[Megathread] The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)

[PizzaSHARK]

We need one of these. We've got like three or four little threads on the game with a handful of posts each, and they're all full of spoilers without tags. Plus we know that Telltale is working on a Season Two set, and Activision is making some terrible shooter to try and cash in on the TWD craze.

Anyway, for those that don't know, The Walking Dead is an episode adventure game series made by Telltale Games. It uses an aesthetic meant to evoke the appearance of the comic books and near as I can tell can probably run on a fucking Commodore 64. It's been on sale numerous times, and will probably on sale throughout most of this year's winter sale. Apparently it's also on consoles! Seems like a game that would be best played with a gamepad. I couldn't be bothered to hook my gamepad up to my computer, so I don't know if the PC version natively supports them. Keyboard and mouse controls work just fine, however.

The plot of the first season (yes, they refer to it as a "season" and the presentation is meant to echo the TV show's presentation in several ways) revolves around a former convict named Lee coming across a young girl named Clementine and the things they go through together in the fight for survival. As is standard for zombie apocalypse stories and TWD in particular, you meet numerous other survivors and your interactions with them form the core of the plot and gameplay, rather than focusing on the zombies themselves - really, the zombies could be exchanged for virtually any other kind of monster and the overall effect would remain about the same, which is probably why TWD is a successful zombie apocalypse franchise.

The game has nods to both the comics and the TV show, but being familiar with one or both isn't required to understand or enjoy the game, though you'll miss a couple of in-jokes and references to scenes and settings from one or the other. The game takes place before the TV show, so you'll occasionally run across characters from the show who haven't yet gotten to where they are in the show (you'll meet Glenn, for example, and he leaves for Atlanta to come across the TV show's Rick shortly thereafter.)

The game prides itself on having "tough decisions," and these decisions and your treatment of other characters determining how the game proceeds, but unfortunately it's a load of shit. The plot is railroaded throughout the game, and does not change a single bit regardless of your decisions. The game reeks of what TV Tropes calls the "But Thou Must," trope, where the game effectively makes decisions for the player if the player tries to take a path that the plot doesn't allow. To be fair, these situations are all hand-waved with reasonable excuses, though. The main thing that bugged me in regards to the railroading is that of the characters that the plot says will die, literally nothing you can do can prevent it; they might die earlier or later based on your decisions, but they're still going to die. Kind of a bullshit thing to do when the game insists your decisions make a difference, in my opinion.

All that said, however, the game is still very fun and at the ~$12 you can probably get it for right now, is very much worth the money. You can expect each episode (there are five of them) to last you about two to three hours, so you're looking at around ten to fifteen hours of playtime for your money. I think they expect there to be some replay value in there, but as I mentioned, none of your choices make any actual difference to the plot, so there's not much incentive to replay the game with a different attitude towards characters.

[unholytestament]

''Please use the three month old ''megathread'' with only one post that isn't in the sticky.''

/lock

Clearly the wisest choice.

Clearly.

[philefluxx]

Ya that was totally my fault too =/

I swear this thread had more going on, seemed like it was on the first page for a while back during the Steam Winter sale and lots of people were buying it. I feel bad for that other OP now

[Wynnyelle]

Ya that was totally my fault too =/

I swear this thread had more going on, seemed like it was on the first page for a while back during the Steam Winter sale and lots of people were buying it. I feel bad for that other OP now

There was a huge thread a while back when the game came out, but I don't know what happened to it. It wasn't in the megathread directory though, so it probably just got buried and lost somewhere along the line.

[unholytestament]

There was a huge thread a while back when the game came out, but I don't know what happened to it. It wasn't in the megathread directory though, so it probably just got buried and lost somewhere along the line.

Only huge thread I remember was the one made by the guy who thought this was a revolutionary new kind of game that would change the face of gaming.

[Remilia]

Well, there's a few threads that I searched around and seen, none of em really got anywhere.

Has gigantic spoiler.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1269653

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1190110

Issue is with em, is that the 1st one is spoiler central.
2nd one is just basically one episode of it.

[Wynnyelle]

Only huge thread I remember was the one made by the guy who thought this was a revolutionary new kind of game that would change the face of gaming.

Ah yep, that's the one I'm thinking of. I guess that doesn't really count as a megathread then.

[Deleted]

Only huge thread about this that I can remember is this one: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ell-Tale-Games; since I posted a lot in it.

wynnyelle also posted a bit in there too if I remember well.

^ Yup

Anyway, this game is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone.