Railroaded Stupidity
My biggest gripe with this episode is the railroaded (no pun) stupidity.
When Clem sees the obvious search party, there's no option to warn Kenny's band, or even Luke for a long, long, time. It's only when Walter has the one-to-one with Clem that you can even bring it up and nobody seems alarmed by this at all. Really, the whole scene would have worked so, much, more convincingly if Clem simply didn't see the lights in the distance. I get that early on Clem might be more overwhelmed with seeing Kenny and that's fair enough but when the group is only there because they're fleeing Carver you'd think- I don't know, maybe you'd want to warn them?
All in all I enjoyed the episode, but it's things like this that get brought up as major, gamechanging events that we as an audience are meant to think "Oh snap! That's trouble!" as would Clem... but instead I'm sure many of us were left scratching our heads. If you're going to present something both we and more importantly * the character* identify it really breaks the immersion some if it just gets ignored for sake of railroading the plot. I respect that not every situation is going to necessarily have the type of reaction we as players might necessarily think of and that's fair enough, a degree of railroading is to be expected as per the demands of the game by its very nature. But why point out the obvious to both the player and Clem if we don't get the opportunity to act upon it?
That said, I enjoyed the Episode a lot. Good job. Sorry if this came across as a bit ranty.
Comments
You're right, I wondered about that too. Would have been the first thing I told them...
Here's another one. Why, when Clem ran out of ammunition, did she just stand there and practically offer herself up like a starter? She's not stupid, she's a survivor and with no obvious threats behind her it was so OOC for her not to just run and at worst try to find another weapon. Yeah, it serves to make Carlos look a bit more heroic, but for what purpose? We've seen Clem duck and dive through walkers before - there's been QTE for these - so she shouldn't have any problem retreating to a better position.
Yeah that was really stupid... I already complained about this on another thread.
yeah i wasn't a fan of the whole, you didn't warn anyone about the group following you over the bridge, until later. However it was reveled a bit later that someone from the group told Walter about them being chased by a group, and that their was someone crossing the bridge.
Still doesn't explain why nobody did anything about it.
I didn't want to shoot the walkers.
They were far away and I wanted to save the ammunition, run into the save lodge instead.
But TTG needed a reason for us to empty our clips so we couldn't use our pistol against Carver....
Well, Matthew said travelers came through there all the time..
And maybe the lodge group counted on Matthew to warn them in case anyone approaches the bridge.
Still, it felt stupid not to be able to warn them..
This also makes little sense. If Matthew is the bridge guard, and they crossed the bridge, why was Kenny not worried when people started asking who Matthew was? I mean, they'd have met him on the bridge... right?
Walter mentions that Matthew liked to go on "long walks" so I don't think being a bridge guard was any sort of permanent post, even if he did keep the station there for something of an outpost. More likely he was just crossing close to the bridge at the time Clem and Luke showed up.
That doesn't make much sense either, because then why would he keep supplies and his favorite knife in a cabin next to where everyone crosses? You can pretty much guarantee that someone's going to loot the place if he's not there...
The chest was locked. Clem only got in because he left his survival knife to pry it open with. There was pretty much nothing else in there but the broken radio and empty cans.
there isn't even an option to back out untill the game takes over control for you too run when you run out of bullets i actually took a second to look for the option and thought where the fk is it, oh crap gotta waste time by shooting knowing there is no bullets but hoping it's just a miss fire..
i reckon after his 'long walks' he rests there watching the bridge, before going back to the lodge.
the fact a bed is there and the knife and some supplies, he can check to see who is legit or a threat just like he did with luke and clem.
that way he could potentially send a signal to the other to hide or re direct them away.
Honestly, I was more caught up with the death of Matthew and trying to figure out what to do with him, along with Kenny. The people with the lights were completely forgotten. I can understand how she forgot.
That's been one of Telltale's weaknesses. It isn't the first time this has happened.
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She mentioned the lights "went back into the woods". There was a horde of walkers between them and Carver's gang on the bridge. Plus, there was the near-shootout with Carlos' and Kenny's groups. She can also tell the cabin group about the search party.
I mean, she's a kid. It'd probably be easy to forget.
While nothing bad came of it, I wanted an option to point out the blood trail to the others early on while we were searching around the truck. Walking over alone and peeking behind the rock seemed like a real recipe for disaster.
My big problem with that part is that you had to click the empty gun multiple times to progress, which doesn't seem to make sense. I stopped firing when I heard the click because why would I keep pulling the trigger when I'm out of ammo? And they ate me.
Telltale scripted everything so don't blame the characters.
I thought that while playing through, why wasn't I able to warm anyone. However Luke mentioned something later so he must have heard when you shouted down from the tower. Nobody seemed too worried about it though which was a bit odd.
Didn't she yell at Luke that she saw people and that's why he went running to talk to the group or did I completely misunderstand that scene?
I don't see this as a flaw, I see it as Clem being strategic and planning her route. She looked scared and frozen with fear but in reality (this is how I chose to see it) she had time to determine the best route to bypass the walkers and quickly make it to the building. Only she was saved from a daring dart around the undead by an all-so-helpful Carlos.