Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

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scotland
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Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby scotland » May 23rd, 2015, 7:36 pm

Just for giggles, started playing The Walking Dead: Season One on my PC. My first impression is 'Hey, this isn't FreeCell?"

Its kind of a cell shaded comic book feel. Sort of point and click adventure with zombies. Definitely comic book gory, but since the comic is black and white, this out does it in full Technicolor. Already done a full Tyreese on some lady's head, in front of a kid no less. That'll give ya nightmares.

Anyone play this?

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ptdebate
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Re: Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby ptdebate » May 24th, 2015, 12:39 am

Beautiful, unforgettable game. One of the best stories told in the medium. Stick through to the end and let us know your thoughts!

Ozzybear
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Re: Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby Ozzybear » May 24th, 2015, 2:36 am

Played both seasons And loved them. These point and click adventure games are a nice change of pace, you should check out some of the other tell tale games, they are well done. Ozzy

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scotland
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Re: Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby scotland » May 24th, 2015, 10:49 am

Finished the first episode. If a normal point and click is like turn based, this is like a real time point and click. Still definitely like a point and click though. Also in meeting characters from the tv series, you know they will both survive and leave, but are also important...so that affects the game.

At the end of the first episode, it lets you know how your choices are compared to other players. I was with 50% of others in most choices, but I noted that, playing a male protagonist with a female charge, that 3 in 4 players chose to save a girl over a boy at a decision point. Is it because most gamers playing this would be guys and even in the zombie apocalypse there is still a knee jerk chivalry? Is it because the protagonist is a guy with a female ward so that is how he would react? Both characters in need had proven themselves friendly, trustworthy, had bonded with the protagonist and with useful skills...so no difference there.

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scotland
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Re: Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby scotland » May 31st, 2015, 12:07 pm

Finished up Season 1. Whew. I will say this is game does linger in the brain during the nights. Very much like a Walking Dead story arc, with the focus on interactions between the living. The game play is mostly dialogue and QTEs, with the QTEs mostly being 'do or die and try again' model.

Mild spoiler alert, but all rivers lead to the sea, if y'know what I mean. The game, like a movie or a tv series, tells us a story, but it allows our journey to the sea to explore different side channels along the way. After all, this form of game, like a comic, is not created on the fly like some Rogue dungeon. There are only so many places to visit, objects to interact with, things to say, etc.

It is an interactive video game, but its not as interactive as tabletop role playing, where players can take the adventure strongly 'off module'. Here the actions you can take are constrained, and so are the repercussions of those actions. For instance, fail a QTE and you die, but then you get to replay it. Fail a saving throw in a tabletop RPG, and get out a new character sheet. For my playthough, there was one character I really did not get along with...and at one point (In Savannah, after I found a certain baseball cap) when I would have gone all Rick Grimes on a Bay Day on him if the game had allowed me to at that point, but basically had to be Officer Friendly instead. On the flip side, in tabletop NPCs can often be considered just cannon fodder, but here, well, I think most gamers will care about what happens to the characters in the game. Its perhaps the most emotional escort mission I've ever played.

Once I figured out the saving issue on Steam (others had the same issue, and I hear the TellTale games are coming to GOG so maybe that is a better option for PC gamers), it was a hard game to put down. Puzzles were pretty straightforward, actions too, and the story had a beginning, a middle, and an end. There was no great mystery or unravel like in Bioshock, and you were not the lone Super Grunt like in many Doom clones and FPSers. There is no 'big bad' boss, there are no powerups, your powers do not increase as you go along (they may decrease however), you don't find big giant weapons lying around, etc. All very much a post apocalyptic journey through the Garden of Good and Evil, although mostly in the daylight.

I will give it some time, but I will likely play some more TellTale games in the future. Considering how impactful the tv series The Walking Dead has been, I bet in some future year, when the community does a Best of the 2010s list, this game will be on the list.

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ptdebate
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Re: Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby ptdebate » May 31st, 2015, 12:40 pm

I greatly enjoyed your remarks, Scotland. Although a little rough around the edges, when TWD hits a story beat it hits hard. The narrow focus on story and character interaction marks a clean departure from adventure games of old (and indeed, even TTGs earlier efforts). I wonder which character you had issues with and if it's the same one I did? (His name starts with a "K")

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scotland
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Re: Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Postby scotland » May 31st, 2015, 5:34 pm

ptdebate wrote: I wonder which character you had issues with and if it's the same one I did? (His name starts with a "K")


Wonder no more, same character. The one who really knows how to spread 'salt' in a wound, and not give a 'lick'.

Some issues that annoyed me, and are not specific to the game, are things like people being supermen. They can suffer catastrophic injuries like infected compound leg fractures, complete with massive bloodloss, but heck, a few antibiotics and you'll be leaping rooftops in no time. I know, zombies defy basic physics and chemistry, but usually the living are still stuck with them. Maybe the zombie plague is an airborne super soldier serum gone bad. Why do the recently dead also instantly go all rancid? Geography is odd too. The ending has a character leaving Savannah Georgia, which is basically swampland, and after the credits we see that character...on a prairie? Near Savannah? Oh, and walkie talkies. Its one thing to use them to talk from your treehouse in the backyard to your parents in the house, but to talk from some moving train to Savannah, miles and miles away...on a walkie talkie? And the person on the end...had that storyline taken place near the motor lodge it would have made more sense.

I think I could have done without the cameos by The Walking Dead TV show characters. I understand they were there to help sell the game, but they weren't really needed and having iron clad plot armor, that didn't help. Even putting this in the Peach State again...woulda been nice to have seen something different. Like people on a boat coming back from a 3 hour tour to find zombie Honolulu or something.

The voice acting really made a difference...its superb. While the game was released in parts, I think the total is greater than the sum. Together they do tell a moving story. I do wish they could have cut out the inter episode credits...good grief they were long and tedious seeing RIP Alpha the Beta Fish in the credits over and over. Its also interesting that this is a low horsepower game, I think there is a mobile version...but its also very much a modern game. It needs the voice acting and the smooth graphics that reminded me of how old cartoons were done ... animating a figure on a cell on top of a lushly painted background.

Episode 1 and Episode 2 went as I expected but by Episode 4 I was totally clueless on where the adventure was going. That was awesome. Having no idea what was going to happen, and even as things unfolded, I was wrong even in my short term guesses on what was going to happen next. Same for Episode 5...no idea what was going to happen next at any given scene. That was just incredible and exciting. Only at the very end was I back in familiar territory, and it was emotionally cathartic to be there.


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