Great damn game
My Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles for 2015 #02: The Walking Dead Season One + 400 Days
On 10/28/2015 at 07:55 PM by NSonic79 See More From This User » |
I had hoped to avoid a “zombie” game to be on this list. It would seem too cliché given how the thought that the zombie crazed has been overly played out. But I have to admit that I still enjoy a zombie game or two in my time. And even though I do have a VAST collection to choose from in Octoberween Game Titles that involve zombies, I found myself gravitating away from that zombie fair and focused more on the ones that I’ve missed in recent years. I really can’t say I’m a big fan of “The Walking Dead” TV series, though I have been known to watch a season or two back in the day. I think the far I have gotten is season three before I had to take a break from all that goes on in that show. It’s not the zombie apocalypse I tire of but the people that are involved. I understand that during harsh times people can get desperate. But I don’t expect people to go full out crazy or worse, crazy stupid desperate. I understand people need to do to survive but sometimes the human drama can get too much for me. I can get rather disgusted by their actions and reasoning very quickly over a binge watch. Why are you wanting to have sex? Being pregnant may not be the best option now. Why are you holding on to petty jealousy? You need to help your fellow man. Why are you arguing about the fate of one man who you KNOW will run off and tell the bad guys your location and will surly raid your farmhouse?!?!?! So as you can see it took me awhile to get around to playing this adventure series from TellTale Games. Even that name alone wasn’t enough to convince me to give it a try and stomach the possible stupid actions others in the game would make. Little did I realize that it wasn’t just the NPC’s that might do something stupid….
The Walking Dead Season One tells the story of Lee Everett as he’s being transported to jail after being convicted of killing a senator who was sleeping with his wife. As he’s being transported by police car the zombie apocalypse takes place, thus setting this story during the events from the comic. As Lee you stumble upon a little girl named Clementine who you eventually take under your wing as you try to survive and figure out what has happened during the events of The Walking Dead series. If you’ve watched the shows or read the comics this whole story set up should sound familiar: man wakes up during zombie apocalypse, pieces together what’s gone on, gains allies and enemies along the way and has to decide how to deal with said allies and enemies as human drama and primal nature take their course as they all try to survive in this new environment. If you’re up for the show then you will be down for what this game has to offer. But instead of it being more like other zombie games that deal with this nature like Left 4 Dead, State of Decay and even the Resident Evil series (both old and new), you play out The Walking Dead Season one as an adventure game made to look like a graphic novel. I wasn’t sure exactly how to make of this art design given what I’ve come to expect out of TellTale Games but after playing what I have, I will admit that I was taken aback on how well the game is presented in this style. I was expecting something corny, or even cheesy, like static animations or cookie cutter character designs as you read story text below the screen as a voice action spoke their lines. I wasn’t a big fan of that kind of story narrative when it came to the video game of Battle: Los Angeles so I was pleasantly surprised in seeing a fully functional 3D adventure game environment like you’d expect from other TellTale titles. And given I’ve come to enjoy games like Sam & Max, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Strong Bad’s Cool Games for Attractive People series made things right at home for me. Character animation was done well enough in keeping with the artistic format but I did notice some glitching during my games. Nothing major mind you but enough to notice if you have an eagle eye for such things.
Thankfully that doesn’t pull you out of the game play thanks in part to the voice acting being top notch. Every character speaks their part excellently and fit their character rolls well. You’ll either come to love, hate or even both when it comes to certain characters given how they are portrayed. You’ll find the good people trying to stay good, bad people doing their best not to go too far the dark path of their character and some people trying to keep some civility amongst the group as things start spiraling downhill. You get introduced to a variety of characters as the game progresses. I have to admit I was annoyed by Larry’s character and wished him dead while I was hoping that characters like Carley would last the entire season. You get the same feeling as you connect with your favorite characters in this game like you would with the comics’ or TV show. And like those forms of media, you’ll find yourself floored when the ones you hope make it don’t, or worse, the ones that did make it get something you didn’t expect them to get.
The adventure game narrative plays well where you have your basic simple functions to progress in the story. You can either turn on the User Interface so you can see what items on screen you can interact with or turn off that feature and leave yourself pawing thru the environment just like you would in real life in trying to figure out what you need and what you should do to survive. During those moments you don’t really run into any instadeath moments or noticeable traps in the game. This game doesn’t try to trip you up in that fashion but instead sticks to trying to stump you on puzzles that come about in how you are to progress in the game. The puzzles themselves didn’t seem too hard for me to figure out on my own, I was mostly trying to figure out if I should try to do other tasks outside of the main game’s story if only to show goodwill toward others, possibly make events easier down the line, or fearing I might miss a critical plot point. Though most of all the game options you can choose are simple, there is a hint of uncertainty pinned to your actions given that we are told that “every action in game will have effects that are felt down the road”. Though I didn’t find that EVERY action played out this way, certain reactions do influence certain events of the story. There are some “crux” events where you’ll be graded on how you reacted to any given situation (Like looting an abandoned car filled with food or not) but that was just mostly for the community feel in knowing how your fellow gamers chose in your situation. It’s like those graded scenes in the game “Catherine” that don’t really seem to affect game outcome in a major way, but shows the world how you are like to play and where your character is as a, well, character.
The areas where you’ll find yourself in danger of dying is when you have your “quick time event” moments where you have to rapidly tap on a button to avoid the danger or make sure you hit the proper button to perform an action to avoid dying. I can see how this game might’ve played better on a PC since you’d have free roaming movement of your mouse to move your cursor quickly. But the gamepad on my PS3 works just as well even if I have to use an analog stick to position my cursor, though I will admit it has cost me a life or two when I’m supposed to have it centered on a guy with a gun so I could gain the action to push the gun barrel away from me. You even get a brief segment where you sight down a hunting rifle and peck off zombie heads from a distance. I have to admit that those moments were the hardest for me to take pictures of for it was easy to die or make a bad choice in the heat of the moment.
That’s another thing this game has going for it. During certain points in the game you get to choose what response Lee can give during in game dialogue. The game will pause for a moment and you’re given a choice of phrases to say that are pertinent to the circumstance. These moments give the game a “choose your own adventure” feel as the responses you’re offered to respond with can range from angry to sensible to outright being a jerk. And what makes it even harder to decide on which character response you’ll make, you don’t even know IF that response is civil or insulting. The game does show you what the responses are but when Lee speaks them they come out different than what you’d expect. An example can be when an NPC asks about what kind of defensive measures you have at your hotel, one of the responses I chose was to mention that we had guns to defend ourselves but the response choice made it look like that Lee was also DEMANDING what kind of defenses the NPC character had. But in truth Lee just made his comment rather neutrally instead of the response choice that made it appear he was outright demanding the answer from the NPC. Also did I mention that certain situations are on a timer? There will be some dialogue events where you have to make a timed decisions before the timer runs out. Honestly I never waited around to find out what the outcome would be if that timed moment expired. The worse I had of that happen is when the character asking Lee the question just assumed Lee was the quiet type.
I’m told its moments like those where you have the chance to deescalate possible dangerous situations. There was one situation where I was able to avoid an actual fight scene with a NPC because I was able to talk him down from his grief. That was something I didn’t expect out of this game given how the series as a whole seems to be based on the fact of human drama drawn out by these inter-personal escalations of emotion. It was a surprising and welcome option to have in a game title involving the Walking Dead franchise. But what surprised me the most about this game is how much fun I’d have trying to decide what path I would take in this game as Lee.
Like I said above the game gives you options in how your character will become as the game unfolds. He can be honest, mean, ugly, humble or just plain milquetoast. I found myself at first trying to play the game as how I would play it if I were really in the world of The Walking Dead. I tried to avoid making the “stupid mistakes” that I had noticed others in the series were making while at the same time, make the hard choices that seemed so obvious to be done to ensure the survival of the group. I’ll have to admit that the game makes it much harder to decide on the fly which is the right choice or stupid mistake in-game. But what got me thinking the most in my actions was in how I handled my interactions with Clementine. Being a guardian of a little girl during my time, I found myself choose the path that had me protecting here and reassuring her during the course of the game. I was open and honest in all my responses and I did my very best not to lead her astray or make her feel uncomfortable around me. This path made it hard for me to channel my “virtual reality sociopathic” ways in gaming given how I wasn’t sure how my possible homicidal actions would affect me in game. I literally dodged an emotional bullet with Clementine when I was given the choice to choose the fate of a bad NPC by either killing him with a pitchfork or sparing his life. As much as the “virtual reality sociopath” in me said to kill him quick and thus not leaving a chance of him coming after us later, I ended up sparing his life. Something I would call a “stupid mistake” in the show but upon finding out that Clementine had come into the barn just as I was about to kill this NPC made me glad I “curbed my bloodlust”.
It’s situations like those that make The Walking Dead Season One a chore to playthrough. You’re almost emotionally drained as you would be from watching an episode. As of this writing I’ve yet to play the entire first season or the “400 Days” DLC that bridges Season One and Two together. Part of it is because of what you go thru in game but also because I’m playing multiple games AT THE SAME TIME, to see how certain outcomes play out depending on the choices I made. My personal favorite is what happens if you do or don’t push Omid off the bridge….
In the end I can’t say for sure if the decisions you make in this game do have an effect over the overall story, along with what comes to pass in Season Two (which I also own) but from what I ’ve been able to play wouldn’t surprise me if events do change dramatically as the story unfolds. If anything it’s a compelling enough of a reason to see how it all ends at the end of Season One.
This game does have the means to bring on the Octoberween feelings with all the zombies and disemboweling moments in the game but instead of it being mostly jump scares or supernatural encounters, The Walking Dead Season One brings other feelings than just fear from what goes bump in the night. It evokes the essence of what you see in the series on TV. The utter helplessness of circumstances, the fear if you’ll die of hunger, zombie attack, from your fellow man, or the unknown if the decision you make is the right or wrong one and if the people you’ve come to rely and care for end up not making it at the end of this survivalist journey. I felt for Kenny and his family just as I would if my family were in that situation. It can be very scary indeed if a game you play makes you think in “what would you do” if the roles were reversed, and if the “stupid decisions” of some might not seem that stupid after you’ve been in the decision maker’s shoes.
Given the popularity of “The Walking Dead” I’m sure many either know of this game or have at least played it. I happened to get both Seasons of the Walking Dead on the PS3 for $3.75 each when the games were on sale during a flash sale back in August. The games normally run for $14.99 each so I’m not sure if I would’ve paid full price to be able to get them. If you’re not much of an adventure game player you could wait for the games to het 50% off. I couldn’t pass up owning BOTH seasons of The Walking Dead for $3.75 each even if I would prefer to own them physically. But at that price I’m willing to add them to the rest of my adventure game digital collection on my PS3. And thanks to Microsoft’s Games with Gold Program for October you can own The Walking Dead Season One on both your Xbox 360 and Xbox One! So honestly this Octoberween you don’t have an excuse to at least try out this year’s number 2 pick for my list this year. It took me long enough to get around to playing this game, but I’m glad I finally did. Here’s hoping though that I get enough courage to finish season one before Saturday.
My Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles for 2015:
11) Zombie Panic in Wonderland – 1000 Wii Points
10) Trouble Witches NEO - $9.99 + $1.99 DLC character
09) Slender: The Arrival – on sale $7.49
08) Costume Quest 1 & 2 – on sale $7.49 each + $4.99 DLC “Grubbins on Ice”
07) Fatal Frame - on sale $5.99
06) Metro 2033 – Free thanks to Microsoft’s “Games with Gold” program.
05) Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly – on sale $5.99
04) Decay - $1.00 part 1 + $2.99 x 3 for parts 2, 3, &4 = $9.97
03) Guwange - $9.99
02) The Walking Dead Season One + 400 Days – on PSN Flash Sale $3.75
Ta-ta
“N”
Bonus Video!
We are coming close to the end of “Camera Obscura” so in this episode, Clara and Chad find a way to repair the camera and inadvertently discover the final demon’s next target. Enjoy!
Sleep well tonight….
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