The Walking Dead: The Game

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Hard to blame anyone. Greg Miller spoke in a cruel and dehumanizing manner, and Telltale's employees just sat there and laughed. Whether they were laughing out of agreement or surprise, it was still a hurtful thing to do. That shit shouldn't have even been allowed in the video. At best, Telltale/Mark Darin/Jason Latino/IGN passively allowed it to happen. At worst, they agreed with him.

The what Tumblr thing hard?

edited 11th Aug '14 4:51:30 AM by lancesolous13

I see that Telltale wanted Sarah dead as much as I did.

I was terrified that the story would be about babysitting her, and forcing her to become...I don't know, some kind of zombie-killing badass in a ridiculously contrived way. To be frank, I didn't *like* Sarah and I didn't want to take care of her. In fact, I wanted to have as little to do with her as possible.

Actually, in hindsight, most of the new cast are pretty terrible people. Nick screws up everything he does, Luke is well-intentioned but weak, and Sarah is an actual plague. Clementine's better off without 'em.

edit: Can you imagine being forced to coddle her for the rest of the season? No, I'll go on - Imagine if the big climax of Season 1 was Lee having to heroically sacrifice himself to save Sarah. No-one would believe it, because Sarah is completely unlikeable.

Clementine's worth saving. Sarah is not.

edited 11th Aug '14 4:55:21 AM by iridium248

You're presuming a lot based solely on your bias.

I liked Sarah, I definitely want to see her learn to survive and grow past her disability.

And I'm so glad we weren't stuck with her.

She was literally created to be as much as an unlikeable burden as possible.

edited 11th Aug '14 5:01:54 AM by iridium248

I disagree.

I certainly feel that, as mentioned pages ago, there is a connection between Carver's logic of survival and how the player is intended to feel about Sarah. Is she dead weight that needs to be trimmed off, or will you try to make her stronger and no longer dead-weight?

And I feel that they have some solid build up to this, such as the scene with teaching Sarah to shoot a gun (and this scene is NEVER mentioned again...)

But, the way she's treated in the 4th episode veers drastically in a different direction in that it felt less like asking the player what lengths they'll go to bring dead weight a long, and more like they were trying to beat us over the head with a survival of the fittest message. Which becomes even more bungled when you factor in that Sarah's second and last possible death is one purely by chance and not one of her own innocence/incompetence/dead-weight status.

In other words, Luke (not dead-weight) could have died in the exact same way and I wouldn't have had a hard time believing it.

My rational on it was that human life is a precious (and I hate using this word so forgive me) resource because of the zombie take over to the point that I will not let someone die when I reasonably have the ability to save them. Second, where someone is innocent or doesn't know how to fight zombies well, they can be TAUGHT and go from being dead-weight to being someone who can carry their own.

Clementine goes through a similar path that Sarah went. Clem wasn't a hindrance by any means to the S1 group, but she certainly wasn't pulling her own weight as many other members of the group were and she grows to pull more weight than half the cast does in S2.

On the other hand, Sarah has done exactly the same thing. She hasn't been, say, the most likable person ever but she certainly hasn't stood in my way in any unreasonable way (when she did, she was traumatized which is certainly not unreasonable and not unexpected of, say, Lilly who also watched her father die) and, given time and able to move past her trauma, I think she could have been a great character.

And, actually, there's quite a lot of difference between being 'saddled with a baby' and 'taking care of (Sarah)'. Sarah has actively shown genuine willingness and interest in learning how to defend herself and, thus, become a working member of the group. It wouldn't take more than a few weeks before she could be doing nearly as much work as Clem does now.

A baby, however, has no possible way of defending itself, taking care of itself in its most basic of functions, and cannot in any way survive easily in such a situation. Think of the baby crying in the night and alerting zombies? Or falling ill where medicine is incredibly short on supply? Or, worse, the baby dies and becomes a zombie? I don't want to see that.

A baby cannot learn to pull its own weight, or at least not for a very long time, where as Sarah can learn, with noted enthusiasm, to pull her own weight.

edited 11th Aug '14 5:16:24 AM by lancesolous13

Man, Screw "Human life is a precious resource." Human life is precious, period.

Sarah may have been a "burden," but that burden was one I would be more than willing to endure to ensure just one more good person exists in the world. She doesn't deserve to die just because she was never taught how to survive in a zombie apocalypse.

Like I said, I don't like that wording, but you've argued that to this person before now and it didn't change the opinion so I tried a new argument and phrasing.

True. I tend to lose track of arguments I've already made (even if I made them less than a post ago...)

If they thought of her as a unwanted burden then she should of died back in Carver's along with the baby, Nick, and Rebecca because by that logic Carver would not have wanted to deal with all of those characters either. Clementine was also similar to her at the start of season 1, she however was actually Character Developed and any time we ever had her die on our hands it wasn't directly shown onscreen.

Matt and Walter's deaths to me had significance all things aside on being potenial partners, in the world they created these nice guys would unfortunately not survive. Most of the other deaths atleast had significance, I am sorry but I cannot agree with that attitude pointed towards Sarah at all. She was a lot more sheltered, had some social issues that may or may not suggest she had a disorder of some sorts, but atleast she was willing to learn. In the case of Ben he indirectly killed 4 people because of his screw-ups and he knew he was detriment, his deaths however were way more quicker and far less brutal.

edited 11th Aug '14 6:05:11 AM by Bleddyn

Her father was the only thing keeping her alive. After his death, no-one was going to coddle and shelter her. As they said, Sarah was simply the kind of person who was never going to survive the apocalypse.

And frankly, in the zombie apocalypse, the value of human life plummets to almost zero. Family and friends first, then the people you like over those you don't. Jane's message is something to take to heart: You can't force people to survive. You just drag out their death throes.

Personally I'd say in a zombie apocalypse the value of human life sky-rockets due to y'know the scarcity of it. If I have a choice I never kill or let someone else die in these games.

edited 11th Aug '14 7:12:43 AM by Badwolfwho

You can't start trivializing human life just because there are dead people walking around.

That kind of mindset and casual dismissal of other people is what leads people to become bandits and murdering dickwads. You can't just do that.

Playing Dead, huh? Like it.

My response has to been to value human life even more, now that there is so little of it.

True.

I never saw that Playing Dead thing, so I dunno, but I thought Sarah's death wasn't any more unusual than most deaths in TWD. I thought Sarah had already died the moment Carlos was shot and eaten - what remained wasn't Sarah, but a traumatised Empty Shell. Add to that a fundamental inexperience with the post-apocalyptic reality, and it's not difficult to see how it happened.

I said it before, I'll say it again - remember back in Season 1 Episode 3 where Chuck told Lee that Clem would die if she wasn't taught to survive? Sarah is what Clem would be if Lee had disregarded his advice. Sarah spent the time after Carlos's death in near-paralysis, barely able to move even to save her life; Clem either left Lee chained to a radiator to zombify, or blew his brains out herself, and is still the most capable member of most groups she's in. I thought it was another part of the fascinating look at season one repeating itself, thematically if not exactly, with Clem as the hero instead of Lee.

So, anyway, there's this:

IGN Prime members, The Walking Dead Season 2 is now up for grabs for this week. Be quick though. If you miss your copy, you'll have another chance next tuesday at 11 a.m. PDT.

"No Going Back" teaser at the end.

Man, just watching that makes me feel cold.

There will also apparently be release info next week, according to Telltale's Facebook.

edited 15th Aug '14 6:43:01 PM by SilentColossus

Sorry for the double post, but here is the episode five trailer:

edited 21st Aug '14 10:15:57 AM by SilentColossus

Well now.

Also, I see you with that Vita there. Is that accurate?

Oh my god that last scene.

why would you do that

Nice trailer, it technically doesn't tell you what happens in episode 5.

That's the point, I think.

They never have "actual" trailers for the final episodes. They want you in complete suspense.

Though there was some hint, what with Clem walking through the snow alone.

Since I just moved to college and got a new comp, I have to replay the series for the achievements and etc. Perfect time to do so with the Season Finale.

This should be interesting to say the very least.