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  1. #1

    The Walking Dead the Game - a revolution in gaming?

    I've played recently a game I have tried to avoid for a long time. Everything I knew was that it was an adventure game, and that it was about zombies. Pretty much hating those two things, I evaded it for as long as I could, until my friend nearly forced it into me. And by God, it's astonishing.

    For those who havent played - this is indeed a kind of adventure game with zombie plot, based on a comic book of the same name. You guide your character, Lee, through a series of events during a zombie invasion. The game puts a little attention to the zombies themselves, rather making it a background for great character developement and relationships - and having to make difficult choices based on them.

    To make it clear - it was the first time I actually felt any connection, any bond with a video game character. Not only with Lee, your main protagonist, who thanks to hundreds of choices that need to be made becomes a kind of your soul mirror, but with Clementime - a girl you babysit during the whole game. If you think a computer generated girl playing a major role in the game is not going to have any influence at you - just play it, I wouldn't believe it myself. And not only her - every character you meet is another tough choice to make, lines of dialogue to listen to, another thought to have.

    Another thing important is the fact you have no "right choices" here. Where you see yourself in a situation where you ave to choose to save either a woman or a man (and you built some relationship with both before), you don't get 100 points for the right choice - there is none. You simply keep the story going, experiancing the possible drawbacks of your choice later - but somehow this game rather prevents you from loading the previous checkpoint to change your choice. It kinda tells you "it's your choice, keep it, you have no reason to regret it".

    And to sum up - the thing that shocked me the most is the fact... this thing barely resembles an actual game. I played a few adventure games before - none grasped me tho - and they were swarmed with puzzle games, clue finding, minigames, stuff like that. This game doesn't make you play it - it makes you write itself. It's like a TV series you are writing and experiancing at the same time. I'll tell you something - there are moments in the game where you do NOTHING but press the 'w' key to move ahead, usually in pretty bad enviroment (there are zombies here, just reminding). If you stop pressing it, nothing bad happens, you just don't move. This sounds like a terrible idea at first - why don't just make it a cutscene? Tell you what - even those little 'w' scenes make you feel "in character" more than most recent games. I don't know how they did it, but it works.

    So, a question: do you thing a kind of revolution is coming? This 'game' is nothing players experianced since CDI or Sega CD "Interactive movies", and we all know how much that sucked. Is it a sign that this idea was just terribly handled, and it can come back with such amazing games as "The Walking Dead"? Or is it a one time thing that was surely very good indeed, but the players will forget it soon enough, and the idea wont catch up?

  2. #2
    Deleted
    There have been millions upon trillions of games like this released. Just because they're not sold at major retailers doesn't mean they don't exist.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    I agree with everything you say, Okacz, this game is one of the best games i've ever played in my life, and i just can't wait to play the 5-10 episodes.
    The only thing that dissapointed me was that whatever you choose - it doesn't actually matter, you will get the same ending
    But the ending will make you cry because Lee and a lot of characters became so close to you that you want everyone to survive.

  4. #4
    I'm not sure I'd call TWD a revolutionary game, but it was really fucking good. Easily one of my favorites of the year. I don't think that it's the game's design that makes it great or special, it's the emotional attachment and feeling of responsibility that the person playing develops over the course of the game. I don't care about other characters in other games the way that I cared about Lee and Clementine. I'd like it if more games made characters that were as real as the ones in TWD felt. That's what made the game so wonderful to me.

  5. #5
    Definitely not a revolution in terms of gaming as the actual game mechanics are nothing new and not really all that great. It's only the writing and acting that make it a truly amazing game, and I hope that a lot of other games take this on board going forward so that we can get engaging stories and feel connections to the characters.

  6. #6
    A lot of games would benefit from just plain better writing. Even some of the best games on the market have writing that ranges from ho-hum to utter shit.

    The draw back is that game makers seem to think good writing is only needed in huge spectacle games and it only gets used during huge spectacle events, while the writing in the rest of the game is laughable in comparison.

  7. #7
    I read up about the game, at first it didn't interested me, but then I decided to give it a go. Oh god it was really good, one of the best games of 2012 in my opinon.
    The game wraps you up in its events and makes you care in a way very few games can. I wouldn't call it a revolution in gaming just because of that though. But it was really amazing and I can't wait for episode 6-10!

    For anyone that haven't played it, go for it! Every episode is around 4-5 hours of gameplay and there's total of 5 out at the moment.
    Last edited by Harnace; 2013-01-21 at 06:13 PM.

  8. #8
    It's far from revolutionary, it's just damn good. Telltale has been making adventure games for years, and they've made a ton of them, so it would stand to reason that eventually they would nail it and produce an amazing game.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by unholytestament View Post
    A lot of games would benefit from just plain better writing. Even some of the best games on the market have writing that ranges from ho-hum to utter shit.

    The draw back is that game makers seem to think good writing is only needed in huge spectacle games and it only gets used during huge spectacle events, while the writing in the rest of the game is laughable in comparison.
    I agree with this 100%. The writing is superb in TWD. So many games out there have fantastic stories but the writing is inconsistent, whether dialogue or just fleshing out the tale. A game with great writing can almost stand on that alone.

  10. #10
    As an adventure game it was quite lacking, but the cinematic approach, writing and voice acting is what pulled this game together to make for a very fun and entertaining experience. While I usually prefer a more traditional approach to point and click adventure games (Longest Journey, Syberia, Grim Fandango, etc), I think they were able to get much more emotion from the characters by going with the more simplified game with the more cinematic presentation. By dropping the large inventory of random items to be used in later puzzles and backtracking to areas multiple times, they could focus more on keeping the story moving. I'm looking forward to Season 2, but I'm also hoping that this success doesn't affect more traditional point and click adventure games.

  11. #11
    Pit Lord Doktor Faustus's Avatar
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    I enjoyed LA Noire for similar reasons you state, many others did not.

    It comes down to taste, and I guess, experience of games like that.

    Gaming is so commercial these days, a great strength (more games get made) and a great weakness (plenty of shit, clones, etc).

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclone Jack View Post
    As an adventure game it was quite lacking, but the cinematic approach, writing and voice acting is what pulled this game together to make for a very fun and entertaining experience. While I usually prefer a more traditional approach to point and click adventure games (Longest Journey, Syberia, Grim Fandango, etc), I think they were able to get much more emotion from the characters by going with the more simplified game with the more cinematic presentation. By dropping the large inventory of random items to be used in later puzzles and backtracking to areas multiple times, they could focus more on keeping the story moving. I'm looking forward to Season 2, but I'm also hoping that this success doesn't affect more traditional point and click adventure games.
    I'm a huge fan of the traditional point-and-click games as well (The Longest Journey being my favorite), and I really agree with you about the success affecting future games. Speaking of TLJ, the third game in the series is in development!

  13. #13
    Slow paced. Bad graphics. Horrible combat. All in all a horrible game

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Lycoris View Post
    There have been millions upon trillions of games like this released. Just because they're not sold at major retailers doesn't mean they don't exist.
    seeing you like to exeggerate, i'd like to point out to you that you're wrong and that there has not been a single game in history of gaming that even comes remotely close to what "the walking dead game" does.

    edit, on topic:
    this game really is a blast to play. if you like the comic (or the tv series for that matter), this game is for you! a game with a lot of meaningful choices and unmatched character depths. but you have to understand that call of duty kids won't like it. *looks up*
    Last edited by brirrspliff; 2013-01-21 at 06:21 PM.

  15. #15
    Mechagnome Seiken3's Avatar
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    Not a revolution, no. It's well made and got a rather good story, and frankly; the whole concept is very good. But it has been done before.. many times, so I guess this game will get high score, but be left at that.

  16. #16
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    I definitely wouldn't call it revolutionary, it didn't do anything new or different to what many adventure games have done before it - but it did it exceptionally well. I think that the gameplay was very successful even in its simplicity, the writing, characters and voice acting done to near perfection, all in order to make you emotionally invested in the storyline, to make you feel like you were making the decisions and that you were part of the adventure. But as for revolutionary, no, not at all.

    I hope that we get more high quality games in this genre but I'm not convinced that we will; it's a niche genre and TWD had the backing of a very successful comic book series and a TV series lending some weight to the name (even though it was a different storyline, it was still a name people recognised). I hope we don't see a plethora of sub-par adventure games on the market now - I don't think we will though - and I hope that Season 2 can live up to season one, they're going to have a hard time coming up with characters that people will connect with as much as Lee & Clem.

    I really don't think there needs to be anything revolutionary in this genre, it just needs to be done really well.
    Last edited by mmoc99cfbcce04; 2013-01-21 at 06:27 PM.

  17. #17
    I am Murloc! Sy's Avatar
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    as much as i like the game, i've yet to see anything even remotely "revolutionary" in it that i haven't seen equally well done or even better in some rpg (most notably the mass effect and the witcher series).
    i like the game, i like the characters and the story, i like (most) of the hard choices. but i haven't really seen anything new in it.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by brirrspliff View Post
    seeing you like to exeggerate, i'd like to point out to you that you're wrong and that there has not been a single game in history of gaming that even comes remotely close to what "the walking dead game" does.
    Are you claiming there are no similar games or no similar games of comparable quality?
    Because if it's the first one, my only reply is laughter.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by brirrspliff View Post
    seeing you like to exeggerate, i'd like to point out to you that you're wrong and that there has not been a single game in history of gaming that even comes remotely close to what "the walking dead game" does.

    edit, on topic:
    this game really is a blast to play. if you like the comic (or the tv series for that matter), this game is for you! a game with a lot of meaningful choices and unmatched character depths. but you have to understand that call of duty kids won't like it. *looks up*
    Are the choices actually meaningful? Someone earlier in the thread said you get the same ending no matter what you choose throughout the story. I'm curious if the choices you make have any affect whatsoever on the story.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shinoashi View Post
    He doesn't need a source to know that he pretty much hit the nail on the head.
    “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” - Christopher Hitchens

  20. #20
    It really doesn't feel like a game tbh. I know it's a game, but I think it fits better to call it an interactive movie.
    Why am I back here, I don't even play these games anymore

    The problem with the internet is parallel to its greatest achievement: it has given the little man an outlet where he can be heard. Most of the time however, the little man is a little man because he is not worth hearing.

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