Holy jumping shitballs! Season One had one of the best stories I’ve seen in a game brought about through believable, engaging characters. Can’t wait to see what Season Two holds.
“Due to premiere next month, this latest season will put players in the role of Clementine, the precocious nine year old girl we struggled so hard to take care of in Season One. Based on the screenshots and teaser trailer below, it doesn’t look like much time has passed since we saw her last.”
Some people are not digging the idea that Clementine will be the protagonist in Season 2. Apparently, they want Lee’s influence to be carried on automagically by a Clem-bot. Me, I was so excited I actually went through and finished the first season to get ready, which was hard for me because some horrible shit happens to people in this game.
Trailer for the first episode of Season 2, All That Remains.
Quirky history buff Omid returns, guns are flashed and there’s some weirdo with a backpack up to no good. Roman from 400 days apparently didn’t make it. At 38 seconds in you see the back of someone who may well be Kenny - despite being “lost to the horde” in Episode 5 you never see him die.
It’s bleak as hell. Set 16 months after the end of Season 1, the world is even more messed up.
The game does a good job of making you feel vulnerable as hell while at the same time making it clear that Clementine isn’t completely helpless. Nevertheless, all the way through I was wishing Lee was there to whup some ass and shout in his badass voice. Without ruining anything there are choices to make, 5 of which have stats at the end like with season 1 (40% of players did x, 60% did y).
The graphics are a bit more polished and the interface is slightly easier; you click on dialogue boxes now rather than scrolling through responses and clicking. Like Season 1 there are quicktime events and bashing q. Lots of little nods and continuity, I imported a save which carried things over.
Big spoilers:
[spoiler]RIP Omid, you survived Season 1 and a manky leg only to get blown away in a bathroom, and not in the fun way. RIP Christa’s baby, too. That guy in the cap isn’t Kenny, but an unrelated character called Nick.
I tended to be more of a hardass than I was in Season 1…you know what they say, once bitten twice shy. Thought we would have a nice ‘one girl and her dog’ vibe, which we did…for all of two minutes before I slit Sam’s windpipe to but him out of his misery. So no water for dying man, went with Pete since he seemed less of a wuss than Nick.
Some interesting new characters, like ‘Dr. Asshole’ Carlos, a bitchy pregnant woman and a girl from space seemingly oblivious to the horror outside.[/spoiler]
Bigger spoiler:
“I thought you were dead!” *Definitely *Kenny, who seems to be shacked up with Vince the ex-con from 400 Days.
Damn shame to see Omid get redshirted like that, but it really does establish the mood. Way to set us up with the dog, too. Later, when we see Clementine interacting with people, she’s got a stare that can cut diamonds, even when she’s trying to be friendly.
Finished it tonight. It was good, but I have a bit of a complaint:
[SPOILER]I felt that the choices were less…choicey. Save guy who has already been bitten, or save guy who hasn’t. Put mortally wounded dog out of its misery, or don’t. Cause a distraction to save a friend, or don’t. They weren’t particularly gray areas, which is what I’ve come to expect from this series.
I gave water to the dying man, mostly because I hoped he’d start answering my questions. Bah. I went with Nick because I thought that Pete was a goner; it looked like he’d been bitten. Was that not the case?
[/SPOILER]
Still, I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to Episode 2.
[spoiler]I think not helping Christa is for people doing the scumbag playthrough. There was some controversy on the official boards when Clementine was announced as the protagonist because people thought everything Lee taught Clementine was wasted if the player could choose to ignore it.
I saved Pete, because I didn’t assume he was bitten and he had supported me earlier, even before Luke did. The dog, well, there was that whole controversy over whether or not to shoot Lee and on what basis. “Killing people changes you” is one of Lee’s choices when telling her to leave him to turn. I reckon slitting a dog’s throat, even as a mercy, changes you. That was a dilemma.[/spoiler]
On the choices, I felt like they did still stick with the ruthless survivalism vs humanitarianism theme they had going in Season 1, not necessarily just the good choice vs evil choice you have in a lot of games.
For instance, feeding the dog or not, water to the dying man or not. Even the Pete vs Nick choice - I reckon the more optimistic choice if you like is to go with Pete and try amputation, pure survival would say he’s screwed.
Another nice little nod from way back in Episode 1 of Season 1 - if you swear as Lee, Clem says “oh shit!” when she drops something, otherwise she says “oh shoot!”
There’s speculation that the [spoiler]person referred to by Clem in the preview “I thought you were dead!” will be Lilly, about whom we’ve heard nothing since Episode 3. I left her on the side of the road, so it would make sense Clem would think she was dead.
Others speculate it will be Molly, but I think that unlikely; Clem would have no reason to think she was dead. Interestingly, in Episode 5 even if you really screw things up as Lee Molly can not die so I’m pretty sure she’ll return at some point.
Of course, if Telltale is trolling us it might just be Christa, again though I don’t think Clem would assume she’s dead. She might, since you hear gunshots after you escape but I told the jerkasses I met that my plan was to go find her.[/spoiler]
One thing that concerns me is that it found my save game to import, but while it was showing some of the Season One choices, it showed the opposite of one of the choices I remember making in S1 (pitchfork). I played 400 Days, and the save game reflected that, but I’m worried that it forgot my choices from the rest of Season One, and now it’s just made a bunch of random ones. Does anyone know of a way to analyze the contents of a Walking Dead save game file?
You can boot up Season 1, click play and it’ll give you an option to show stats for all episodes you’ve completed to show what major decisions you took.
There is a lot of excitement from the Kenny faction over at the Telltale boards. They recorded horrible death screams for him, but they never actually used them in the game, so a lot of people really want him to come back in season 2. Another faction of Lilly fans really want to see her again, but they haven’t been nearly as vocal. If I was a writer for Telltale I would never, ever glace at the forums.
Personally I’d prefer to [spoiler]meet Lilly again over Kenny, I am sure that Kenny will return however - they’re not shy about clearly offing main characters, but Kenny’s fate was left deliberately ambiguous.
Lilly was a bit more of an interesting character, since she’s willing to forgive you for wrongs whereas Kenny kept month-long grudges over disagreeing about Larry. I have a feeling that they might be building up bitchy pregnant woman to be a second Larry, seeing as in Episode 3 we’re helping to deliver her baby.[/spoiler]
Just finished it now. I liked it a lot - even better than the first episode; there’s a lot going on, questions answered and new questions raised. Very, very good. Massive spoilers now;
[spoiler]It was Kenny! Now sporting a survivalist beard and with a new lady friend. Things are setting up for a conflict between him and Luke/Nick. Who is this jackhole Carver and what’s he got against our group? Will he in fact be proved right that our group has been up to unsavoury things?
Good to see Bonnie from 400 Days again, even if she’s been demoted from player character to goon. I bet the settlement in Episode 3 Carver seems to run is the same we heard about in 400 Days where we played as Tavia convincing our characters to move or not to it. Bonnie is the only one who goes no matter what.
The ending was pretty damn tense too; poor Walter.[/spoiler]
Well, after playing the episode, I looked at the Wikia page in which it mentions the lady who was Bonnie in my game and it did not name her, making me think that there must be some circumstance under which it will not be Bonnie. Perhaps it depends on whether Leland stays with her in 400 days? In any case, I realize she doesn’t mean anything to Clementine, but as a player I was thinking, yeah, as a junkie I’m sure she’s used to fucking over people who try to help her
