The Walking Dead (the video game), Episodes 1-4

[queenlua]

Oh yeah I've been playing through these.

In brief: if you're into reasonably strong storytelling, old school point-and-click adventure gameplay, and don't mind some linearity, The Walking Dead game episodes make for a pretty fun romp. Perhaps best enjoyed with friends; they're pretty cinematic.

• If you're going to put quicktime events into what is, at its core, a point-and-click adventure, at least make them interesting or smooth or whatever... maybe it's just because I was playing on an Xbox remote but they felt like clunky surprises than exciting, refreshing interludes from the story. (The "hammer X button repeatedly super super fast or die!" mechanic, in all games, needs to die, ugh.)


• For a game that was all about "your choices affect the story!", it didn't seem like my choices... actually... mattered that much. The choices feel pretty big at the moment of, don't get me wrong; I liked that most the negotiation-ish sequences required you to not only take a stance but back it up with repeated coaxing or aggression or reasoning or whatever, and putting a timer on very tough choices makes stuff feel pretty tense. But after an episode or two, you start to suspect that the plot would wind up the same either way, and when you look into it... yeah, that's often the case. Like, there's one scene where you're trying to decide whether or not to loot food from an abandoned car (on one hand, you guys are really short on food; on the other hand, the car's only recently been abandoned, so maybe the car's occupants will be back soon, and stealing is rude yo). I chose to jack the food because like, dude, starving to death seems unappealing... but as it turns out, it doesn't actually matter whether or not you take food from the car; taking the food just makes you kind of look like an asshole. Sigh.


• For the record, I totally called the twist in episode two, c'mon guys I know all the country folk stereotypes you can't fool me


• I was pretty delighted but how natural-sounding and strong all the voice actors in this game were. On the whole, video game dialogue seems to be getting snappier and smoother and just plain better lately, which is really encouraging; perhaps the days of FE9/10 cutscenes are behind us :P

Comments

[intaglionyx]

As hokey as it sounds, I think The Walking Dead is an example of interactive storytelling where the journey matters a lot more than the destination. Sure, the dozens of choices, small and Big that make up your playthrough aren't going to matter much when you get to that Last Big (arguably Biggest) Choice, but they do shape how you're going to get there and who'll be along for the ride. Few playthroughs are the same, yadda yadda.

The quick-time events pretty much blow, yeah.

In all honesty, while I definitely loved the voice acting in the game, I didn't see it as particularly phenomenal. And, I mean, let's get serious, the voice acting was pretty obviously not a priority when they were making those games. I always figured they pulled a few volunteers from the dev team (or, in NoA's case, a few random people off the street) and had them record the dialogue to save a little money.

Maybe that's uncharitable of me, thou--okay, no, it's really not, FE9/10's voice acting just sucked a whole bunch. I don't know why they bothered.

[queenlua]

re: who'll be along for the ride: amusingly I had Kenny's back in literally damn near everything for the entire fucking game, and then when it got to the end of episode 4 when people are deciding whether or not to help me, I got to listen to him "idk man YOU LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF MORE THAN OTHERS you wouldn't be there for me" and I was like seeeeeriously"

(I wonder if there's any way to get him to help unconditionally, or if he's just an ass no matter what xP )

I have no idea what the actual game-making process was for The Walking Dead, but I would assume that the voice acting actually was a reasonably high priority...? I mean there's not a hell of a lot to the gameplay; they're certainly letting the dialogue be a big centerpiece of the action. Mentally I was comparing it to other voice-acting-heavy video games I'm familiar with, which are like.... Final Fantasy X / Final Fantasy XIII / Metal Gear Solid 4, and like, though to an extent those games are probably harmed by the "trying to get English dialogue to fill up the space of the Japanese original," with Final Fantasy X you have lots of awkward pauses between characters talking, FFXIII voice actors often just felt to overdone/melodrama/whatever and MGS4...

...nanomachines

[intaglionyx]

Ah, oy, let me add a correction to one of my statements, since the lack of clarification totally changed the meaning:

In all honesty, while I definitely loved the voice acting in the game, I didn't see it as particularly phenomenal. As for FE9/10, I mean, let's get serious, the voice acting was pretty obviously not a priority when they were making those games.

Anyway!

Yeah, Kenny's kind of an ass. Funnily enough, I had the opposite issue: I didn't back him up in the salt lick scene, and that colored his perception of me throughout the rest of the game. "Oh, you helped my family constantly and even pulled the trigger in Episodes 3 and 4 so I wouldn't have to...but you didn't help me when it really counted, Lee." Blah blah blah. I got him to come with me anyway when I told him that Clementine "was family" and that I'd been backing his family up throughout the entire story. It was a pretty cool moment.

Anyway, I definitely didn't hate the voice acting for The Walking Dead, but it wasn't a stand-out favorite, either. Maybe I'm just more used to playing U.S.-native RPGs.

If you want to know more about the development process for each episode, there's an interesting series of interviews on GiantBomb that you might like.

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/faces-of-death-part-4-around-every-corner/1100-4448/

That one is for the fourth episode, and has links for the previous three at the top of the interview.

--Wow. There's a pretty substantial spoiler for Awakening in the preview still for their video review. ...At the top of the page. ...Where everyone will see it. Um.

[queenlua]

haha yes that clarification makes sense

I backed Kenny up in the salt lick scene and told him "I NEED you" but evidently that wasn't enough. Alas.

Ah, the U.S.-native RPGs is probably a good point--the last one I played was Mass Effect 2, which was ages ago, but I do remember digging the voice acting there too.

And the interviews look neat; I'll check 'em out! Thanks for sharing.