Episode 1 came out today. Apparently The Walking Dead is a big deal multi-media franchise or something. I’ve never heard of it until recently. You, yes you, reading this thread probably know a lot more about it than I do.
Either way, with absolutely no knowledge of the comics or any other things it’s based on, it was a pretty good game. I will admit that it’s unfortunately closer to a visual novel than an adventure game. It’s a LOT better than Telltale’s Jurassic Park though. You don’t really do much, just talk to people and make choices. The gameplay is deep, there aren’t any particularly clever puzzles, mostly just “click on things until you find the one item in that chapter, then click on everything else with that item.”
That said, it’s not bad, the writing and voice acting are good, it’s just closer to a choose-your-own-adventure movie. It looks like there’s at least 5 points where you can choose to change the story and it looks like the choices will cross over between episodes. One of them seemed to bug for me:
I chose to support Kenny, and the next episode trailer reflected that, but the end-game statistics said I sided with Larry.
Anyway, it’s pretty cool, if you like Telltale and Zombies, while it’s not Sam & Max or Tales of Monkey Island good (and in fact is almost a different genre), it’s a pretty cool game.
I pre-ordered it, but currently I don’t have time to get into it. Really, I’ve been trying to support what Telltale does for years, but I’m getting wary of the fact that they have dumbed down their games from the classic adventure game style to more of an interactive cinematic. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that games for a non-adventure-game franchise are meant for an audience that are more fans of the franchise than the gaming genre, and I think there is a lot to be said for games of interactive cinematics. But I don’t think I’ll be pre-ordering anything from Telltale again until they get back into the adventure game business. I’d be willing to buy their dumbed-down games for the substantially reduced prices that they roll out later on, though.
Didn’t get a chance to play through much of episode 1, but what I did play was pretty cool. Zombie deaths are pretty graphic, didn’t think in a million years a comic book style art direction would be so visceral. But it is.
It definitely plays like an interactive comic book with point and click adventure elements here and there, but it’s all really about the choices. Not 15 minutes into it I made a choice that seemed to drastically changed the story from that point on. Pretty cool.
Background for you and others: The Walking Dead was a comic book series by Robert Kirkman that started in 2003. It won some awards and sold well, but then AMC, the TV network, turned it into a series in 2010. That’s when it became a national phenomenon. They just finished season two about a month ago.
We do weekly threads in CS and you can watch the first season (and a half?) on Netflix Instant.
Yeah, but it sticks the customers with all the drawbacks of episodic content (have to wait for the whole game) with none of the benefits (you can’t save your money mid season).
Back to the Future wasn’t that long ago, and that was possibly the best P&C adventure game I’ve ever played. It’s really only been the last two major releases that had this problem AFAIK. That said, I’m also more wary now because of these last couple games.
Back to The Future was fun, but considerably easier than your standard point-and-click adventure. Plus, I had been looking forward to time travel puzzles, because Telltale had done some very clever ones for the Sam & Max games.
Of course, they’re also supposed to revisit the King’s Quest games, and who is the audience for those other than the olde schoole crowd?
Anyone still playing this? I just finished Episode 3, and was really blown away by it. I was bothered by one point where I had take completely illogical actions to advance the game:
exploring the train station with Clementine. No way I’d go in there with just her. I likely wouldn’t take her in at all, but at worst, I’d bring another adult with us.
but there were some emotional moments in #3 that were just stunning. Can’t wait for the next one.
I don’t know why they don’t support friggin Steam cloud saves!!! I’m replaying it again because I lost my previous saves, still in episode 2 (for the second time now), and am loooking forward to episode 3, which is already installed and ready to go.
Have only heard good things about episode 3, everyone thinks it’s the best one so far. I love that! And I hope they can keep that momentum going. Definitely some fo the best gaming bucks I’ve spent.
I have been playing, though I only get to it once in a while, because I almost can’t stand the tension – in a good way, but damn. The zombies worry me a lot less than the survivors. I both do and do not want to know what’s going to happen next. So, I’m glad episode three is out, but it’ll take me a while to finish episode 2. I’m afraid to find out what’s really going on at the dairy.
Bumped this because the final episode is now available for download. Each episode takes about three hours to play/watch, so for those looking to kill a day or two over Thanksgiving it might make a good entertainment option. Each of the five episodes is around $5 USD (400 microsoft points on the XBox 360). I’ve enjoyed the game, even though I’ve only seen one episode of the AMC TV show and only glanced at the comic.
I say play/watch because I agree it’s more like a visual novel as Jragon says, but it’s still very engrossing, especially playing it at night with the lights off. I don’t mind the language, but they do frequently drop F and GD bombs (even in front of child characters, which takes me out of the game sometimes). The gore is well done, especially the squishy/crunchy sound effects of “killing” zombies.
My only gripe is the move/shoot control system is poorly designed and there’s no way to re-map the controls. It’s caused me to die a few times too many, but it’s only happened at three or four points, and there’s on-line guides to get you through these rare hang-ups.
The characters are well-developed, I can understand why the jerks are acting that way. I’m surprised that I keep giving one particular character second chance after second chance at redemption, when other characters got on my nerves once too often so I had no problem leaving them to their fates.
I’m going to play the final episode on Saturday. I hope there’s a happy ending, but I guess happy is a very relative term in this game’s world.
I better spoiler all this, because even my reactions and assessment will reveal too much.
[spoiler]Well Jesus, that was grim, even by this game’s standards. When Duck and Katya died in an earlier chapter, I cried, and it was good, cathartic drama. But I don’t think I needed to see a flippin’ eight year old shoot a guy in the head (I realize that is only one path, but still), encounter her zombified parents, realize the one person she has left in the world is turning into a zombie, laboriously beat a zombie to death with a baseball bat, and then have to go face the zombie apocalypse all by herself. Of course I expected Lee to die, but I thought they’d have some semblance of a group.
I guess maybe the post-credit scene is supposed to show Christa and Omid, but knowing this game (and something about the comics), it’ll be two redneck dudes looking to stock up their rape stable.[/spoiler]
And of course when the next chapter comes out, I’m buying the hell out of it.
Oh, and do make sure you watch through the credits - there’s a bonus scene.
Man, this whole game has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me! The strength of the narrative and of the characters is undeniable - that a “zombie” game could make all these emotions flow out of me was incredibly surprising and welcomed.
I was trembling at the end, and it wasn’t just Clementine that closed her eyes during that last horrible scene.
I wanted Lee to hug her and tell her he loves her, but other critical information took priority even then. The practicality of making sure she knew what to do to continue to live was so much more important and necessary.
I wonder what Season 2 will bring. Will it feature Clem? Will be an entire new gang?
Ooooh, and who chopped off Lee’s Arm? I did, hoping it would be a Hershel thing like in the TV show. No such luck
For season 2 I’d like them to fine tune some of the game mechanics a little bit. Add some more gameplay, but completely eschew the odl fashioned adventure game puzzles. They didn’t bring anything to the game. Puzzles in Season 2 should be about the interpersonal relationships, not about what piece of x fits with item x, etc.
I also don’t think they realized how much of a hit the game would be, so Season 2 better have a bigger budget in order to accommodate MORE options that truly affect the narrative on more than a superficial level.
And finally, how come the Walking dead TV show keeps on hyping up that stupid facebook game, and not this gem?!
Because like all Facebook games, it’s a virtual gold mine. People continuously pay ridiculous amounts of money on those things, where as you only pay once for the TT games. I tried it out but wasn’t too impressed with it.
And…I just finished part 4 and I don’t even know if I want to play the last chapter. After seeing what happens at the end of 4, I knew it was gonna be rough. And now that I’ve read the spoilers…I don’t think I can handle it
Not familiar with any debacle, but I will agree it’s not reliable. However, if a game gets popular enough (say Farmville, Cityville, AnythingVille), it’s gonna be raking in the bucks for at least a good length of time.
I was referring to when Zynga’s stock price crashed from $14.50 to $3, iirc it’s stable now, but I recall at the time everybody was questioning the true viability of the Facebook game model.
