people for laying eyes on it.

Yeah... that's about as nice as I could muster.

I don't recall anything of the sort in Episode 4.

There were symbols that look like it, kinda, I guess, but trust me, they aren't Satanic.

It is okay for you to not be nice. Yes I think that looking at something like that willingly means I'm going to hell. Not everyone, just me.

Thank you, that is what I was hoping to hear actually.

I thought Kenny's survival was bullshit and took away from the pathos of his final scene. To be fair, they hinted at it from the very beginning by never coming out and saying that he died, but between him still being alive and the lodge being so beautiful, I couldn't really focus on the plot of the episode because the atmosphere seemed so surreal. Thankfully, I got sort of used to it after a while and got back into the story.

The end of episode 2 was pretty good. I talked Walter into forgiving Nick and saved Alvin. Carver made for an interesting antagonist and his introduction was very tense.

I feel like Episode 3 kind of missed an opportunity by removing all the moral ambiguity from Carver's character. He came across as more of an Affably Evil Knight Templar in the previous episode who had some valid points about whether or not the Cabin survivors were trustworthy. But I still enjoyed the direction they took him and tried to make Clementine as defiant as possible.

I didn't watch Kenny's beatdown on Carver partially because I wanted to preserve Clem's innocence and because Carver was clearly Too Kinky to Torture, so there wasn't much point. But I didn't think that was going to be his death scene, so I felt kind of cheated when that was the last I saw of him. For the story's sake, I think it might've been better if I stayed, since then everything feels more climactic and you get more dialogue out of Carver.

edited 30th Jun '14 12:56:33 PM by Robotnik

I don't get why people are worried about preserving Clem's innocence. At this point in the game, she is FAR from innocent anymore.

Clem's innocence has been gone since Season 1.