This game was so much more than the sum of its parts. The storytelling was powerful and emotional, something rarely done in video games and, as far as I'm concerned, never done this well. I think that the people who are complaining about the story in any way (not the technical issues, those may be valid but I had none playing the Xbox 360 version) just aren't looking at this clearly. There were things that could be changed by your decision. The overall story itself couldn't, but the way they got to those points sure were.
I chose to let Ben die in Crawford and that effected the way Kenny left the group. I saw both ways Kenny "died" and this one was MUCH better. He jumped down and took on the zombies to save a life for the good of the group. I was hopeful that I would see him again but was very satisfied with how they handled it. Also, people keep talking about the stranger who had Clem and that he wasn't rational in his decisions like it was a problem with the story. The guy had his wife's zombie head in a bowling bag and spoke with it like it was still his wife and they were still a family. I think it is fair to say that he wasn't all there upstairs. Holding him to any kind of logical standards went right out the window at that point. And finally we come to the ending. I see this complaint more than any and I just don't understand it. I don''t think the ending was altered in any way just because they decided to do a second season. It wasn't left open ended for that reason, it was left the way it was because that is how things would really be. The point of the game's story wasn't about the majority of the group surviving. It was about Lee's redemption as a human being and it was about him teaching poor little Clem everything she needed to survive on her own. When we first meet Clem she is a frightened, helpless child. When the game ends she is everything she needs to be to survive in such a horrible world. Whether she finds the remaining group or new people all together is irrelevant. There could never be a happy ending or closure in a world like that and I thank TellTale for having the guts to not cop out with a happy ending. 10 out of 10 for me and I can't wait for the second season.
Clementine uncertain and alone in a grassy field has been the main image for episode five from day one (its been sitting there in the main menu all this time!). Hopefully that alone shows that the epilogue has been planned from the start and wasnt tacked on later. What you think about it, whether you like it or not is a separate matter, of course!
Overall an excellent gaming experience a bit of a shame that each episode was well overdue but aside from that theres very little to complain about episode 2 really picked the pace up and it never slowed until the end .
I'm glad i'm not the only one with an achievement glitch either albeit a different one to the ones mentioned by others (I hadnt heard anyone else mention it up until now so I didnt bother myself) at the end of ep.3 my console showed 27/32 achievements I thought that this would solve itself once the console realised its error when ep.4 was either started or complete but it didnt and now the whole game is completed and all the achievements are full (40/40) but my xbox reads that the game is 35/40 and not completed even though this is obviously impossible . Rating : 8/10
Had to make an account just to say what I think of this game haha. Well I have to give it 8/10. It's truly deserving of it, it didn't just copy paste the storylines of the comics or show and truly got me absorbed in this storyline with it's characters. I'm gonna give a short thought on 1-4 but will talk more about 5.
Episode 1 started slow but was a good grounding for setting up the characters and drawing people in.
Episode 2 started showing more flare with some of the decisions really feeling tougher like the sharing of only 4 food items and the Larry incident (one of the most interesting characters too)
Episode 3 had a lot going on which was really good and it's arguably my favourite. The whole sequence with the bandits and Lily and then leading up to Katjaa and Ducks death was all pretty well done.
Episode 4 this was pretty long compared to the rest, felt a little slow at times but I still really enjoyed it.
Episode 5, I felt as though it was a bit rushed or too short, perhaps that's because episode 4 was much longer making me feel like this one would be longer like the episodes had more happening each time. Still very enjoyable and gripping with quite a few good pulls on the heart strings, particularly with Kenny's final moments with Ben and the final scene in the locked room. However I do feel there was a lot left unresolved or just off, like choosing who you could have brought, I brought everyone except Ben yet the whole scene played out with Lee doing everything anyway which made the decision lose weight especially since my Lee had his arm hacked off so if a one armed man managed to do all that with or without the group it felt kinda pointless making a deal about who to bring. Lee somehow knowing Crista was pregnent with no real reaction to him knowing since she never really adressed it in my playthrough but it was hinted at. Lee having his arm cut off I had hoped would impact the ending somehow by maybe extending his time till death compared to not doing so and if he didn't hack it off he'd have perhaps died before saving Clem but nope.
The stranger at the end being angry at me despite my choices (even when I didn't take the food) did make me think about my actions but knowing that he'd hate me no matter what I did in other playthroughs and the fact he talked to his decapitated wifes head to make him out as crazy further made my previous actions seem pointless on the plot cause he'd hate me anyway.
The final scene with Clem and Lee I will admit made me cry, was I satisfied with it? In some ways yes and no. It did a good job of making me really feel for Clem and Lee who truly lost everything and Lee trying to do everything he could with his last dying breaths did add power to the scene but so much still felt rushed and unresolved. Even more so with leaving Clem in that feild, will the final things I said to her before she left me have effected her as a character?
Don't get me wrong, this is by far one of the best games with the best characters in any medium I have ever played. I adore it and encourage more games and stories like it. My biggest gripe was that none of my actions truly effected the plot in any way, everyones playthrough would have the group all going to the farm, then the train, then the city and so on. An alternate storyline where the group perhaps goes somewhere else or triggers events earlier or later than they possibely could have would have been interesting. There were no real times where you would have failed and made the story alter or succeed and make it change except with a game over from a quick time event to which you'd just be popped back into the last time it was there to continue the same storyline.
In a way I can understand that "There are no right decisions" in this which is true, it's all based on what the player thinks would be right at the time as themselves or as Lee but I feel like whether it's the right decision or not is irrelevent and it should be more like "What will be the consequences of my actions be?" Things would have nearly always lead to the same outcome like in this game which would most likely not be the case in real life. In the end I love this game but felt the whole "Your decisions effect the outcome of the plot" thing just didn't happen and made it lose some weight in it's decision making but the choices still felt tough and made me ponder what really is the right thing to do for that situation.
Well done Telltale, you have truly outdone yourselves with this.
I haven't gotten emotional playing a video game, like ever. Maybe slightly during FFX because come on, that ending was kind of heart shattering but even then I was more just bummed then anything and a touch on the misty-eyed side of things. But this game....
I'll admit it. I'm a full-grown man and I bawled like it was me in there. I could feel the pain that was coming from Clementine. (Might I add, she better win a helluva lot of voice acting awards, she was amazing throughout this entire series!) And I never button-mashed harder then the second time where she BEGGED for Lee to get up. I was fighting it til then but then I just let it out and yelled at him, "Get up you son of a bitch! This one last thing, DO IT!"
But I felt that it was also fitting that she did it herself. At least that gave Lee some peace of mind so he could go in peace. She was able to do it..... even if I had to kick the bat at her. <.<
So I gave it a 10/10 all around. Would I have liked to play as Lee for season 2? Yes, of course. But I have a feeling that Telltale will bring out another character that we can grow to love for that season....
Then kill them..... and make me hate them for a day but growing in to an even bigger fan. But come on, Omid and Christa got to live? ... Cos she had a baby. I actually had a feeling once we heard that that she'd be okay for a while at least. Probably out by Ep 2 next season but still. xD
I can't really understand a game that had so much build up could just jump to a break on the ending. First it was "The Bite" cutting off his arm didn't do a thing one way or another. But a company who prides itself on choices impacting should have made arm thing had a bigger impact.
The whole Ben and Kenny thing bothered me. If you dropped Ben then Kenny and Ben would never have that topic and they both get melted off at the end. I wanted to see them actually getting away.
The entire game we followed them where they went because they left the group we can't see them. I think entire game was great, voice acting was just top notch. Graphics were smooth no glitches and the story's were compelling.
I just wished we could've seen what happended at the end. I wanted to see them jumping on that dang boat.
The Walking Dead game is definitely one of my top games this year, if not THE top game. Gameplay was as refined as you can make a classic-point-and-click game, and the story is incredible in every sense of the word.
My only problems with it is the fact that the majority of the choices are mostly just illusions. The only ones that affect anything is choosing to save Larry and Ben, and even then they mostly just affect small things (namely, Kenny; If you try to save Larry he will be a lot more douchey towards you, and if you save Ben he will die in a more spectacular manner than if you let Ben go. Either way, it felt mostly like a cheap little thing that TTG put in there, but otherwise i enjoyed them. The fact that even if i had a suspicion that they didn't matter i still felt a bit bad about the choices i made speaks for the level of quality writing TTG is capable of, so kudos.
10/10, really good game series. Can't wait for season 2.
Simply 10/10, it was a great game and an amazing experience for me, the ending (which made me cry like a little baby... and I still do thinking about the ending) topped it of. Loved it. Can't wait for the next season!
Clementine uncertain and alone in a grassy field has been the main image for episode five from day one (its been sitting there in the main menu all this time!). Hopefully that alone shows that the epilogue has been planned from the start and wasnt tacked on later. What you think about it, whether you like it or not is a separate matter, of course!
We got you walking dead fans! For season 2 our next trick will be to make sure none of our episodes corrupt your data!
I think this game is a dam masterpiece. I've never talked about a game and felt so much for characters emotionally in any game I played, I onestly felt like I was Lee and the endining was just heart renching not to sound like a sissy but dam near teared up saying goodbye to clem and trying to make her safe yet stronger, and that final credits ending i was litterarly shoutign at the screen GET TO THE TRAIN OMID AND CHRISTA ARE WAITING FOR YOU! its unbeleivable how protective I got to clem lol, and that ending of those maybe walkers maybe omid and crista....(please be them lol), so now I will forever support telltale games just becuase of this awesome series you've created, I'm now a groupie whore that is addicted to walking dead, I will be jonesing soon for the next series, ....please for the love of god make series 2 pronto please! you deserve time off but....its so dam good lol
Clementine uncertain and alone in a grassy field has been the main image for episode five from day one (its been sitting there in the main menu all this time!). Hopefully that alone shows that the epilogue has been planned from the start and wasnt tacked on later. What you think about it, whether you like it or not is a separate matter, of course!
Was that your idea to have that image in the main menu? Very clever!
100 out of 10 for me . I love this game. I dont want to be here for an hour reviewing it so I'll just say this. This game is one of the best games I've ever played.
After Episode 4 I would have rated this game almost perfect.
After finishing the final episode I give it a 7. The last one was just flat out lazy.
1: Killing the protagonist and leaving the player/viewer with an unhappy ending is no longer unique. It's been done countless times in both the gaming and movie industry.
2: Way too short. After all the build up, all the questions that need to be answered, they make a final episode that's not even half as long as most of the other episodes. It looks like they just rushed this out as fast as they could to get it over with.
3: Lame final conflicts. You finally find the guy who's been watching Clem. The guy who's been mysteriously contacting you for the past few episodes. He's able to take Clem away from the group without anyone noticing....but doesn't lock the door on Clem in the hotel and his plot is foiled by a 9 year old with a wine bottle....Plus instead of tense moments as you stand-off with this guy, you have a nice sit down discussion with him about things that happened in previous episodes.
Then the radiator scene...I'm fine with an ending that doesn't have everyone riding off into the sunset, but you can't do it in such an anti-climactic way. The hero of the game is first saved by a 9 year old twice, only to die next to a radiator a few minutes later. People will justify it in any number of "artistic" ways. He starts the game in handcuffs, and ends in handcuffs...so what. This is a game, not an indie film.
4: Lack of actual choices that affect the story. This is more of a whole series problem instead of just the last Episode, although it is most evident in the last one. None of your choices and decisions actually have much of an effect on the story.
Sure can save one person instead of the other, but no matter which one you pick they will play the same role in the game and either one will die at roughly the same time in the game. Saving Doug instead of Carly has no effect on the major storyline. You're still going to go to the same locations, and the same dangerous situations will happen.
NO MULTIPLE ENDINGS. For a game that has a message before every episode claiming that your choices affect the story, it's pretty ridiculous that they can't even include multiple endings. Getting shot in the head while handcuffed to the radiator, or just being left alone handcuffed to the radiator are not multiple endings. They're the same thing.
Telltale had a storyline planned for this game, but following the great success of the game they phoned this one in. The entire ending seems to be created entirely for the sequel. The basically put what should be the beginning of a game, at the end of this one....and yes, I did see the scene after the credits, it was even more proof of the Sequels ruining the first series.
I actually lost my saved game after reformatting, so instead of just installing episode 5 and going, I played through every episode in 2 days. Even though I knew the story of the first 4, they were still a ton of fun...more fun than the first play-through of the last one. I think that says something about how terrible the last episode was.
I have my fair share of quarrels going on with this game, and you name quite a few valid ones concerning the story. But the lack of multiple endings wasn't one of mine. I welcomed the ending as the only possible one. The single ending speaks clearly about the topic of hope - different endings might have treated it differently, fitting the genre and franchise less.
Then the radiator scene...I'm fine with an ending that doesn't have everyone riding off into the sunset, but you can't do it in such an anti-climactic way. The hero of the game is first saved by a 9 year old twice, only to die next to a radiator a few minutes later. People will justify it in any number of "artistic" ways. He starts the game in handcuffs, and ends in handcuffs...so what. This is a game, not an indie film.
I'm not sure where the comparison leads here. The artistic and rock solid storytelling principles - including a circular narrative structure - have been part of Telltale's games for quite some time. You can criticize the execution here, but not the application in general. TWD game is pretty much a movie; a bit of artistic sophistication in the genre is the absolute minimum. You will not only find this in "indie" films - the most prized of Hollywood's flicks have always been heavy with this kind of stuff.
I give it a 7. The game was indeed enjoyable with some surprising and memorable moments, however, right from the release of the 2nd episode (steam user) I have had technical issues with choices not carrying over properly from one episode to the next. Each episode I played seemed to want to generate random choices for me even though there was no option for this when i started the episode, it just began.
When i thought i finally had the issue fixed, all of my save files no longer appear in the screen and now the system wants me to start the whole game over complete from scratch even though i have several save files in my documents folder as well as the pref.prop file. This has been my most dissapointing moment of this series. It's just too damn buggy.
2ndly, choice does infact NOT matter. Nothing u do will affect the outcome which was my understanding with "Choice Matters". The only thing choice did was influence Clementine, mold or shape her. But then you don't get to see how these choices are carried forward for clementine.
So, in the end the game was enjoyable, however several aspects of the story just don't add up, such as clementine dragging a 180 pound adult through a horde of walkers to saftey. 1 of many things i found that just don't make sense.
I'm not sure where the comparison leads here. The artistic and rock solid storytelling principles - including a circular narrative structure - have been part of Telltale's games for quite some time. You can criticize the execution here, but not the application in general. TWD game is pretty much a movie; a bit of artistic sophistication in the genre is the absolute minimum. You will not only find this in "indie" films - the most prized of Hollywood's flicks have always been heavy with this kind of stuff.
It doesn't matter what criticism is given. The fanboys of the game will just yell "Artistic" and "OMG it's the Zombie Apocalypse, things don't always happen like they should".
Would these same people be fine if lee fell off a building to his death before even finding Clem? No, they wouldn't. So stop justifying this lazy ending by saying that it's what could really happen in a Zombie outbreak. Dying at the end isn't the problem, doing it in the most anticlimactic way possible is. They could have had him sacrifice himself to a herd of Zombies in order to distract them away from Clem as she ran. Not only would that be a bit more exciting, but it would be even more emotional for Clem. She wouldn't get to say goodbye and would have to watch Lee get ripped apart.
...and no Hollywood film would ever accept this kind of ending. Show me a movie where the final confrontation is significantly easier and less involved than the conflicts earlier in the movie. Did Luke Skywalker board the Death Star for the second time and slice Darth Vaders head off while he's taking a shower? No, he didn't. The build up to the final meeting between them two led to an actual epic moment, not an extremely short sequence where an Ewok hits Vader in the head with a wine bottle....
The fanboys of the game will just yell "Artistic" and "OMG it's the Zombie Apocalypse, things don't always happen like they should".
Artistic approaches can be attacked and defended. They can be poorly executed or pretentious. You can argue that. In no way was 'artistic' ever meant as a killer argument. Also, define "should".
...and no Hollywood film would ever accept this kind of ending. Show me a movie where the final confrontation is significantly easier and less involved than the conflicts earlier in the movie. Did Luke Skywalker board the Death Star for the second time and slice Darth Vaders head off while he's taking a shower? No, he didn't. The build up to the final meeting between them two led to an actual epic moment, not an extremely short sequence where an Ewok hits Vader in the head with a wine bottle....
I did not interpret the Stranger as "the boss battle". And I would have been disappointed if they just set this up as a 'video game' ending this way. The narrative meaning of the stranger was to make clear to Lee that whatever decisions he made, he always hurt someone with it. Now I don't believe that this was particularly necessary at this point of the game, nor all too well executed. But just more lame QTEs for the boss fight(s) just to reach another level of 'epic' really wouldn't have cut it ('press Q so Clementine can escape' - thank yooo, pas de interest). The climax was supposed to be the very quiet moments with the Stranger and Lee's death, not the power of a poor deluded man who was robbed of his entire family. Lee has taken plenty of brave steps towards saving Clementine, but he was also violently ill and weakened at the end. You wanted him to die standing; but if the designers wanted to focus on his lingering infection and his battle against it, that's not what they'd do.
Luke Skywalker did not "board" the Death Star. He was taken there. He never fought the emperor. There was indeed a fight between him and his father, even an epic one. But his arch enemy was more or less just kicked down a shaft, and certainly not by Luke himself! But you're right to assume that Episode VI was indeed about the final confrontation between Vader and Luke, while TWD Season 1 clearly was not about Lee vs. the Stranger.
If you're looking for movies with toned down or "easier" conflicts in the ending, you may look towards a whole lot of coming of age movies, where the abilities and self confidence of the protagonist have risen through experience to such a degree that the central conflict, the one that defined her/him in the beginning, can actually be solved with a snap, maybe a sharp word towards a former figure of authority; and you can look towards a whole lot of other movies where the final conflict, the one everyone fears, turns out to more or less solve itself ("Little Miss Sunshine" among them; which is especially interesting in light of your Star Wars comparison because the script writer of that movie will also do Episode VII).
Why is it that people can't just have their opinion on whether or not they like something, without having to bash those that disagree? This is a game with players from all over the world, male and female, as young as around 12 to as old as 82. Everyone's life experiences and views of the world are not exactly alike, and with such vastly different personalities, we cannot expect everyone to agree on a subject like this.
Why is it that people can't just have their opinion on whether or not they like something, without having to bash those that disagree? This is a game with players from all over the world, male and female, as young as around 12 to as old as 82. Everyone's life experiences and views of the world are not exactly alike, and with such vastly different personalities, we cannot expect everyone to agree on a subject like this.
I agree. It's good to see that the game's message of "the world is shades of gray, not black and white" was completely missed by many players of this game.
I agree. It's good to see that the game's message of "the world is shades of gray, not black and white" was completely missed by many players of this game.
You just said that you agree with the poster who said people should stop bashing other's opinions...and then go on to bash people by saying that they missed a concept in the game....
You just said that you agree with the poster who said people should stop bashing other's opinions...and then go on to bash people by saying that they missed a concept in the game....
The irony is too much..
No offense, but you missed my point. I wasn't bashing anyone. My post was commentary on the fact that this forum appears to now be divided up into kneejerk post replies and folks with black-and-white mentalities (i.e. trolls vs. fanboys) rather than people trying to have middle-ground, gray-area, objective discussions about the potential merits and downsides to this game. Sort of like the US 2012 presidential election.
You made little girls cry with that. I saw the videos.
God bless her; the voice of her people! Seriously, a bunch of us are going to be crying with her if they don't shut it with the bullshit "who will run in 2016" already. Give us a damn break.
Episode five is the shortest one for sure. But I'm not going to say that is not good.- There was no un unnecessary extension or creating unnecessary storyline.
In episode four I was missing the "difficult choices". Now, after 5th I'm not.
The confrontation with our decisions about Clementine was really good. Just when I had entered the Hotel I was able to feel amazing atmosphere of this place. After having few words with kidnapper I knew that one of us was not gonna to stay alive. I had to protect Clem and I was fighting like never before in any game to save her from that man.
The ending was the most emotional and simply the best moment in the history of video games.
What about whole first season of TWD?
General assumptions for the story are a routine as for the others post-apocalyptic fiction novels. It is about survival, food, loss of loved ones, travel and shelter. Nothing new. But implementation method was wonderful.
Characters are written excellently. Only at the end of I understand how big bond is between me and Lee and Clementine. In addition to their there are amazing supporting characters like Lilly and Kenny.
An equally important element in the total is the atmosphere. The fact that we were able to lose loved ones made me feel uncertainly.
I must also mention the very good dialogues and brilliant moments both poignant and shocking. For example, Carley's death.
Thanks are also due to designers and actors for visuals and voice acting. They did a great job.
Were there any disadvantages?
Yeap. Few worse moments in episode four and few technical issues with saves and downloading.
A lot of people say that their choices are limited. I have to disagree with them. I wrote a few words about it in [SPOILERS]Limited Choices discussion (merged threads).- "It's the decisions that change you, not the outcome." And I had known what I was buying. An adventure game. What does it mean? That the story has an impact on you and not vice versa. Even if it was written "This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play." I did not expect it will be like cRPG game with branched storyline. Besides, where one will see only the lack of any intervention, others see a very high consistency of the story.
I will be missing the waiting time for next episodes and I do not know how good will have to be 2nd season to be better than 1st.
In the end I wish to mention about The ending once again. I was thinking a lot about it and I will never forget it.
Bravo Telltale! Thank you for that brilliant story.
PS Sorry for my English. I hope that one day I will be able to buy boxed edition in my country. ( I'm from Poland)
Final episode sure was the shortest. Maybe to make up for various pathways? It felt pretty teamdriven the first half, so I wonder how it would be if you went solo. Who'd want to cut off your arm for example? Own idea?
Also, the "reason" for the bad guy being a bad guy. If you made a different one would it be the same guy with a different reason? Probably, kinda sucky though. Damned if you do, damned if you don't isn't much of a choice.
Also stupid was near the end just given up on 1000(!) zombies being a threat and just murdering a path through them. If we could simply do that why did so many of my team die, why are we running all these episodes? Just chop chop like here. Eeeehhh...
And after the ending another proof little girls *never* listen... :facepalm:
Besides that, it had some interesting choices and happenings, and since the gameplay sucks as always, it's funfactor is entirely decided by that. So one of the better episodes overall due to that...
EDIT:
Due to the wording of the poll options, a 6 from me... not good enough to be 'really enjoyable'... needs more solid gameplay for that...
EDIT:
Due to the wording of the poll options, a 6 from me...
Took quite a while making that wording up.
Numbers are a bit unfit to really judge a game with, even more so considering that there seldom is a game that doesn't get more than 75% by all those gamezines out there. So the 'identifiers' up there are actually the definition of the numbers. But things are going REALLY well for the game in that poll, aren't they?!?
Voted a 7. Deducted 2 points for aggravation regarding downloading episodes and getting the game to work. Probably would've rated a 1 had I ever lost my saves after episode 1.
It really was a great game. As I have suggested, I'd love to see options in the episodes where you could A) Defend at camp or Scout for food. Different people go with you and different stuff happens. Would give more replay value.
I'd also like to see more "disposable" characters. Like if you have 5 to start with and 1 dies a chapter, but it really doesn't matter who. So in chapter 5, first player could have character A with them while second player could have character E with them. (This of course does not include "main" characters like Kenny that is essential to the story)
Also a little extra on the action and difficulty would be nice.
I am happy with the season finale because most of the games main characters catch a disease or are close to dying and survive in the end. It's just predictable. But I see Telltale took some notes and made the ending so much unique. I totally have not excepted that and that makes me one of the biggest fan of the series (even though I haven't watched the TV series and read any of the comics). Really Telltale, Well Done. R.I.P. Lee Everett
I really liked the game at times but nearing the end i couldn't help but feel like i was just a puppet led to believe i had control over what could happen in this game. As it turns out i had zero control and what happened to Kenny and Lee was going to happen no matter what.
I just don't get playing a game like this if the end is decided for you.
When i first started playing i was really excited and thought what i chose mattered but really it didn't. All i was choosing was one of two roads that led to the same destination.
It's like a choose your own adventure but with each characters ultimate survival already set in stone. I prefer games that give me the chance to decide a characters fate. If i wanted something set in stone i'd just watch the tv series.
I think i'll do that anyhow. No way will i get sucked into a sequel to the game.
Forgive me if my review offends you. Remember it's just my opinion and you know the story about everyone having one of those right?
Peace everyone!
I really liked the game at times but nearing the end i couldn't help but feel like i was just a puppet led to believe i had control over what could happen in this game. As it turns out i had zero control and what happened to Kenny and Lee was going to happen no matter what.
I just don't get playing a game like this if the end is decided for you.
When i first started playing i was really excited and thought what i chose mattered but really it didn't. All i was choosing was one of two roads that led to the same destination.
It's like a choose your own adventure but with each characters ultimate survival already set in stone. I prefer games that give me the chance to decide a characters fate. If i wanted something set in stone i'd just watch the tv series.
I think i'll do that anyhow. No way will i get sucked into a sequel to the game.
Forgive me if my review offends you. Remember it's just my opinion and you know the story about everyone having one of those right?
Peace everyone!
Your choices do matter.
The game is "Tailored".Which dosen't mean that you get story-branching.The choices you are making don't seem to impact you at first,but every single thing you said or done the game remembers and you develop a different relationship with characters and different dialog options.Lets say there is a shirt beign "Tailored" for you.You will get shorter or longer sleeves,but you won't get a third sleeve. :P
I don't know what you ment by "A game that give me a chance to control a character's fate".You can choose to either save Doug or Carley,which is one of the most important decisions in the game.You can spare or kill the St.John's,which will change the way characters are looking to you.You can have Molly die or live depending if you brought Clem with you to Crawford or not (and depending how good you are with guns),you can drop Ben or pull him up,which again changes the way fifth episode goes. ;-) And about the ending,alright,Lee dies,but you can either have him die as a human,or let him turn into a walker. Theres a lot of small stuff your choices change. :-)
I rated the game as very enjoyable. The game could use some more fight scenes like the one with Lee trying to get to the marsh house in episode 5. This I feel would balance out all the dramatic and heavy decision making that characterizes the game. There were also some very tough choices to make which are part of what made this game great, however the time limit should be increased for big decisions. Sometimes the player does not have a chance to choose what they feel is the best course to take because of the time bar running out so fast.
Episode 2 was the best in my opinion, and episode 4 my least favorite. Likely because the majority of the original group had been killed off by that point. My biggest criticism of the game was the death of Lee. It is very disheartening that after the hell Lee goes through trying to keep clementine and the group safe through the previous 4 episodes the game ends with his death...idk just didnt seem right to me. Even though this is the zombie apocalypse the ending shouldnt have been so depressing. There should have been at least a small bit of happiness at the end of the game, such as Lee and Clementine together again, unsure of what the future holds for them, but alive together none the less.
Comments
I chose to let Ben die in Crawford and that effected the way Kenny left the group. I saw both ways Kenny "died" and this one was MUCH better. He jumped down and took on the zombies to save a life for the good of the group. I was hopeful that I would see him again but was very satisfied with how they handled it. Also, people keep talking about the stranger who had Clem and that he wasn't rational in his decisions like it was a problem with the story. The guy had his wife's zombie head in a bowling bag and spoke with it like it was still his wife and they were still a family. I think it is fair to say that he wasn't all there upstairs. Holding him to any kind of logical standards went right out the window at that point. And finally we come to the ending. I see this complaint more than any and I just don't understand it. I don''t think the ending was altered in any way just because they decided to do a second season. It wasn't left open ended for that reason, it was left the way it was because that is how things would really be. The point of the game's story wasn't about the majority of the group surviving. It was about Lee's redemption as a human being and it was about him teaching poor little Clem everything she needed to survive on her own. When we first meet Clem she is a frightened, helpless child. When the game ends she is everything she needs to be to survive in such a horrible world. Whether she finds the remaining group or new people all together is irrelevant. There could never be a happy ending or closure in a world like that and I thank TellTale for having the guts to not cop out with a happy ending. 10 out of 10 for me and I can't wait for the second season.
I'm glad i'm not the only one with an achievement glitch either albeit a different one to the ones mentioned by others (I hadnt heard anyone else mention it up until now so I didnt bother myself) at the end of ep.3 my console showed 27/32 achievements I thought that this would solve itself once the console realised its error when ep.4 was either started or complete but it didnt and now the whole game is completed and all the achievements are full (40/40) but my xbox reads that the game is 35/40 and not completed even though this is obviously impossible . Rating : 8/10
Episode 1 started slow but was a good grounding for setting up the characters and drawing people in.
Episode 2 started showing more flare with some of the decisions really feeling tougher like the sharing of only 4 food items and the Larry incident (one of the most interesting characters too)
Episode 3 had a lot going on which was really good and it's arguably my favourite. The whole sequence with the bandits and Lily and then leading up to Katjaa and Ducks death was all pretty well done.
Episode 4 this was pretty long compared to the rest, felt a little slow at times but I still really enjoyed it.
Episode 5, I felt as though it was a bit rushed or too short, perhaps that's because episode 4 was much longer making me feel like this one would be longer like the episodes had more happening each time. Still very enjoyable and gripping with quite a few good pulls on the heart strings, particularly with Kenny's final moments with Ben and the final scene in the locked room. However I do feel there was a lot left unresolved or just off, like choosing who you could have brought, I brought everyone except Ben yet the whole scene played out with Lee doing everything anyway which made the decision lose weight especially since my Lee had his arm hacked off so if a one armed man managed to do all that with or without the group it felt kinda pointless making a deal about who to bring. Lee somehow knowing Crista was pregnent with no real reaction to him knowing since she never really adressed it in my playthrough but it was hinted at. Lee having his arm cut off I had hoped would impact the ending somehow by maybe extending his time till death compared to not doing so and if he didn't hack it off he'd have perhaps died before saving Clem but nope.
The stranger at the end being angry at me despite my choices (even when I didn't take the food) did make me think about my actions but knowing that he'd hate me no matter what I did in other playthroughs and the fact he talked to his decapitated wifes head to make him out as crazy further made my previous actions seem pointless on the plot cause he'd hate me anyway.
The final scene with Clem and Lee I will admit made me cry, was I satisfied with it? In some ways yes and no. It did a good job of making me really feel for Clem and Lee who truly lost everything and Lee trying to do everything he could with his last dying breaths did add power to the scene but so much still felt rushed and unresolved. Even more so with leaving Clem in that feild, will the final things I said to her before she left me have effected her as a character?
Don't get me wrong, this is by far one of the best games with the best characters in any medium I have ever played. I adore it and encourage more games and stories like it. My biggest gripe was that none of my actions truly effected the plot in any way, everyones playthrough would have the group all going to the farm, then the train, then the city and so on. An alternate storyline where the group perhaps goes somewhere else or triggers events earlier or later than they possibely could have would have been interesting. There were no real times where you would have failed and made the story alter or succeed and make it change except with a game over from a quick time event to which you'd just be popped back into the last time it was there to continue the same storyline.
In a way I can understand that "There are no right decisions" in this which is true, it's all based on what the player thinks would be right at the time as themselves or as Lee but I feel like whether it's the right decision or not is irrelevent and it should be more like "What will be the consequences of my actions be?" Things would have nearly always lead to the same outcome like in this game which would most likely not be the case in real life. In the end I love this game but felt the whole "Your decisions effect the outcome of the plot" thing just didn't happen and made it lose some weight in it's decision making but the choices still felt tough and made me ponder what really is the right thing to do for that situation.
Well done Telltale, you have truly outdone yourselves with this.
And how cool it is that Vainamoinen made the Special Thanks list in the credits?!
I'll admit it. I'm a full-grown man and I bawled like it was me in there. I could feel the pain that was coming from Clementine. (Might I add, she better win a helluva lot of voice acting awards, she was amazing throughout this entire series!) And I never button-mashed harder then the second time where she BEGGED for Lee to get up. I was fighting it til then but then I just let it out and yelled at him, "Get up you son of a bitch! This one last thing, DO IT!"
But I felt that it was also fitting that she did it herself. At least that gave Lee some peace of mind so he could go in peace. She was able to do it..... even if I had to kick the bat at her. <.<
So I gave it a 10/10 all around. Would I have liked to play as Lee for season 2? Yes, of course. But I have a feeling that Telltale will bring out another character that we can grow to love for that season....
Then kill them..... and make me hate them for a day but growing in to an even bigger fan. But come on, Omid and Christa got to live? ... Cos she had a baby. I actually had a feeling once we heard that that she'd be okay for a while at least. Probably out by Ep 2 next season but still. xD
I second this!
The whole Ben and Kenny thing bothered me. If you dropped Ben then Kenny and Ben would never have that topic and they both get melted off at the end. I wanted to see them actually getting away.
The entire game we followed them where they went because they left the group we can't see them. I think entire game was great, voice acting was just top notch. Graphics were smooth no glitches and the story's were compelling.
I just wished we could've seen what happended at the end. I wanted to see them jumping on that dang boat.
My only problems with it is the fact that the majority of the choices are mostly just illusions. The only ones that affect anything is choosing to save Larry and Ben, and even then they mostly just affect small things (namely, Kenny; If you try to save Larry he will be a lot more douchey towards you, and if you save Ben he will die in a more spectacular manner than if you let Ben go. Either way, it felt mostly like a cheap little thing that TTG put in there, but otherwise i enjoyed them. The fact that even if i had a suspicion that they didn't matter i still felt a bit bad about the choices i made speaks for the level of quality writing TTG is capable of, so kudos.
10/10, really good game series. Can't wait for season 2.
We got you walking dead fans! For season 2 our next trick will be to make sure none of our episodes corrupt your data!
http://www.spike.com/events/video-game-awards-2012-nominees/voting/
Was that your idea to have that image in the main menu? Very clever!
After finishing the final episode I give it a 7. The last one was just flat out lazy.
1: Killing the protagonist and leaving the player/viewer with an unhappy ending is no longer unique. It's been done countless times in both the gaming and movie industry.
2: Way too short. After all the build up, all the questions that need to be answered, they make a final episode that's not even half as long as most of the other episodes. It looks like they just rushed this out as fast as they could to get it over with.
3: Lame final conflicts. You finally find the guy who's been watching Clem. The guy who's been mysteriously contacting you for the past few episodes. He's able to take Clem away from the group without anyone noticing....but doesn't lock the door on Clem in the hotel and his plot is foiled by a 9 year old with a wine bottle....Plus instead of tense moments as you stand-off with this guy, you have a nice sit down discussion with him about things that happened in previous episodes.
Then the radiator scene...I'm fine with an ending that doesn't have everyone riding off into the sunset, but you can't do it in such an anti-climactic way. The hero of the game is first saved by a 9 year old twice, only to die next to a radiator a few minutes later. People will justify it in any number of "artistic" ways. He starts the game in handcuffs, and ends in handcuffs...so what. This is a game, not an indie film.
4: Lack of actual choices that affect the story. This is more of a whole series problem instead of just the last Episode, although it is most evident in the last one. None of your choices and decisions actually have much of an effect on the story.
Sure can save one person instead of the other, but no matter which one you pick they will play the same role in the game and either one will die at roughly the same time in the game. Saving Doug instead of Carly has no effect on the major storyline. You're still going to go to the same locations, and the same dangerous situations will happen.
NO MULTIPLE ENDINGS. For a game that has a message before every episode claiming that your choices affect the story, it's pretty ridiculous that they can't even include multiple endings. Getting shot in the head while handcuffed to the radiator, or just being left alone handcuffed to the radiator are not multiple endings. They're the same thing.
Telltale had a storyline planned for this game, but following the great success of the game they phoned this one in. The entire ending seems to be created entirely for the sequel. The basically put what should be the beginning of a game, at the end of this one....and yes, I did see the scene after the credits, it was even more proof of the Sequels ruining the first series.
I actually lost my saved game after reformatting, so instead of just installing episode 5 and going, I played through every episode in 2 days. Even though I knew the story of the first 4, they were still a ton of fun...more fun than the first play-through of the last one. I think that says something about how terrible the last episode was.
Episode 1: 9
Episode 2: 9.5
Episode 3: 8
Episode 4: 7
Episode 5: 4.5
I'm not sure where the comparison leads here. The artistic and rock solid storytelling principles - including a circular narrative structure - have been part of Telltale's games for quite some time. You can criticize the execution here, but not the application in general. TWD game is pretty much a movie; a bit of artistic sophistication in the genre is the absolute minimum. You will not only find this in "indie" films - the most prized of Hollywood's flicks have always been heavy with this kind of stuff.
When i thought i finally had the issue fixed, all of my save files no longer appear in the screen and now the system wants me to start the whole game over complete from scratch even though i have several save files in my documents folder as well as the pref.prop file. This has been my most dissapointing moment of this series. It's just too damn buggy.
2ndly, choice does infact NOT matter. Nothing u do will affect the outcome which was my understanding with "Choice Matters". The only thing choice did was influence Clementine, mold or shape her. But then you don't get to see how these choices are carried forward for clementine.
So, in the end the game was enjoyable, however several aspects of the story just don't add up, such as clementine dragging a 180 pound adult through a horde of walkers to saftey. 1 of many things i found that just don't make sense.
It doesn't matter what criticism is given. The fanboys of the game will just yell "Artistic" and "OMG it's the Zombie Apocalypse, things don't always happen like they should".
Would these same people be fine if lee fell off a building to his death before even finding Clem? No, they wouldn't. So stop justifying this lazy ending by saying that it's what could really happen in a Zombie outbreak. Dying at the end isn't the problem, doing it in the most anticlimactic way possible is. They could have had him sacrifice himself to a herd of Zombies in order to distract them away from Clem as she ran. Not only would that be a bit more exciting, but it would be even more emotional for Clem. She wouldn't get to say goodbye and would have to watch Lee get ripped apart.
...and no Hollywood film would ever accept this kind of ending. Show me a movie where the final confrontation is significantly easier and less involved than the conflicts earlier in the movie. Did Luke Skywalker board the Death Star for the second time and slice Darth Vaders head off while he's taking a shower? No, he didn't. The build up to the final meeting between them two led to an actual epic moment, not an extremely short sequence where an Ewok hits Vader in the head with a wine bottle....
Didn't.
Artistic approaches can be attacked and defended. They can be poorly executed or pretentious. You can argue that. In no way was 'artistic' ever meant as a killer argument. Also, define "should".
I did not interpret the Stranger as "the boss battle". And I would have been disappointed if they just set this up as a 'video game' ending this way. The narrative meaning of the stranger was to make clear to Lee that whatever decisions he made, he always hurt someone with it. Now I don't believe that this was particularly necessary at this point of the game, nor all too well executed. But just more lame QTEs for the boss fight(s) just to reach another level of 'epic' really wouldn't have cut it ('press Q so Clementine can escape' - thank yooo, pas de interest). The climax was supposed to be the very quiet moments with the Stranger and Lee's death, not the power of a poor deluded man who was robbed of his entire family. Lee has taken plenty of brave steps towards saving Clementine, but he was also violently ill and weakened at the end. You wanted him to die standing; but if the designers wanted to focus on his lingering infection and his battle against it, that's not what they'd do.
Luke Skywalker did not "board" the Death Star. He was taken there. He never fought the emperor. There was indeed a fight between him and his father, even an epic one. But his arch enemy was more or less just kicked down a shaft, and certainly not by Luke himself! But you're right to assume that Episode VI was indeed about the final confrontation between Vader and Luke, while TWD Season 1 clearly was not about Lee vs. the Stranger.
If you're looking for movies with toned down or "easier" conflicts in the ending, you may look towards a whole lot of coming of age movies, where the abilities and self confidence of the protagonist have risen through experience to such a degree that the central conflict, the one that defined her/him in the beginning, can actually be solved with a snap, maybe a sharp word towards a former figure of authority; and you can look towards a whole lot of other movies where the final conflict, the one everyone fears, turns out to more or less solve itself ("Little Miss Sunshine" among them; which is especially interesting in light of your Star Wars comparison because the script writer of that movie will also do Episode VII).
I agree. It's good to see that the game's message of "the world is shades of gray, not black and white" was completely missed by many players of this game.
You just said that you agree with the poster who said people should stop bashing other's opinions...and then go on to bash people by saying that they missed a concept in the game....
The irony is too much..
No offense, but you missed my point. I wasn't bashing anyone. My post was commentary on the fact that this forum appears to now be divided up into kneejerk post replies and folks with black-and-white mentalities (i.e. trolls vs. fanboys) rather than people trying to have middle-ground, gray-area, objective discussions about the potential merits and downsides to this game. Sort of like the US 2012 presidential election.
You made little girls cry with that. I saw the videos.
God bless her; the voice of her people! Seriously, a bunch of us are going to be crying with her if they don't shut it with the bullshit "who will run in 2016" already. Give us a damn break.
In episode four I was missing the "difficult choices". Now, after 5th I'm not.
The confrontation with our decisions about Clementine was really good. Just when I had entered the Hotel I was able to feel amazing atmosphere of this place. After having few words with kidnapper I knew that one of us was not gonna to stay alive. I had to protect Clem and I was fighting like never before in any game to save her from that man.
The ending was the most emotional and simply the best moment in the history of video games.
What about whole first season of TWD?
General assumptions for the story are a routine as for the others post-apocalyptic fiction novels. It is about survival, food, loss of loved ones, travel and shelter. Nothing new. But implementation method was wonderful.
Characters are written excellently. Only at the end of I understand how big bond is between me and Lee and Clementine. In addition to their there are amazing supporting characters like Lilly and Kenny.
An equally important element in the total is the atmosphere. The fact that we were able to lose loved ones made me feel uncertainly.
I must also mention the very good dialogues and brilliant moments both poignant and shocking. For example, Carley's death.
Thanks are also due to designers and actors for visuals and voice acting. They did a great job.
Were there any disadvantages?
Yeap. Few worse moments in episode four and few technical issues with saves and downloading.
A lot of people say that their choices are limited. I have to disagree with them. I wrote a few words about it in [SPOILERS]Limited Choices discussion (merged threads).- "It's the decisions that change you, not the outcome." And I had known what I was buying. An adventure game. What does it mean? That the story has an impact on you and not vice versa. Even if it was written "This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play." I did not expect it will be like cRPG game with branched storyline. Besides, where one will see only the lack of any intervention, others see a very high consistency of the story.
I will be missing the waiting time for next episodes and I do not know how good will have to be 2nd season to be better than 1st.
In the end I wish to mention about The ending once again. I was thinking a lot about it and I will never forget it.
Bravo Telltale! Thank you for that brilliant story.
PS Sorry for my English. I hope that one day I will be able to buy boxed edition in my country. ( I'm from Poland)
Final episode sure was the shortest. Maybe to make up for various pathways? It felt pretty teamdriven the first half, so I wonder how it would be if you went solo. Who'd want to cut off your arm for example? Own idea?
Also, the "reason" for the bad guy being a bad guy. If you made a different one would it be the same guy with a different reason? Probably, kinda sucky though. Damned if you do, damned if you don't isn't much of a choice.
Also stupid was near the end just given up on 1000(!) zombies being a threat and just murdering a path through them. If we could simply do that why did so many of my team die, why are we running all these episodes? Just chop chop like here. Eeeehhh...
And after the ending another proof little girls *never* listen... :facepalm:
Besides that, it had some interesting choices and happenings, and since the gameplay sucks as always, it's funfactor is entirely decided by that. So one of the better episodes overall due to that...
EDIT:
Due to the wording of the poll options, a 6 from me... not good enough to be 'really enjoyable'... needs more solid gameplay for that...
Took quite a while making that wording up.
Numbers are a bit unfit to really judge a game with, even more so considering that there seldom is a game that doesn't get more than 75% by all those gamezines out there. So the 'identifiers' up there are actually the definition of the numbers. But things are going REALLY well for the game in that poll, aren't they?!?
It really was a great game. As I have suggested, I'd love to see options in the episodes where you could A) Defend at camp or
I'd also like to see more "disposable" characters. Like if you have 5 to start with and 1 dies a chapter, but it really doesn't matter who. So in chapter 5, first player could have character A with them while second player could have character E with them. (This of course does not include "main" characters like Kenny that is essential to the story)
Also a little extra on the action and difficulty would be nice.
I really liked TWD. It had its ups and downs, but overall it was pretty good.
sometimes the main character was a bit too dumb... like when he got bitten.
I just don't get playing a game like this if the end is decided for you.
When i first started playing i was really excited and thought what i chose mattered but really it didn't. All i was choosing was one of two roads that led to the same destination.
It's like a choose your own adventure but with each characters ultimate survival already set in stone. I prefer games that give me the chance to decide a characters fate. If i wanted something set in stone i'd just watch the tv series.
I think i'll do that anyhow. No way will i get sucked into a sequel to the game.
Forgive me if my review offends you. Remember it's just my opinion and you know the story about everyone having one of those right?
Peace everyone!
The game is "Tailored".Which dosen't mean that you get story-branching.The choices you are making don't seem to impact you at first,but every single thing you said or done the game remembers and you develop a different relationship with characters and different dialog options.Lets say there is a shirt beign "Tailored" for you.You will get shorter or longer sleeves,but you won't get a third sleeve. :P
I don't know what you ment by "A game that give me a chance to control a character's fate".You can choose to either save Doug or Carley,which is one of the most important decisions in the game.You can spare or kill the St.John's,which will change the way characters are looking to you.You can have Molly die or live depending if you brought Clem with you to Crawford or not (and depending how good you are with guns),you can drop Ben or pull him up,which again changes the way fifth episode goes. ;-) And about the ending,alright,Lee dies,but you can either have him die as a human,or let him turn into a walker.
Amazing game and powerful storyline..
Episode 2 was the best in my opinion, and episode 4 my least favorite. Likely because the majority of the original group had been killed off by that point. My biggest criticism of the game was the death of Lee. It is very disheartening that after the hell Lee goes through trying to keep clementine and the group safe through the previous 4 episodes the game ends with his death...idk just didnt seem right to me. Even though this is the zombie apocalypse the ending shouldnt have been so depressing. There should have been at least a small bit of happiness at the end of the game, such as Lee and Clementine together again, unsure of what the future holds for them, but alive together none the less.