[SPOILERS]The Walking Dead episode 5 and entire game REVIEW thread

[Sabiancym]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

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....

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by Sabiancym

So stop justifying this lazy ending by saying that it's what could really happen in a Zombie outbreak.

Didn't.

Originally Posted by Sabiancym

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".

Originally Posted by Sabiancym

...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).

[dustpuffs]

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.

[lucidity02]

Originally Posted by dustpuffs

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.

[Sabiancym]

Originally Posted by lucidity02

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..

[lucidity02]

Originally Posted by Sabiancym

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.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by lucidity02

Sort of like the US 2012 presidential election.

You made little girls cry with that. I saw the videos.

[dustpuffs]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

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.

[CarScar]

Definitely 10/10, if it isn't worthy for a 10/10 then I have no idea what kind of game would deserve it.

[Raidenorius]

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)

[Hassat Hunter]

My review;

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...

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

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?!?

[Alex1939]

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 B) 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.

[TheRickGrimes]

I really liked TWD. It had its ups and downs, but overall it was pretty good.

[Zombie2k12]

hmmm... overall a solid 7 from me.

sometimes the main character was a bit too dumb... like when he got bitten.

[TheWalkingPotato]

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

[Textbook]

A 7 for me. If you had really been able to determine your own path through the story, it would've shot up, possibly even to 10.

[MaxEvans77]

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!

[Araron]

Originally Posted by MaxEvans77

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. :-)

[BenIsKindaCool]

10/10

Amazing game and powerful storyline..