The Walking Dead: The Game

I remember seeing that video a few months ago. I can see were ‎Innuendo Studios is coming from tin their interpretation of Kenny's season 2 portrayal. While it's not the prime reason I like Kenny's use in season 2 it did play a part.

Some interesting and good news

Gary Whitta, who was one of the writers on Season One, is returning to help write the Final Season.

Whitta is probably best known for writing Rogue One.

Telltale's also making a remastered version of all their previous Walking Dead games for PS4 and Xbox One.

edited 2nd Nov '17 9:12:50 AM by lrrose

"Remaster" isn't really the right word, since they're all available on those systems already. It's just a collection of them.

Comparison trailer for Collection.

I'm guessing there's still no word on The Final Season yet. Don't really care about the collection if I'm being honest.

Greater texture detail and difference in lighting, but I'm not seeing much else. To be honest, Telltale games don't seem great for a remaster since they're already cartoony and styalized. More 'realistic' games are better for remaster since they age a lot faster.

Also 19 episodes in one place.

Interesting trivia.

First trailer. August 14th is set as the release date.

Not going to get my hopes up too much, but I like the Batman games well enough. Especially the second season.

edited 6th Jun '18 12:45:58 PM by SilentColossus

So I finally pick up Season 1 of the Walking Dead after playing Tales from the Borderlands, Minecraft Story Mode, and The Wolf Among Us.

And I'm a little disappointed. I should give it some slack since it's an earlier game, but, I'm really kind of bummed. I already know some spoilers just by looking at each trailer for each season Lee eventually dies and the story centers around Clementine and Clementine lives until Season 3 and becomes a supporting character and she'll return in The Final Season as well. I also took a glance at some of the fates of the Season 1 characters well Kenny at least.

So that's a lot stacked against this game to be fair. It's not really going to surprise me at this point. Best to just let the game play itself out and enjoy it for what it is:

• Walking is way too slow. Seriously. This is the slowest main character I have ever played as.
• They seem to like making story progression into a puzzle - not an intinuitive, ha ha kind of puzzle but a MY GOD WHERE IS THE PIECE I NEED TO OPEN THIS FRIGGIN DOOR kind of puzzle.
• I'm not sure if it's because I know what's going to happen, but the discovery of Lee's family seemed premature. Sure it's not impossible that you'd work or live in the same town as your parents, but after getting arrested, surviving a highway crash, traveling to a farm, leaving that farm, and going into town he ends up in the same exact store that his parents own?
• The entire store section dragged - my thought process was "find the pills for Mister Cranky-pants," but instead you have to wait for Glenn to bungle things up so you can run off to save him and bring back an axe which lets you open the front door to the gate so you can steal the keys off your dead sibling's body on the other side of the street. -deep breath-
  • Except ha hah screw you if you went to Doug first and thought you were all done talking to him because you'll have to find a remote inside the store's office. Except if you already went in there and didn't find keys or a battery then you probably think you're all done in there and wouldn't think to look for a TV remote which Doug can use to program a TV on the other side of the street to distract the zombies. And only then can you get into the office to find some stupid pills for Lily's asshole father who is going to punch you in the face and leave you for dead anyway, and receive no reprimand or consequences for doing so.

So, Episode 2:

• A new, bespectacled companion that we've not met or had any proper introduction toward. I like the cut of this guy's jib. Let's slowly learn more about him as the episode pans out.
• Hey, some teenagers and a teacher in the woods. This is a hairy situation they're in. Maybe we could shoot the chain that's connecting the bear tra- oops, sorry, ran out of time. Yup, the teacher's zombie chow.
• The food rationing was interesting though anyone who didn't give the food to Clementine and Duck must be a heartless monster.
• I can't believe it's been, what, 3 weeks? 3 months? And Lee and Old Man Dickface still haven't cleared the air. Lee still hasn't told anyone about his arrest? Three months. Carly and Old Man Dickface are the only ones that know. Wow.
• Now I might just be Genre Savvy but I didn't trust Danny or Andrew for a second.
• The Dairy is a boring overworld. One of Lee's observations is to look at a fence and go, "hmm, pointy!"
• I could push you on the swing Clementime, but A) I don't want to, B) a friend of ours was just shot with an arrow 10 minutes ago and I don't want the same thing happening to you, and C), kind of related to B, I'm about to go out with two strangers we've just met to go and deal with the people trying to kill us!
  • Seriously who designed this section? It's like everybody just forgets that we were attacked and decides to hang around the Dairy doing flock-all. There might be an electric fence around the place but that doesn't stop these bandits from using rifles. We've already seen parts of the fence knocked down. Probably not too hard for outsiders to find a way to knock some of the fences down and climb over.
• Speaking of which, Lee seemed to forget that the fence came back on before Danny or Andrew even seemed to know what was happening - so shouldn't Lee have also addressed this and asked why the fences were turned on suddenly. He shouts at them for turning it on then just drops the subject.
• Lastly, the encampment. I spent 6-8 minutes scoping around looking for new spots to check. Half of the crap you can click on is irrelevant. Lee makes no interesting observations beyond "someone was here recently but now they're not" and "there was a kid here." And you have to search the tent for Clementine's hat. Maybe this was my own incompetence but I went back and forth out of this tent 3 times before I found the freaking thing.

I like the sense of "danger," like I can actually be killed here and things can go wrong. That one scene at the Motor Inn where one of the teens reanimated and tried to grab Kenny's wife caught me legitimately off guard.

But overall I'm not really enjoying this.

• There are good parts but the overall design of the world feels... terrible. The puzzles aren't intuitive and I end up walking around 4-5 times looking for something.
• Dialogue feels disjointed (why would I ask Clementine how she feels about The Dairy when someone was shot pretty much the moment she arrived) and there aren't too many interesting topics.
• Certain characters fade into the background (Duck, Larry) while others come out of nowhere (Mark). I'm having a hard time identifying with Lee. I know that this franchise was praised for making Clementine the lead, but I'd often heard that Lee was this incredible protagonist - I'm not feeling it).

Edited by Soble on Aug 11th 2018 at 12:20:21 PM

And I'm told Season 2 was "meh" next to Season 1. Some good parts, but Season 1 was arguably this franchise's highest point.

I suspect Season 1 gets better but I'm none too impressed with it thus far.

Episode 3 is when the season really takes off yeah. 1 is establishing the setting and characters, and 2 is as close to filler as it gets.

Season 2 is 'meh' to 'terrible' in my opinion. It does fuck all to develop and further the plots and ideas of the first season and ALMOST doesn't seem interested in the first season at all. Doesn't help that 1) the writers of the first season all left after the first season and 2) the bridging DLC doesn't... actually bridge the Seasons together.

Evidence for this? The first season's sequel hook is dropped within the first 10 mins of Season 2 for ultimately no reason.

I think the franchise's biggest problem is that none of the stories are particuarly well developed. Season 1 worked fine because I feel like there was at least a foundation and vision it was building off of which doesn't really show up until around Episode 2 and 3. Season 2 is just... things happen. Season 3 is... just out there and doesn't add on much to the previous seasons. Its the odd one out since Clem is a side character and it doesn't feel like anything is actually ammounting to anything.

That's a good point to. Season 1 felt like it had a vision half way through of where it wants to end and concludes with that. Season 2 just meanders and doesn't seem to have any end in mind until... it ends. Season 3 has less of an idea of where the series is going because everything the series WAS until that point (Clem's development from child to adult in the zombie wasteland) was shoved to the sidelines entirely. And with how meandering, unfocused, and undeveloped the last two seasons have been, I can't say that I'm really invested or interested in this 'Final Season'.

'Why should I care?' is a legitimate question at this point.

Edited by InkDagger on Aug 11th 2018 at 2:28:02 AM

Season 1 is great if you like Lee or tiny Clementine. Season 2 is mostly shit. Season 3 is pretty good if you like some family drama.

Well I finished Episode 2. Finally. Going to try and start Episode 3 tonight if that's where things get interesting.

I can't forgive them for the pacing of that farm chapter - things sped up once Mark was found but it was a dull episode all around. This franchise really seems to stagnate whenever the main characters end up on a farm. :/

Ah, for some reason I spared Danny and Andrew, and I don't think there was any scenario where their mom was going to survive this. I'd like to think Lee hasn't crossed the line into bonafide killer yet but this is the moment when that starts to change. I stole the food from the car. Can't imagine the previous owner is coming back.

So, was Jolene Clementine's actual mom or was she just a crazy lady who felt that Clementine was being abused? That ending kind of lost me. Apparently she snuck into the Motor Inn at some point, stole Clementine's hat, and was recording messages on a camcorder that she was leaving for the bandits or somebody else?

No, she's just an insane woman projecting her dead child onto Clementine. The messages were just her rambling to herself and her imaginary daughter.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Aug 11th 2018 at 1:50:20 AM

The first two episodes both come following a time where Telltale made more traditional point-and-click adventure games. By episode three the puzzle element is mostly dropped, with the game moving more to the style of what would later become the Telltale formula.

It's really awkward going back out to Doug three times - once to strike up conversation and see Lee's brother, again with an axe to chop open the door and throw a rock at a window, and finally with a remote that Doug can just program right away. I mean, I figured busting a window would provide enough noise to lure the walkers away. But apparently not.

I never played many of those point and clicks back in the day, despite being aware of Leisure Suit Larry and Sam & Max. I guess I lacked the sense needed to intuitively guess the proper sequence of cause and effect here.

The farm I could be more forgiving of, but I didn't feel quite as hassled (or exhausted) by traveling around in TFTB or TWAU. So hearing that Episode 3 is different is a plus.

(2) Well they sure made it seem from Lee and Carly's expressions that Jolene's video was an important cliffhanger. I guess all it meant was that she'd been watching them the whole time but she's dead so... spooky.

Edited by Soble on Aug 13th 2018 at 6:44:42 AM

First episode of the final season is out by the way. From what I've heard the quality seems to be improving again.

To be fair, the 'Last Time On' suggests that a lot of writing changes were made between episodes on both this series and Wolf Among Us.

Man this episode was great,

I actually liked all of the characters, pacing was steady, and it ended on a strong note

Goddamn it AJ

I understand why AJ did it, He thought his mother figure was in danger.

Episode 3... had to stop for the night.

There's no way to save Carly, is there. Going to have chest pains over that one.

You're correct there unfortunately. Carley's gonna die no matter what. It just depends on when.

I'm enjoying the Final Season so far. Especially since they actually seem to be taking time to develop the characters.

The gameplay reminds me more of Life is Strange than it does any previous Telltale game, though it is still designed with the much more limiting Telltale Tool. It plays better because of that, but that engine has gotta go.

Choices!

• Killed the couple to get the key. Despite them leaving a note saying they want to be left alone as zombies, I figure that it is safest to kill them if there is minimal risk. Don't want them escaping, or even growling and altering other zombies.
• Went fishing with Violet and Brody. I like Louis plenty, but I wanted to talk with Violet more after the discussion in the dorm. I managed to catch only one fish.
• Appealed to Violet, as I felt like I got to know her more than I did Louis. I tried to get Marlon to stay and redeem himself, but AJ didn't seem to understand what was happening, and shot him. Let's hope his Rosie doesn't try to maul our faces.

AJ is hardened, Violet is guilty, Tenn is resentful, and Louis is heartbroken. So far the redshir- err, side characters like me enough.

Edited by SilentColossus on Aug 20th 2018 at 1:18:20 AM