Walking Dead: The Aftermath.

[Stellar Duck]

No, but the game's insistence on schizophrenic NPC personalities does. (Ep. 2 spoilers ahead!) Cross Kenny once? Might as well never have been nice to him. Refuse to put an old man to death because he may be a zombie? Don't worry, someone else will do something completely out of character to kill him anyway. Don't want to go to the cannibal farm, or kill the crazy old lady in the camp? Don't worry, that choice is just there to make you think you can do something else. You're gonna go to the farm, and she's gonna get a bullet in the brain.

Gamers are fellating Walking Dead for the same reason they fellated Spec Ops and Bioshock: It dares to have a plot. Doesn't matter how bad the plot is. The fact they tried elevates this game to "videogame art" status.

I played Spec Ops yesterday, quite unrelated. I love the game. Is it art? Nah, I don't think so. But then, I don't really care if it is or even what it. Is Spec Ops a great game? Yea, I think so. Did it perform a clever deconstruction of the CoD genre? I think so. It basically asked the question that is: 'How does the villagers in a Call of Duty level fare the day after the player moved on to the next chase scene?'. I think that's worth asking. Did I like that most problems Walker has in the game can be traced back to him acting like a video game character? Yep! As I said, Spec Ops is a clever game that knows the genre it operates in well and uses that to acually ask some interesting questions. I think that's a good thing.

And frankly, you're wrong. It doesn't matter if Kenny kills Larry. The choice was never about if he dies or not. It was about if you would do it. That's the choice. That's the branch. If TTG did anything with this series it was to ask the player a series of questions. It wasn't to create a branching plot, and if you think that then I can't really help that. You're wrong.

So, things are sometimes out of the players hands in TWD? Things are often out of my hands in general. What matters is how you deal with that. This is not a game about being Captain Space Hero determining the fate of the Galaxy. This is a game about being caught in a shit situation and coping with that, perhaps retaining some humanity in the process, even if others don't.

[Protoman]

No, but the game's insistence on schizophrenic NPC personalities does. (Ep. 2 spoilers ahead!) Cross Kenny once? Might as well never have been nice to him. Refuse to put an old man to death because he may be a zombie? Don't worry, someone else will do something completely out of character to kill him anyway. Don't want to go to the cannibal farm, or kill the crazy old lady in the camp? Don't worry, that choice is just there to make you think you can do something else. You're gonna go to the farm, and she's gonna get a bullet in the brain.

Gamers are fellating Walking Dead for the same reason they fellated Spec Ops and Bioshock: It dares to have a plot. Doesn't matter how bad the plot is. The fact they tried elevates this game to "videogame art" status.

I just have to say that, judging by everything that happens after that, it wasn't particularly out of character for him to kill Lenny. He was devolving as a human being, and that was probably the biggest step in that direction. All he thought about was protecting himself and his family, and if in his twisted and irrational view he had to kill a man to do it then he would do it in a heartbeat.

The only time I really thought anyone was acting out of character was Lily in chapter 3. I think there was supposed to be some sort of personality cataclysm in her after Lenny dies, but there was really no evidence of it until she kills Carly/Doug (at least I assume that's how Doug dies.) And I would be fine with that, but if you choose to go with her in the rtv, she drives off without you- which still makes me angry, she was spontaneous and violent before that, but holy crap...

[georgetownhoya]

I played Spec Ops yesterday, quite unrelated. I love the game. Is it art? Nah, I don't think so. But then, I don't really care if it is or even what it. Is Spec Ops a great game? Yea, I think so. Did it perform a clever deconstruction of the CoD genre? I think so. It basically asked the question that is: 'How does the villagers in a Call of Duty level fare the day after the player moved on to the next chase scene?'. I think that's worth asking. Did I like that most problems Walker has in the game can be traced back to him acting like a video game character? Yep! As I said, Spec Ops is a clever game that knows the genre it operates in well and uses that to acually ask some interesting questions. I think that's a good thing.

The only thing Spec Ops did was show you a badly rendered corpse or two and say LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! THIS GAME IS A DEEP COMMENTARY ON WAR!! THAT EXCUSES THE NEXT 3 HOURS OF BLAND COVER SHOOTING THAT YOU WILL NOT ENJOY! And don't complain either: There's no room for complaining in war!

I really think the people who call Spec Ops "great" and clever" are suggesting they needed to be told that games like COD aren't realistic warfare simulations. Not a good sign.

And frankly, you're wrong.

Oh.

It doesn't matter if Kenny kills Larry. The choice was never about if he dies or not. It was about if you would do it. That's the choice. That's the branch. If TTG did anything with this series it was to ask the player a series of questions. It wasn't to create a branching plot, and if you think that then I can't really help that. You're wrong.

So, things are sometimes out of the players hands in TWD? Things are often out of my hands in general. What matters is how you deal with that. This is not a game about being Captain Space Hero determining the fate of the Galaxy. This is a game about being caught in a shit situation and coping with that, perhaps retaining some humanity in the process, even if others don't.

It actually seems more like a game that believes in predestination, because no matter how implausible, despite all your efforts to the contrary, it always finds a way to undermine your choice and force its narrative down your throat.

You like having choices. I don't see the point in choices if they have no effect on anything beyond a line or two of dialogue. Kudos to you for thinking about losing your "humanity" during a game though - personally, if I lived in a world where my choices didn't impact anything, I'd lose interest in the choices and my "humanity" pretty quick, though.

[Stellar Duck]

The only thing Spec Ops did was show you a badly rendered corpse or two and say LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! THIS GAME IS A DEEP COMMENTARY ON WAR!! THAT EXCUSES THE NEXT 3 HOURS OF BLAND COVER SHOOTING THAT YOU WILL NOT ENJOY! And don't complain either: There's no room for complaining in war!

I really think the people who call Spec Ops "great" and clever" are suggesting they needed to be told that games like COD aren't realistic warfare simulations. Not a good sign.



Oh.



It actually seems more like a game that believes in predestination, because no matter how implausible, despite all your efforts to the contrary, it always finds a way to undermine your choice and force its narrative down your throat.

You like having choices. I don't see the point in choices if they have no effect on anything beyond a line or two of dialogue. Kudos to you for thinking about losing your "humanity" during a game though - personally, if I lived in a world where my choices didn't impact anything, I'd lose interest in the choices and my "humanity" pretty quick, though.

I didn't say that it's commentary about war. I don't particularly think it is.

I said it was a deconstruction of the CoD genre. And frankly, with the popularity those games have, I see no issue in examining them in a game. By your reasoning nobody could examine anything ever as it can be argued that it was obvious and didn't need to be said in the first place. That's a boring way of looking at things.

I've never suggested that CoD is a warfare simulator. I don't really suggested anything about the games. If I were to suggest something though, it would be that they have a twisted view of war. And, as I said, that's worth looking at.

And what if TWD is a game that believes in predestination? Is that somehow taboo because you don't like it? Should Melville have not written Moby-Dick because it in parts deals with predestination and the futility of struggling against fate? I don't think that's the case.

[georgetownhoya]

I think it's a bad deconstruction of the COD genre then. All it does is make me appreciate COD more. COD is fun because it's fast paced and ludicrous (I mean, shooting SAM batteries on the Department of Justice??). It's a fun action movie.

Spec Ops is dull, all the levels are basically the same, and it spends all its time trying to kill fun and show you badly rendered corpses. It's like it's telling me not to enjoy COD -- a message that falls completely flat, because Spec Ops' boring level design and garbage plot serve to highlight how refined and reassuringly goofy COD's gameplay is.

And what if TWD is a game that believes in predestination? Is that somehow taboo because you don't like it? Should Melville have not written Moby-Dick because it in parts deals with predestination and the futility of struggling against fate? I don't think that's the case.

Ha! It's not taboo, it's terrible gameplay. Walking Dead is a game. It promises player choice shapes the game. If it's going to turn around at the end and say, "Psych! Your choices don't matter! Choice is meaningless! Life is governed by predestination," then I'm going to turn off the game and never play another Telltale offering again. I didn't sign on for some first grade-level philosophy statement about the futility of life and the lack of moral agency, or whatever dumb point you're saying the game is making.

(And for your own sake -- please do not compare TWD to an American literary classic. Just don't. You are trying too hard. The writing and dialogue are poor, it makes different promises to its audiences at the outset, and the characters are far more uneven.)

[soldant]

What a horrible post. The fact I don't make games doesn't mean I can't criticize a game for failing to live up to its promises, or presenting only the illusion of choice.

But plenty of games only ever have the illusion of choice, because they're games. They're still stuck within the confines of what the developers have created. It's unrealistic to expect them to flesh out so many different storylines that account for every single decision you ever made in the game.

Telltale knew full well when it said that the game adapts to player choice that some players would interpret that as an invitation to change or shape the narrative.

You do shape the narrative, that isn't a lie. It's the same as in the Mass Effect series - player choice was important. But at some point it has to converge otherwise you end up with an absolute mess with far too many branches and far too much content to create. "Telltale didn't try hard enough" is unfair - they're not a sprawling CoD-factory studio. Expecting them to drill deep into those branching storylines is expecting way too much.

[Faldrath]

One thing I'm curious about: does it change anything in ep5 if you choose to go in alone at the end of ep4?

(I've played ep5 with a "full party", so to speak, and I wonder what happens if you just hide the bite and decide to go rescue Clem alone)

[soldant]

One thing I'm curious about: does it change anything in ep5 if you choose to go in alone at the end of ep4? (I've played ep5 with a "full party", so to speak, and I wonder what happens if you just hide the bite and decide to go rescue Clem alone)

I don't know for certain, but I showed the bite and had everyone except Kenny go with me. Kenny hangs around at the house until you get back, so I presume it's some sort of variation on that?

[TixyLixx]

It isn't a game, it's just a cutscene with quick time events and sometimes you're allowed to move around in a small square area every once in awhile. The story is so cliche, half the stuff makes no sense to why people act the way they do and they play off the emotions of you looking after a girl like she is your kid too much. The only good thing about it is they kill everyone off including the character you play. They're so unfun to play I ended up just watching it on Youtube, that Yogscast channel because most of your time will be spent watching it anyways and having to do annoying quick time events.

Telltale cannot make games for shit though, they need to just keep all their stuff on shitty cunting IOS where it belongs.

But hey at least it isn't as bad as the TV series, I mean the last episode of the first series was so bad it wasn't even funny any more, the second series was set in one location, moved so slowly and become boring..... probably because they had no budget. The third series so far has been as crap moving to the most boring location ever, they don't use the setting at all, it could be anywhere. Now we have some annoying black woman who acts all moody like she's a Vampire from Twilight and they've done the whole "The Others" thing like Lost.....

I sure hope the Comics are good for whoever likes Comics, otherwise I have no idea why the IP is so popular.

[DeekyFun]

Well, I enjoyed it, if enjoy is really the word. I found it emotionally engaging, more so than probably a lot of 'real' games. It did a great job of bringing you into that world, and suffering through it. Choices, at the level Telltale were giving you them (enough to personalise the game, but not enough to derail the overall plot), were hit and miss over the course of the series, but could be genuinely tough to make. It's rare that timed responses get to the end of the timer when I play those sorts of games, but it happened a fair few times here, because in the end I just didn't want to make the decision.

I think it does well to capture the essence of despair and futility that the scenario would present, for the most part. Looking forward to more.

[Kadayi]

Gamers are fellating Walking Dead for the same reason they fellated Spec Ops and Bioshock: It dares to have a plot. Doesn't matter how bad the plot is. The fact they tried elevates this game to "videogame art" status.

Most films have plots, but it doesn't necessarily make them 'art'. Beyond seemingly trying to dispparage those of us who enjoyed TWD as mindless I'm not entirely sure what you're attempting to do in this thread tbh. I mean if you're effectively railing against plot in games as a bad thing I think you'll find there's still plenty of plotless games out there for you to enjoy.

I played Spec Ops yesterday, quite unrelated. I love the game. Is it art? Nah, I don't think so. But then, I don't really care if it is or even what it. Is Spec Ops a great game? Yea, I think so. Did it perform a clever deconstruction of the CoD genre? I think so. It basically asked the question that is: 'How does the villagers in a Call of Duty level fare the day after the player moved on to the next chase scene?'. I think that's worth asking. Did I like that most problems Walker has in the game can be traced back to him acting like a video game character? Yep! As I said, Spec Ops is a clever game that knows the genre it operates in well and uses that to actually ask some interesting questions. I think that's a good thing.

Agreed. Certainly mechanistically it's a tad flawed, but it's not entirely without merit.

And frankly, you're wrong. It doesn't matter if Kenny kills Larry. The choice was never about if he dies or not. It was about if you would do it. That's the choice. That's the branch. If TTG did anything with this series it was to ask the player a series of questions. It wasn't to create a branching plot, and if you think that then I can't really help that. You're wrong

Spot on Stella. The game is all about what you as Lee do. However you don't necessarily have complete control over the actions of others. Kenny for instance was a pretty selfish character throughout the early episodes, focused solely on his family to the extent that he didn't really give a fig about anyone else. No matter what you choose to do, unless it accords with Kenny's viewpoint he won't follow suit (he's the one who takes the food for instance). However after episode 3 and the deaths of his wife & son he goes through a redemptive stage till ultimately (at least in my play through) he dies saving someone else. That's a clear character arc.

I really think the people who call Spec Ops "great" and clever" are suggesting they needed to be told that games like COD aren't realistic warfare simulations. Not a good sign.

It's called commentary. It's not a difficult concept to understand, nor is it a crime.

[The Pink Ninja]

I know everyone dies in Zombie fiction but still, the sheer overwhelming futility of it was just off putting to me. Lee dying is no problem but the group has what, a total casualty rate of over 80%? 90%?

Would it have killed them to let you save a few more people?

[Kadayi]

I know everyone dies in Zombie fiction but still, the sheer overwhelming futility of it was just off putting to me. Lee dying is no problem but the group has what, a total casualty rate of over 80%? 90%?

Would it have killed them to let you save a few more people?

Clem, Christa and Omid survive. Vernon and his group get away in the boat. Molly does her own thing (hopefully turn up as a character/main character in season 2). Lily and Glen both have roles in the comics.

[Patrick Swayze]

Clem, Christa and Omid survive. Vernon and his group get away in the boat. Molly does her own thing (hopefully turn up as a character/main character in season 2). Lily and Glen both have roles in the comics.

Molly can be ma waifu

[Patrick Swayze]

All the criticisms I'm seeing of these narrative led games seems to be the fact that, people don't like these games, and that you guys shouldn't like them either.

[Memph]

That, or people are so happy to be whinging about games these days, few of them even know what they're whinging about anymore. Obviously there's going to be little, if any empowerment theming in something branded Walking Dead. It's about being utterly fucked from every angle and how people break or cope with it. It's not Megaman, there is no big gun, no super-suit, no way to save the day and not being able to accept this would actually make you one of the weakest, most hopeless characters in such events. Irony!

Stellar Duck nailed it down. It's not about choices controlling the outcome - it's about how you would act as that character in that situation. The situation being wildly out of the norm is what makes those choices more interesting than deliberatley playing a certain way for a desired outcome. These choices required far more thought than just choosing Goodie, Baddy, Paragon or Renegade - making it far more of a 'game' than many others that get continually praised for their 'choices' made to the story. Funny that eh?

[georgetownhoya]

It isn't a game, it's just a cutscene with quick time events and sometimes you're allowed to move around in a small square area every once in awhile. The story is so cliche, half the stuff makes no sense to why people act the way they do and they play off the emotions of you looking after a girl like she is your kid too much. The only good thing about it is they kill everyone off including the character you play. They're so unfun to play I ended up just watching it on Youtube, that Yogscast channel because most of your time will be spent watching it anyways and having to do annoying quick time events.

Agreed 100 percent. It's an awful, awful game, and the story doesn't make up for that. Few stories would.

Hitman or Call of Duty has one quick time event and everyone here flips. Walking Dead's gameplay is 100% QTE's, walking in circles, a handful of dumb puzzles and making meaningless choices that change one or two lines of cliche'd dialogue, and everyone's going gaga for it.

If ever there was an example of videogamers desperately wanting their medium to be taken seriously, this is it. Show them a game with a half-decent story and they ignore its gameplay and attack its detractors and declare it GOTY. They go on and on about how it's a deep exploration of humanity and rivals great literature.

Sad.

It's called commentary. It's not a difficult concept to understand, nor is it a crime.

It's terrible commentary then. It points out something everyone knows and does it by asking you to pay $60 plus slog through horrible missions and a stolen storyline. I walked away from Spec Ops disappointed it was so dull and a little too cleverly self-aware for its own good. Like the game is going to start yelling, "Yes, I am a sucky game! That's the point! I'm a sucky game! See, player! This is high-quality COMMENTARY right here" Yeaaah..

Video game players will eventually realize that, just because a game attempts 'commentary' or 'philosophy,' they don't have to bend over in praise of it. I'm looking at you, Bioshock.

[Kadayi]

Agreed 100 percent. It's an awful, awful game, and the story doesn't make up for that. Few stories would.

The guy didn't even play the game (he watched it on youtube). Unless you're driving the car, you're opinions not worth much when it comes to where it's going tbh.

Hitman or Call of Duty has one quick time event and everyone here flips. Walking Dead's gameplay is 100% QTE's, walking in circles, a handful of dumb puzzles and making meaningless choices that change one or two lines of cliche'd dialogue, and everyone's going gaga for it

Hitman and CoD aren't point & click adventures. As a matter of interest what were you expecting TWD to be exactly? A FPS? An MMO? A flight sim? Bitching it out for being a story driven adventure game (as it was marketed as) seems faintly bizarre behaviour tbh.

It points out something everyone knows.

Just because you don't care for it, doesn't mean others don't. Next up you'll be telling us that Marshall Law was an unnecessary examination of the superman myth...

Video game players will eventually realize that, just because a game attempts 'commentary' or 'philosophy,' they don't have to bend over in praise of it.

So you're like some video game John the Baptist whose trying to show us the light? Please indulge us with your wisdom on what we should expect from game narratives.

[georgetownhoya]

Actually, I'm trying to challenge your belief that Walking Dead is anything other than complete garbage. I don't doubt that you enjoyed The Walking Dead. My point is that you did so because, like many PC gamers, you're starved for good, coherent story telling. You spend a lot of time playing games where the story is a notch below "Full retard," so that when an ordinary "Retard" story comes along, you blow a gasket.

The fact your only response is to say "Naner naner you don't know everything!!," rather than defend The Walking Dead's linearity, cliched storyline and meaningless gameplay, suggests I'm right.

This game belongs on iPads where it can be played by 13 year olds and Walking Dead die hards on the toilet.

Hitman and CoD aren't point & click adventures. As a matter of interest what were you expecting TWD to be exactly? A FPS? An MMO? A flight sim? Bitching it out for being a story driven adventure game (as it was marketed as) seems faintly bizarre behaviour tbh.

I was expecting it to be a choice-driven experience. Where I shape the narrative. If that happened, I could forgive the crappy gameplay.

That didn't happen. So, we're left with ... nothing. No gameplay. No choice. Nada.

The guy didn't even play the game (he watched it on youtube). Unless you're driving the car, you're opinions not worth much when it comes to where it's going tbh.

What's there to play? Seriously. There are puzzles, I guess, that can take some time to figure out, but they're more dumb than anything, and totally unrelated to the plot and player choice you're fawning over. You also regularly have to tap Q a bunch of times and are forced to piss off a character occasionally. He's right that the game is a big movie.

[georgetownhoya]

I mean, for god's sake, the whole first episode is just meeting survivors and fixing a radio until one arbitrarily dies, then the second episode there's a totally unrelated trip to a cliched maneating creepy farm where Lenny acts insane. Then he becomes super changed when his RIDICULOUS looking wife dies and finally behaves honorably. You even said yourself Lenny has a "character arc" like it's something special. Those have been around since 2,000 years ago.

Yes, Walking Dead uses plot devices. But it uses them poorly. And until videogamers recognize that, they will continue to get shit and call it steak.