The gut feeling that he is the one with Walkie talkie. The guy who spoke on Walkie talkie sound so different than Vernon.
He didn't talk on the game. Maybe he doesn't want anyone to figure out that he's the one on the Walkie talkie.
Maybe he even have the Walkie talkie in the brown bag
Did anyone else Lee make Clem cry as much as mine did? I was only trying to protect her (making her stay back) and being honest about not finding her folks while I was out. She did the sad mopy look/walk when I made her stay (something I found funny as my Niece does that exact thing when she doesn't get her way...and their the same age and we may be dressing up as Lee and Clem for Halloween treating
She cried at least twice and gave me the sad face multiply times but what broke my heart was when she wouldn't even hug me when I tried to consul her
P.S. Did any one that made her stay give her the gun?
They gave you an entire clean slate, nothing from the other episodes mattering. Not really a good thing for a game tailored to your choices. Still very much an interactive movie. They decided to give up on one zombie being a threat, so here you're eventually killing 20 in the time span of 2 minutes.
If my guy is such an awesome killing machine, why are we running in the first place. Especially from the 5 or so in past episodes? (although I guess they would want more but have engine limitations). Also, gun never gets out of ammo. I surely have fired hundreds of rounds since episode 1 and it's still the same gun with the same clip and we never found any more ammo (actually, all guns found are generally with just a few bullets or none). Eh...
Also there was a very stupid story decision in the end, with someone complaining I sucked as a leader, and everyone was going to die. Was this based on the decision wheter or not I risked my life saving a teammate just 1 minute before that? Surely not, it was because I lied at the start of the episode, and by doing so aided my team considerably. Seems some pretty strange morality there.
"Hello, weren't you with the team in the past scene, with all the zombies, and how I saved everyone? Helloooo?"
It better has a good finale episode. They make how many people you can take along to episode 5 seem like it's a great deal, I would hate for it to be all smoke and mirrors...
I agree with previous comments. The whole episode makes Ben unbearable with and I actually advised him to say Kenny about what he did at the worse time, when Kenny broke the door to Crawford's armory. Then I voted to kick him off the group and was annoying to make Clementine angry at me for that. And then, a few seconds later, I was glad to let him die. I just felt he was a danger for the whole team. So I guess, somehow, sadly, I followed Crawford discipline.
This is a constant issue of the comics. This episode made it very alive.
Apart from that, I actually was kind of happy to get rid a Chuck. Not because he was a liability like Ben but because I just did not trust him. Something weird about that guy. During the previous episode, I had the strong feeling he was trying to get close to Clem in a wrong way, always trying to get to her behind my back.
I was also disappointed that Molly left before the end of the episode.
For the next one, I got the whole group (except the dead) with me. I actually almost never sided with Kenny and he reminded me that very well, but he also said I took care of his wife and son several time (giving food to them, etc) and that he would come with me for that reason.
How can anyone say that's an easy game? This game is too hard!!!
I still can't get through the ep.4 download process!!!
Whole day stucked on it! Damn "Get it" button!
That's how improve difficulty and longevity in games.
So I guess, somehow, sadly, I followed Crawford discipline.
One thing I realized about myself playing this and have tried to carry-over to my Lee, is I understand the way's of the Bandits, or the Crawford people.. I do agree that they went to extrem measures, but in a world like this, I can't totally blame them.
I think the St.John cannible family was wrong.. It happened too quickly (3 months) that they decided eating people was necessary! They still had a farm full of corn, they still had a single cow. Just they were not starving to the point they had no other choice. IMO
I think the bandit's got too greedy.. I understand forming a group to survive and at time may have to fight and 'take' what they need, but they went into this as aggressive and greedy and now most are dead.
The Crawford people had a valid plan, but took it to a very extreme level which in turn resulted in thier downfall.
Yeah Carley is really Dead i think.....shit...So i think now Molly can be with Lee i hope and i hope she can back to the group again(besides she left with no great answer).Ah there no way to make Clem crying? or irrespective of the choices she will cry? and you guys think Molly will be back?
Yeah Carley is really Dead i think.....shit...So i think now Molly can be with Lee i hope and i hope she can back to the group again(besides she left with no great answer).Ah there no way to make Clem crying? or irrespective of the choices she will cry? and you guys think Molly will be back?
How's molly going to be with Lee when hes bitten and will die within the day most likely. Next game is proly going to be 2-3 hrs of real time play...I keep hoping they will play with the lee turning thing. Like have a moment where you have to help someone but every other second its like bite instead of help...so then u have the chance of losing control and killing someone accidentally...or on purpose lmao.
Does writer for this episode also have written episodes in tv show? cuz Clem in this episode reminded me very much of that annoying kid from tv show
Also how did Clem get in that shed when she found the boat??? And how did a glass door hold like 20 zombies? Where did the zombies @ nurses station come from? Why did Vernon ask about taking Clem and then just disappeared?
I dunno why, but I was more mad of them killing of Carley than Lee(maybe cuz hes not dead yet ). So obviously Ben had to die. Also I actually found myself agreeing with Vernon about death in this "new world" and that you kinda get used to it, maybe that's why death didn't really bother me that much in this episode.
Respect to Chuck.
Molly was cool, was hoping that she would join us cuz she had mad skills.
I almost started crying when i made Clem cry at the end though, for me that was one of the most powerful moments of all episodes, cuz I just had spoken with doc about leaving her.
To bad that u have to make your choices that fast, cuz English isnt my native language and while i finish reading answers and think about what to say I sometimes miss it and dont say anything
All in all a good episode, but could have been better 7/10.
Will be interesting to see how the final episode will play out with Lee bitten, if you make Lee zombie hurt Clem I will kill you so don't get any funny ideas about doing that.
Wait.. If lee cuts his hand off will that stop him from becoming a zombie? I remember they did that with a character in the comic book and he survived. Actually never mind the bite was more on his wrist so that wouldn't really work.
Yeah, the getting bitten scene was the moment where I just thought "Jesus, please, no, you didn't get AWWWWW FUCK IT". Looking back, it's just... I dunno. Killing bazillions of zombies, getting surrounded all 10mins by 300 of them, and then one fucker under a stupid cardboard gets you. Probably one of the "True Story" moments in a real zombie apocalypse.
Zombie kid: Eh.....no! No no no! (Whiny voice)
Strange man at gate: So uh, i'm just, diggi- DSGSYT!? What the!?
Zombie barricade: Oh god. This just gets worse and worse...
Reuniting with Chuck: ); You were a good man...
Ben finding hatchet: Oh Ben....i'm sorry but..we're all gonna die.
"For whom the bell tolls": Ben, you're a good guy, and I know you will prove yourself
Clementine's disappearance: Oh shit...
The bite: Oh god.....no, No. NO!
Grouping (Christa, Omid and Ben): Come on Ben. We can do this.
Zombie horde at the end: The next episode's gonna terrify me...
Man on walkie talkie: Seriously! Who the hell is this!?
One more thing. I WANT TO PRAISE TELLTALE FOR THE GREATER NUMBER OF CHOICES! Allowing Clem to go with the old guy, saving Ben, the group you go with in the last episode...it was amazing.
But, why is everyone here saying they miss Carley. Am I the only one that.....saved Doug?
You had to bring out the big guilty reveal during already emotional shitstorm climax, right moron? You HAD TO AT THAT TIME? Brie, Carley, Doug, Chuck, Kaatja, Duck dead, Clem almost dead, whole group almost dead at least TWICE this episode...all because of this one guy.
There are Bens out there in this world. Millions of them.
You had to bring out the big guilty reveal during the climax, right moron? You HAD TO AT THAT TIME? Brie, Carley, Doug, Chuck, Kaatja, Duck dead, Clem almost dead, whole group almost dead at least TWICE this episode...all because of this one guy.
There are Bens out there in this world. Millions of them.
Any chance season 2 is a prequel story with Chuck as our loveable protagonist? Just sayin'.
Because he seemed like someone who had a lot more to offer than just a few lines in this episode, which was one of my gripes with the episode, that I otherwise thought was awesome for trying new things (working on existing relationships much more and exploring that dynamic rather than just aiming to hit the high points with the extreme drama by bringing deaths, although I can't complain about how TellTale has pulled that off so far). Plus, how isn't a disillusioned, homeless old survivor pretty darned cool? It's funny imagining everyone else struggling to survive while he just sleeps in a train cart with a few bottles of whiskey to pass the days. Must have been one hell of a story, or one hell of an old man there (nope, no suspension of disbelief for me- I'd rather think there's a badass story there somewhere).
Loved the episode just as much as the previous three ones. Though I was kinda confused when I replayed the last three chapters of it. In my 1st playthrough I pulled Ben up and at the end, when Lee's bite was revealed, Kenny decided to leave me, telling me how rarely I had his back. On 2nd try I let Ben go and Mister Moustache was like "You've always supported me, I'm your BFF, let's go on suicide mission together". Just weird. Oh and Vernon's opinion about your leadership based only on how you greeted him? Damn, the man is like Lori from TV Show. Aside from these two 'plotholes', this was a great episode. I'm rescuing Clem with full group ( though I'm afraid because of Ben something really, REALLY bad will happen) and I'm also the proud bite victim.
I was disappointed with the use of 'duck hunt' style shooting events. These events took away from the sense of danger when enemies could be mowed down. Without those scenes I would give episode 4 a 9.
Yeah, the getting bitten scene was the moment where I just thought "Jesus, please, no, you didn't get AWWWWW FUCK IT". Looking back, it's just... I dunno. Killing bazillions of zombies, getting surrounded all 10mins by 300 of them, and then one fucker under a stupid cardboard gets you. Probably one of the "True Story" moments in a real zombie apocalypse.
Seemed very contrived to me. It had to happen for story purposes, so it was forced in there in a ridiculous way in the end. At least it has great story potential for the conclusion.
Also, I love that pic of Carl above. Clem kept running around, away from the group, doing what she wanted this episode like a complete idiot.
Seemed very contrived to me. It had to happen for story purposes, so it was forced in there in a ridiculous way in the end. At least it has great story potential for the conclusion.
Also, I love that pic of Carl above. Clem kept running around, away from the group, doing what she wanted this episode like a complete idiot.
Almost completely agree with you on the ending, but I do believe there are other ways to look at it. To me that scene was still a genuinely good piece of writing, contrived or otherwise; the pure irony of the situation was very intended, I think- Lee surviving shit tons of zombies in the episode like it was nothing much and then getting that death sentence by one harmless walker stuck in the trash.
Do wish they could have made the scene where the zombie snuck that bite in as an impossible button-mashing sequence (I'm thinking 'Andy forcing your head to that electric fence' hard, the kind that's so ridiculous another character has to step in and save your ass). I mean, it would have spoilt the little shocker a few seconds ahead, but at least it would have delivered that sense of consequence and personal responsibility, instead of feeling more forced.
Seemed very contrived to me. It had to happen for story purposes, so it was forced in there in a ridiculous way in the end. At least it has great story potential for the conclusion.
I guess the story meaning is that Lee is so bound to Clem that the only moment he keeps his guard off is because of her. And this costs him the bite.
Lee is going to die...that`s a fact now...
Was so shocked when i realised that and i can`t imagine who`s gonna be the protagonist for season 2 because i liked Lee very much.
Of course there will be new caracters but...so sad
Does writer for this episode also have written episodes in tv show? cuz Clem in this episode reminded me very much of that annoying kid from tv show
Also how did Clem get in that shed when she found the boat??? And how did a glass door hold like 20 zombies? Where did the zombies @ nurses station come from? Why did Vernon ask about taking Clem and then just disappeared?
I dunno why, but I was more mad of them killing of Carley than Lee(maybe cuz hes not dead yet ). So obviously Ben had to die. Also I actually found myself agreeing with Vernon about death in this "new world" and that you kinda get used to it, maybe that's why death didn't really bother me that much in this episode.
Respect to Chuck.
Molly was cool, was hoping that she would join us cuz she had mad skills.
I almost started crying when i made Clem cry at the end though, for me that was one of the most powerful moments of all episodes, cuz I just had spoken with doc about leaving her.
To bad that u have to make your choices that fast, cuz English isnt my native language and while i finish reading answers and think about what to say I sometimes miss it and dont say anything
All in all a good episode, but could have been better 7/10.
Will be interesting to see how the final episode will play out with Lee bitten, if you make Lee zombie hurt Clem I will kill you so don't get any funny ideas about doing that.
hahaah that was perfect but i think Molly will come back and no one knows what will happen to Lee... could be a bite or not..lets wai to see what will happen......i let Ben lives...i really do not know i couldn't let another person die i know he did shit but for sure if Carley was alive she probably will defend him...and i was thinking killing one wont chance the things that happened...maybe he can be useful (But if in this epi 5 appear to i choose sabe Ben or another person for sure i will for another person)
The gut feeling that he is the one with Walkie talkie. The guy who spoke on Walkie talkie sound so different than Vernon.
He didn't talk on the game. Maybe he doesn't want anyone to figure out that he's the one on the Walkie talkie.
Maybe he even have the Walkie talkie in the brown bag
As soon as that scene played out in the game I instantly said to my mate "That could be the guy". Through experience on other games, the guy who does it is usually someone you have seen before but not enough for you to initially expect it to be them. I also noticed that it focused on him a lot more than the other randoms in the group.
On the other hand, I am surprised there has been so little talk about the guy who was watching Lee digging the grave. He has got to be a prime suspect as well. Obviously he was not a zombie as if he was he wouldn't run away like he did.
I hope, since next one will be the final episode, they'll handle the Ben situation (does Omid die too in some scenario?) better than Doug/Carley... where in the end it didn't matter who you saved, they just didn't appear for a whole episode just to be killed in the beginning of the following one.
Played part 4 the day after I posted this on my blog, but it didn't change my overall opinion:
Game Review: The Walking Dead: season 1, episode 1-3
The Walking Dead is a comic book series about the survivors of a zombie-apocalypse. While the shambling, hungry corpses loom as an ever-present threat, the series is really more about the behavior of people in a desperate situation. (Note that the title possibly refers to the survivors rather than the zombies.) The comic has been adapted for television and is now also a point-and-click adventure game which is being released in five installments, each part taking a couple of hours to play through, together forming a ‘season’. So far, three of the five chapters have been released and this review is based on those chapters. The fourth chapter is being released for PC the day I post this.
While the comic and the television series focus on the story of former policeman Rick Grimes, his young son and the people he encounters, the game serves as a spin-off prequel to both. One of the characters that will go on to appear in both the comic and television series pops up before heading off to his twofold fates, but the lead is new: Lee Everett. He was on his way to prison when the world went mad, gets liberated because of it and soon stumbles onto an abandoned little girl (Clementine) he feels compelled to protect. Like Rick Grimes, he becomes part of a group with more than its share of power struggles and infighting, while taking care of a kid. He finds himself continuously having to take sides and make life-or-death decisions. Who does he pick when he can only recue one out of two people? When he spots a woman too far off to save, being attacked by zombies, does he let her die screaming to keep drawing attention to herself and away from him as he gathers vital supplies for his group? Or does he mercifully shoot her, which would draw the zombie-mob his way?
More than anything, The Walking Dead in its game incarnation is about interactive storytelling. There generally isn’t an obviously right or wrong solution to the morally muddy questions it asks and no matter what option you go for, you’re likely to piss off someone in your group. This isn’t necessarily something new and has been seen in games like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. But unlike in those games, where the dialogue and interaction between characters serves as an enticing backdrop to the action-packed meat of the experience, here the story is the main course. Sure, there are some bursts of action to keep you on your toes and there is the occasional traditional point-and-click problem-solving along the lines of ‘find this item and then use it on this person or thing to move the plot along’. But it’s all in service of the tale being skillfully told: it looks like a well-drawn, gritty graphic novel, the people Lee encounters are interesting and are always a bit more complex than they seem at first glance and the voice-acting is great. The combined effect is that you feel involved as you make your choices and see the sometimes unpredictable consequences. You care about the members of your little group. While kids can easily grate if written wrong, Clementine does make you want to keep her alive at all costs. And when the game makes you pick between two likeable people, knowing the other person will die, it hurts.
A very effective gameplay mechanic, which is a new one as far as I know, is that you only have a limited time to pick a reaction/response from the up to four options you get when having to make a decision. How much time you are given exactly, is contextual. If you are asked for your opinion in the middle of a discussion, you don’t have forever, but longer than when you have to convince someone to jump off a bridge onto a fast-moving vehicle. This forces you to be fairly spontaneous and in-the-moment, making your responses more honest: you tend to go with how you think you would really react under the given circumstances. This way, I discovered I would likely be very diplomatic, protective, suspicious and mostly very moral, though occasionally giving priority to pragmatism. And I did kill someone I didn’t technically need to. But he was a very, very bad man. The speed at which you have to read and respond make this game unsuitable for people with dyslexia and you are likely to accidentally select an unintended response once or twice. If you feel really annoyed about that, thankfully you can ‘rewind’ to the beginning of the chapter you messed up and set things right. Or as right as they get in the The Walking Dead universe, which is fuelled by hope, but dotted with the violent deaths of people who don’t deserve such a fate.
Speaking of gameplay issues: I have heard grumblings about them and the technical performance on various platforms, the iPad version being especially choppy, but my PC version was mostly fine apart from one memorable occasion on which I got eviscerated by a zombie for about ten times in a row because it was unclear which contextual button I was supposed to press in the second or two allotted to me. It ultimately is just a minor annoyance though and it won’t ruin the game for you.
The makers of the game claim that by the end of the five-part ‘season’ players will have much- different sets of survivors and allegiances. Much as I am enjoying the game, I unfortunately have to call shenanigans on this. Playing is engrossing and as addictive as reading a great book, making it hard to stop because you want to know what happens next. But the further you get into the story, the clearer it becomes that a lot of your choices don’t really matter in the long run. Circumstances beyond your control wipe the slate clean partly and invalidate a lot of your earlier hand-wringing. It makes perfect sense that the writers can’t let the plot get away from them and evolve into entirely separate stories, so like in Mass Effect they find ways to lead the various narrative paths back to the same seemingly fated main events. Different characters may fulfill the same roles and scenes may play out differently but have the same outcome. The flavoring is different, but it’s mostly the same dish. One day, someone will hopefully succeed in the nigh-impossible task of combining very tight storytelling with giving the player a lot of freedom, but The Walking Dead doesn’t quite crack that nut.
Due to the big success of the game version of The Walking Dead, a second ‘season’ has already been announced and I have mixed feelings about this. Though the franchise was always conceived as a zombie movie that doesn’t end, this makes it seems likely they will kill off all but one or two of the current cast in the end to have players start in the exact same place in season two, all previous decisions null-and-void. Then again, they may have an open ending, leave this group to their unknown destiny and jump to a fresh set of characters. Either way, despite not quite making good on the promise of wildly diverging paths, I am hooked and will be there to see where it all leads.
Pros:
- The choices are actually really tough this time. You are never quite sure what is a "right answer" because sometime there isn't a right answer
- Art and character designs are still top notch
- Stellar voice work and dialogue
- An absolutely fantastic third act and cliffhanger
- Love Lee and Clem's exchange in the classroom about Ben being left with Clem
- Fantastic music
- I actually liked Molly unlike a lot of professional critics it seems. I would like to see her return next episode for more character exploration though
- Great camerawork throughout
- A bit more development for Christa and Omid
- No teaser trailer really builds the tension and anticipation!
Cons (A lot of the story cons are nitpicks, but valuable points nonetheless)
- The burial scene dragged on for way too long to no effect
- The pacing wavered at times. The flow from action to talking scenes sometimes felt inconsistent or unevenly spaced, more so in the beginning and early in the middle of the story.
- So how the heck did those walkers trap Christa and Vernon in the room without anyone noticing them there?
- Chuck being just an expendable magical hobo character like I knew he would be
- Vernon was a bit underutilized
- Christa can be a bit hard to love, but it's part of her character so it's not a huge fault. Will someone just say she's pregnant already though!
- BEN!!!! I saved him, but he almost broke my patience this episode. Seriously, there needs to be something good to justify saving him next episode
- There are still some stiff animations and frame rate issues
- The way some of the dialogue prompts were written, they were broad enough to make the context of the choice very unclear.
- They totally did an L.A. Noir thing of putting lots of pick up options only to reveal you can't pick up almost any of those objects
- So everyone just accepted Lee is going to die? No one even raised the possibility of amputation or something? I know they have no idea if it will work, but it felt like someone should have cared more about Lee's bite to want to think of a way to save him even if it was reasoned away
OVERALL: 8 out of 10
I liked this more than Episode 3, but a lot of that is because it delivered with its third act. There were a few issues that could not go unnoticed early on and I have qualms with certain story elements, though nothing that broke the experience. They are doing a terrific set-up for what should be a very intense ending so I cannot wait to see what happens next. I really, really hope we see a lot of payoff with the ending for our choices. If anything, seeing a point being made through the tragedy (how your choices/behavior affect Clementine if she survives or something) would be the icing on the cake for making this one of the best game narratives ever.
Just a quick question...can molly actually die or just be left behind. Cuz I wanted to kill her in one of my saves so if she could come back for ep 5 she wont but even shot that ninja escaped i swear it:p
Comments
It was a joke. A reference to ep 2.
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2012/07/24/the-walking-dead-game-episode-6-10-season-2-confirmed.htm
They said 6-10. Pay more attention bro.
She cried at least twice and gave me the sad face multiply times but what broke my heart was when she wouldn't even hug me when I tried to consul her
P.S. Did any one that made her stay give her the gun?
I did that, She hides and when you get back, a Zombie is in the house and she comes out after you take care of it.
This episode make me game over a lot of time...:D
This is a constant issue of the comics. This episode made it very alive.
Apart from that, I actually was kind of happy to get rid a Chuck. Not because he was a liability like Ben but because I just did not trust him. Something weird about that guy. During the previous episode, I had the strong feeling he was trying to get close to Clem in a wrong way, always trying to get to her behind my back.
I was also disappointed that Molly left before the end of the episode.
For the next one, I got the whole group (except the dead) with me. I actually almost never sided with Kenny and he reminded me that very well, but he also said I took care of his wife and son several time (giving food to them, etc) and that he would come with me for that reason.
I still can't get through the ep.4 download process!!!
Whole day stucked on it! Damn "Get it" button!
That's how improve difficulty and longevity in games.
One thing I realized about myself playing this and have tried to carry-over to my Lee, is I understand the way's of the Bandits, or the Crawford people.. I do agree that they went to extrem measures, but in a world like this, I can't totally blame them.
I think the St.John cannible family was wrong.. It happened too quickly (3 months) that they decided eating people was necessary! They still had a farm full of corn, they still had a single cow. Just they were not starving to the point they had no other choice. IMO
I think the bandit's got too greedy.. I understand forming a group to survive and at time may have to fight and 'take' what they need, but they went into this as aggressive and greedy and now most are dead.
The Crawford people had a valid plan, but took it to a very extreme level which in turn resulted in thier downfall.
yea, if it's done immediately. like within the minute it happened immediately.
Unfortunately, this episode was 80% cutscenes and 20% gameplay. And carley is dead :mad:
Still good, thou. Loved how decisions are worth something, finally.
Yeah that tends to happen. And she will stay dead.
How's molly going to be with Lee when hes bitten and will die within the day most likely. Next game is proly going to be 2-3 hrs of real time play...I keep hoping they will play with the lee turning thing. Like have a moment where you have to help someone but every other second its like bite instead of help...so then u have the chance of losing control and killing someone accidentally...or on purpose lmao.
Also how did Clem get in that shed when she found the boat??? And how did a glass door hold like 20 zombies? Where did the zombies @ nurses station come from? Why did Vernon ask about taking Clem and then just disappeared?
I dunno why, but I was more mad of them killing of Carley than Lee(maybe cuz hes not dead yet
Respect to Chuck.
Molly was cool, was hoping that she would join us cuz she had mad skills.
I almost started crying when i made Clem cry at the end though, for me that was one of the most powerful moments of all episodes, cuz I just had spoken with doc about leaving her.
To bad that u have to make your choices that fast, cuz English isnt my native language and while i finish reading answers and think about what to say I sometimes miss it and dont say anything
All in all a good episode, but could have been better 7/10.
Will be interesting to see how the final episode will play out with Lee bitten, if you make Lee zombie hurt Clem I will kill you so don't get any funny ideas about doing that.
Zombie kid: Eh.....no! No no no! (Whiny voice)
Strange man at gate: So uh, i'm just, diggi- DSGSYT!? What the!?
Zombie barricade: Oh god. This just gets worse and worse...
Reuniting with Chuck: ); You were a good man...
Ben finding hatchet: Oh Ben....i'm sorry but..we're all gonna die.
"For whom the bell tolls": Ben, you're a good guy, and I know you will prove yourself
Clementine's disappearance: Oh shit...
The bite: Oh god.....no, No. NO!
Grouping (Christa, Omid and Ben): Come on Ben. We can do this.
Zombie horde at the end: The next episode's gonna terrify me...
Man on walkie talkie: Seriously! Who the hell is this!?
But, why is everyone here saying they miss Carley. Am I the only one that.....saved Doug?
You had to bring out the big guilty reveal during already emotional shitstorm climax, right moron? You HAD TO AT THAT TIME? Brie, Carley, Doug, Chuck, Kaatja, Duck dead, Clem almost dead, whole group almost dead at least TWICE this episode...all because of this one guy.
There are Bens out there in this world. Millions of them.
Sleep tight.
Because he seemed like someone who had a lot more to offer than just a few lines in this episode, which was one of my gripes with the episode, that I otherwise thought was awesome for trying new things (working on existing relationships much more and exploring that dynamic rather than just aiming to hit the high points with the extreme drama by bringing deaths, although I can't complain about how TellTale has pulled that off so far). Plus, how isn't a disillusioned, homeless old survivor pretty darned cool? It's funny imagining everyone else struggling to survive while he just sleeps in a train cart with a few bottles of whiskey to pass the days. Must have been one hell of a story, or one hell of an old man there (nope, no suspension of disbelief for me- I'd rather think there's a badass story there somewhere).
Also, I love that pic of Carl above. Clem kept running around, away from the group, doing what she wanted this episode like a complete idiot.
Almost completely agree with you on the ending, but I do believe there are other ways to look at it. To me that scene was still a genuinely good piece of writing, contrived or otherwise; the pure irony of the situation was very intended, I think- Lee surviving shit tons of zombies in the episode like it was nothing much and then getting that death sentence by one harmless walker stuck in the trash.
Do wish they could have made the scene where the zombie snuck that bite in as an impossible button-mashing sequence (I'm thinking 'Andy forcing your head to that electric fence' hard, the kind that's so ridiculous another character has to step in and save your ass). I mean, it would have spoilt the little shocker a few seconds ahead, but at least it would have delivered that sense of consequence and personal responsibility, instead of feeling more forced.
I guess the story meaning is that Lee is so bound to Clem that the only moment he keeps his guard off is because of her. And this costs him the bite.
Was so shocked when i realised that and i can`t imagine who`s gonna be the protagonist for season 2 because i liked Lee very much.
Of course there will be new caracters but...so sad
As soon as that scene played out in the game I instantly said to my mate "That could be the guy". Through experience on other games, the guy who does it is usually someone you have seen before but not enough for you to initially expect it to be them. I also noticed that it focused on him a lot more than the other randoms in the group.
On the other hand, I am surprised there has been so little talk about the guy who was watching Lee digging the grave. He has got to be a prime suspect as well. Obviously he was not a zombie as if he was he wouldn't run away like he did.
Game Review: The Walking Dead: season 1, episode 1-3
The Walking Dead is a comic book series about the survivors of a zombie-apocalypse. While the shambling, hungry corpses loom as an ever-present threat, the series is really more about the behavior of people in a desperate situation. (Note that the title possibly refers to the survivors rather than the zombies.) The comic has been adapted for television and is now also a point-and-click adventure game which is being released in five installments, each part taking a couple of hours to play through, together forming a ‘season’. So far, three of the five chapters have been released and this review is based on those chapters. The fourth chapter is being released for PC the day I post this.
While the comic and the television series focus on the story of former policeman Rick Grimes, his young son and the people he encounters, the game serves as a spin-off prequel to both. One of the characters that will go on to appear in both the comic and television series pops up before heading off to his twofold fates, but the lead is new: Lee Everett. He was on his way to prison when the world went mad, gets liberated because of it and soon stumbles onto an abandoned little girl (Clementine) he feels compelled to protect. Like Rick Grimes, he becomes part of a group with more than its share of power struggles and infighting, while taking care of a kid. He finds himself continuously having to take sides and make life-or-death decisions. Who does he pick when he can only recue one out of two people? When he spots a woman too far off to save, being attacked by zombies, does he let her die screaming to keep drawing attention to herself and away from him as he gathers vital supplies for his group? Or does he mercifully shoot her, which would draw the zombie-mob his way?
More than anything, The Walking Dead in its game incarnation is about interactive storytelling. There generally isn’t an obviously right or wrong solution to the morally muddy questions it asks and no matter what option you go for, you’re likely to piss off someone in your group. This isn’t necessarily something new and has been seen in games like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. But unlike in those games, where the dialogue and interaction between characters serves as an enticing backdrop to the action-packed meat of the experience, here the story is the main course. Sure, there are some bursts of action to keep you on your toes and there is the occasional traditional point-and-click problem-solving along the lines of ‘find this item and then use it on this person or thing to move the plot along’. But it’s all in service of the tale being skillfully told: it looks like a well-drawn, gritty graphic novel, the people Lee encounters are interesting and are always a bit more complex than they seem at first glance and the voice-acting is great. The combined effect is that you feel involved as you make your choices and see the sometimes unpredictable consequences. You care about the members of your little group. While kids can easily grate if written wrong, Clementine does make you want to keep her alive at all costs. And when the game makes you pick between two likeable people, knowing the other person will die, it hurts.
A very effective gameplay mechanic, which is a new one as far as I know, is that you only have a limited time to pick a reaction/response from the up to four options you get when having to make a decision. How much time you are given exactly, is contextual. If you are asked for your opinion in the middle of a discussion, you don’t have forever, but longer than when you have to convince someone to jump off a bridge onto a fast-moving vehicle. This forces you to be fairly spontaneous and in-the-moment, making your responses more honest: you tend to go with how you think you would really react under the given circumstances. This way, I discovered I would likely be very diplomatic, protective, suspicious and mostly very moral, though occasionally giving priority to pragmatism. And I did kill someone I didn’t technically need to. But he was a very, very bad man. The speed at which you have to read and respond make this game unsuitable for people with dyslexia and you are likely to accidentally select an unintended response once or twice. If you feel really annoyed about that, thankfully you can ‘rewind’ to the beginning of the chapter you messed up and set things right. Or as right as they get in the The Walking Dead universe, which is fuelled by hope, but dotted with the violent deaths of people who don’t deserve such a fate.
Speaking of gameplay issues: I have heard grumblings about them and the technical performance on various platforms, the iPad version being especially choppy, but my PC version was mostly fine apart from one memorable occasion on which I got eviscerated by a zombie for about ten times in a row because it was unclear which contextual button I was supposed to press in the second or two allotted to me. It ultimately is just a minor annoyance though and it won’t ruin the game for you.
The makers of the game claim that by the end of the five-part ‘season’ players will have much- different sets of survivors and allegiances. Much as I am enjoying the game, I unfortunately have to call shenanigans on this. Playing is engrossing and as addictive as reading a great book, making it hard to stop because you want to know what happens next. But the further you get into the story, the clearer it becomes that a lot of your choices don’t really matter in the long run. Circumstances beyond your control wipe the slate clean partly and invalidate a lot of your earlier hand-wringing. It makes perfect sense that the writers can’t let the plot get away from them and evolve into entirely separate stories, so like in Mass Effect they find ways to lead the various narrative paths back to the same seemingly fated main events. Different characters may fulfill the same roles and scenes may play out differently but have the same outcome. The flavoring is different, but it’s mostly the same dish. One day, someone will hopefully succeed in the nigh-impossible task of combining very tight storytelling with giving the player a lot of freedom, but The Walking Dead doesn’t quite crack that nut.
Due to the big success of the game version of The Walking Dead, a second ‘season’ has already been announced and I have mixed feelings about this. Though the franchise was always conceived as a zombie movie that doesn’t end, this makes it seems likely they will kill off all but one or two of the current cast in the end to have players start in the exact same place in season two, all previous decisions null-and-void. Then again, they may have an open ending, leave this group to their unknown destiny and jump to a fresh set of characters. Either way, despite not quite making good on the promise of wildly diverging paths, I am hooked and will be there to see where it all leads.
http://popculturejunkie.blogspot.nl/2012/10/game-review-walking-dead-season-1.html?spref=fb
- The choices are actually really tough this time. You are never quite sure what is a "right answer" because sometime there isn't a right answer
- Art and character designs are still top notch
- Stellar voice work and dialogue
- An absolutely fantastic third act and cliffhanger
- Love Lee and Clem's exchange in the classroom about Ben being left with Clem
- Fantastic music
- I actually liked Molly unlike a lot of professional critics it seems. I would like to see her return next episode for more character exploration though
- Great camerawork throughout
- A bit more development for Christa and Omid
- No teaser trailer really builds the tension and anticipation!
Cons (A lot of the story cons are nitpicks, but valuable points nonetheless)
- The burial scene dragged on for way too long to no effect
- The pacing wavered at times. The flow from action to talking scenes sometimes felt inconsistent or unevenly spaced, more so in the beginning and early in the middle of the story.
- So how the heck did those walkers trap Christa and Vernon in the room without anyone noticing them there?
- Chuck being just an expendable magical hobo character like I knew he would be
- Vernon was a bit underutilized
- Christa can be a bit hard to love, but it's part of her character so it's not a huge fault. Will someone just say she's pregnant already though!
- BEN!!!! I saved him, but he almost broke my patience this episode. Seriously, there needs to be something good to justify saving him next episode
- There are still some stiff animations and frame rate issues
- The way some of the dialogue prompts were written, they were broad enough to make the context of the choice very unclear.
- They totally did an L.A. Noir thing of putting lots of pick up options only to reveal you can't pick up almost any of those objects
- So everyone just accepted Lee is going to die? No one even raised the possibility of amputation or something? I know they have no idea if it will work, but it felt like someone should have cared more about Lee's bite to want to think of a way to save him even if it was reasoned away
OVERALL: 8 out of 10
I liked this more than Episode 3, but a lot of that is because it delivered with its third act. There were a few issues that could not go unnoticed early on and I have qualms with certain story elements, though nothing that broke the experience. They are doing a terrific set-up for what should be a very intense ending so I cannot wait to see what happens next. I really, really hope we see a lot of payoff with the ending for our choices. If anything, seeing a point being made through the tragedy (how your choices/behavior affect Clementine if she survives or something) would be the icing on the cake for making this one of the best game narratives ever.