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The Wolf Among Us, and also The Walking Dead Season 2 (No Spoilers)

Started by Old Nehamkin, October 29, 2013, 05:40:19 PM

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Old Nehamkin

So, like quite a few other Cabbers, I was a really big fan of Telltale Games' recent The Walking Dead point-and-click series. In fact, I'd say it's probably the most emotionally invested and immersed a video game has ever made me feel, even more so than stuff like The Last of Us (which comes very close), Red Dead Redemption, Shadow of the Collossus and ToeJam and Earl[nb]TJ and E's struggle to return to their most bodacious homeland of Planet Funkotron really moved me.[/nb]. It's one of a very small handful of games I've played where the writing is good enough to make me unreservedly care about the characters, to the extent where it really became emotionally exhausting to play at points.

I've read some people criticising the game as being too much of an "Interactive story", but I think that's completely missing the point. Yes, it's not a difficult game by any stretch, and yes, there's a limited extent to which you can influence the main events of the plot,[nb]Which I think actually works in its favour, especially when it comes to the ending. I really dislike the proliferation of the cheap "Oooh, here's where you get to choose how the story ends" device in video games, it reeks of a distinct lack of confidence on the part of the writers. While TWD does give you a choice regarding the exact nature of the final scene, I like that the story's conclusion is- broadly- set in stone and inescapable. Similarly, one of the things I liked most about The Last of Us is that it had the balls to finish the story on its own terms, despite there being a very obvious point late in the narrative where a player decision could easily have been added by a lesser developer.[/nb] but the real appeal of the game is the fantastic atmosphere and the richness of the character interaction. It's being asked a question by Clementine and spending a good 30 seconds agonising over the best way to respond because you're so concerned about how she views you- that's the magic of the game.

Anyway, as I'm sure many of you are aware, Telltale has recently released the first episode of a new series, The Wolf Among Us, which is based on Bill Willingham's comic Fables. Here's a couple of screenshots:






Basically, the game follows a group of ex-fairy tale characters called "fables" who have been exiled from their homeland and forced to live in hiding in a New York suburb called Fable Town. You play as Bigby Wolf, the local sheriff who has to investigate a mysterious series of killin's what start happening. Having played the first episode, it's very strong. They've built upon the art style and mechanics of The Walking Dead; The Wolf Among Us looks significantly more beautiful and the controls are slicker, particularly in the action sequences (Bigby is a far more physical character than Lee was). The Noir-ish atmosphere is really enticing, it's already introduced a very interesting cast of characters with- presumably- many more still to come, and the mystery storyline makes a nice change of tone from TWD. I've got pretty high hopes for the rest of the series. Anyone else play it and got any thoughts? Or any idea when episode 2 is likely to come out?

Oh, in other news, Telltale is apparently due to make an announcement about The Walking Dead Season 2 at 7pm UK time this evening. Here's an enigmatic teaser poster:



I'm quite excited, although I do have some reservations about how things are going to play out given the ending of series 1. The 400 Days DLC was quite entertaining, but
Spoiler alert
I still really miss Lee, Dammit
[close]
. Oh well, we'll see I guess.

Rev

Well it's impossible to talk about the Walking Dead season 2 without one spoiler, as we play the new one as Clementine.  In some ways it's the obvious choice, but it does feel a bit weird - I'd assumed that if it was the case, there'd be a gap of a good few years between the two.  The DLC accelerating time suggested that too, but here we are.

Obvious choice, but also an odd one as unless she's now got robopowers you've got a lead character with a pretty serious physical disadvantage against not only the zombies and bastard humans, but also the environment.  In a sense that's ideal for this kind of story, but in another it limits what they can get up to without ruining the character.  The first one was pretty much about preparing her to survive, but if she's hacking zombies to bits all over the place in this one it'll just feel weird.

The news that your save games from the first one and 400 Days will carry over and affect things is great, though.  I'd hoped it'd be the case, but the fact that you're pretty much eliminating characters throughout 400 Days made it seem a touch unlikely.

Agh. My Walking Dead saves are extinct after I finished it. I was trying to play through it again in preparation for 400 Days and try and do everything the exact same way I did originally but it was a flippin' slog. I eventually just gave up but now if I'm actually going to be playing as Clementine, I guess I just have to do suck it up and finish it. I'm really not one for replaying these kinds of games. I prefer to leave the effect of being so confronted and absorbed alone, but this time it's purely just me trying to game it and contrivedly try and do the exact same things.

Wolf A Mongoose I want to play but I'm just really skint at the moment. Forgot to put in my timesheet but when I do, I'll probably play it.

I've no idea when the second episode will come out though. Telltale always surprises me because they seem to be doing that thing I always wanted games to do, and stop constantly hyping when they're coming out, but just release them suddenly with minimal fanfair. I don't think they ever really announce release dates. Seems to be a When It's done Situation.

Also, Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin have left Telltale to start their own studio, so is the second season being written and directed by different people?

Thursday

I had some weird problem where I couldn't open 400 days I think because I had the region 1 disc version so I had to download episode 1 which was free from the psn store but it meant my saves didn't carry over. Not sure what this is going to mean for the 2nd season.

Quote from: Thursday on October 29, 2013, 11:59:23 PM
I had some weird problem where I couldn't open 400 days I think because I had the region 1 disc version so I had to download episode 1 which was free from the psn store but it meant my saves didn't carry over. Not sure what this is going to mean for the 2nd season.

Ergh. That sucks. I think I might actually write them an email or something, but there was a whole lot of save issues for a huge amount of people who played those games.
I remember hearing about the new Witcher game, I think, and when it comes out, they give you a checklist at the start of all the major decisions and things that happened in your game.

It wouldn't be that hard to implement a similar thing for Season 2. You can just spend 15 minutes filling in an optional check-list. They should really do that.

Also, that Wolf A Mongoose looks flippin' good visually doesn't it? Just really gorgeous lighting from the footage I've seen. Looks a bit Watchman-y.
The whole premise doesn't particuarly interest me from the get-go, but to be honest, either did yet another Zombie Apocalypse so I definitely trust Telltale with this. It'll win me over.

I.D. Smith

I remember I sat on[nb]Not literally[/nb] the final episode of Season 1 of The Walking Dead game for about a week after I bought it, just because I was worried about how much it was going to put me through the emotional wringer. I used to hate/love the way the game would throw a difficult question at you (usually via Clementine) which you'd only have seconds to answer. Often I'd be sitting there, not knowing what to say or how to respond[nb]Much like real life Fnar![/nb], as the time ticked away. Awful but great at the same time. So, I'm looking forward to Season 2![nb]Although I'll admit I'm more looking forward to WWE 2K14 at the moment, in terms of games-that-are-coming-out-that-I-want-to-get[/nb]

Not tried The Wolf Bob Monkhouse yet, though. Might give it a go.


I.D. Smith

Quote from: Bored of Canada on October 30, 2013, 01:00:14 AM
The whole premise doesn't particuarly interest me from the get-go, but to be honest, either did yet another Zombie Apocalypse so I definitely trust Telltale with this. It'll win me over.

Aye, actually this is how I feel too. I downloaded the demo of episode 1 of TWD game on a whim one night, expecting just to have a quick go, be bored, and then delete it - I wasn't that fussed with yet another zombie game, and didn't really fancy it. Ended up buying the episode, then the rest of the season, and it ended up being one of my favourite games in recent years. So I'm hoping the same will happen with this Wolf game.

Got paid. Picked up the Wolf A Mongoose. Downloading now. I know you're all anxiously awaiting for my opinion so I'll just say:
10/10.

I mean, hey, the steam downloading screen has had a fresh new update and looks nice so most of those points are to do with that. Plus it's only a 1 gig download, so I can play it after I make a fresh pot of tea.

Hollow

I love the way 'The Wolf Among Us' looks...never seen such a beautiful game...simply outstanding, the music is gorgeous too...like an eighties thriller.

I'm enamoured by the whole concept to be honest...fairy tale characters but done as a Raymond Chandler novel.

It's made me want to go out and buy all the trade paperbacks.

Looking forward to the new Walking Dead too...but for me TWAU is a breath of fresh air.

Okay. So I finished the first episode.

I'm still undecided on how I feel about it. It's definitely hugely gorgeous looking at times, and it's all well-performed.
But I'm not that invested in it though. The world is actually kind of interesting but still not that original, and I'm not invested in the protagonist either.

It's a Classic Noir, and I mean that in a bad way, in that it takes the genre of a noir, a genre that's riddled with archetypes and cliche plots and twists, and rigorously sticks to it. I was never at all surprised by anything. It's just a by the numbers kind of thing, albeit it in a fantasy setting.

And I don't like the protagonist either. Not yet. I'm hoping too but he's just tough with a heart of gold, really. I mean, you can play him a bit rougher, but still, there's not a lot of edge to him. He doesn't have any vices and he's not like, I don't know, Max Payne in that third game, in that he's just completely destroyed and pathetic. Max Payne is a perfect anti-hero. Bigby's just a tough badass who's always doing the right thing, and he's a supernatural wolf-monster so he can beat everyone up in a fight. He doesn't really have any flaws, other than the past, which is more treated as a bit of a joke. He's too clean. He's not an anti-hero really, although he's treated as one, he's just a normal hero, which really isn't as interesting.

I've not read the comics so perhaps they're just being true to those, but it's not working for me.

I don't know. I'm left a bit cold by that first episode, really. I feel like the later Walking Dead episodes, they've eliminated any of the real puzzles, which is fine since it was never the strong suit, but I feel with the whole Private Investigator thing, a good mechanic would be actual crime-scene investigation or something. It sort of has it but there's only a few things in every room and you're going to click around anyway.

I sound fairly negative with what I'm saying but I'm not saying it's a bad game whatsoever. Just didn't really gel with me as much. Hopefully the second episode wins me over.

The Walking Dead had a formulaic plot in that it's a zombie apocalypse thing, and it was more just a series of complications being thrown at you, although it did have some nice twists and turns, but the story is what hooked me, in the deeper relationships and the characters. I was hugely invested in everyone's relationships by the end of the first episode but there's not really anything like that pulling me through this, making me excited about the next episode. Just the central mystery of the crimes, which, I don't know, I'm not too fussed about at the moment. Noirs always pull twists on you towards the end when you realise you've been looking at everything the wrong way, and this is all part of some completely different picture. And I feel at this point it doesn't matter who I think is the murderer since I either haven't met the murderer yet or I just haven't fairly been given enough information to be able to make the judgement that the game forces upon you multiple times.

Also, Mr Toad is a skint cockney. Flippin' class traitor.

Moribunderast

I'm looking forward to The Walking Dead season two but have been weary of The Wolf Among Us and I think BoC's review confirms my fears. TWD only worked because the characters and relationships were gripping. Without the central focus of Clem and Lee, it would be a pretty dull interactive movie. The lack of puzzles and real 'gameplay' in Walking Dead can be ignored because the emotional core of the story is so strong. Without that, I think the game would bore the piss out of me and that's what worried me with Wolf Among Us. The main element of gameplay being dialogue decisions (or a 'social anxiety simulator' as a friend described it) works in TWD because you really care what Clem thinks of you. Without that emotional investment, it's a pretty flat experience. I'll probably try the first episode of Wolf Among Us at some point but I have my reservations.

On a more general Telltale note, I just played through the first episode of Sam and Max: Season 3. Lovely stuff. Much more puzzle-based than TWD but not as difficult as yer old-school point-and-clicks. Like TWD, though, the joy comes from the central characters. It's a rare game that makes me laugh out loud but that Max is an adorable little maniac.

Thursday

Played through it and enjoyed it more than BOC it seems. I'm very intrigued by the world and finding out what's happening in the story. It's very hard to judge because it's obviously setting the stage I believe it's also more closely based on the comics than The Walking Dead. Which means it's less free to create it's own characters. Even though Lee was still his own thing he's more of a blank slate for the audience, whereas with Bigby they have to walk a finer line between the two. It influences your decision slightly because you're roleplaying as the character more rather than just thinking what would I do if I were Lee. Although I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
Spoiler alert
It's early days of course and it's probably more a fault of the comics, but it's going to be annoying if they keep introducing, likable, potentially interesting characters and then killing them off so soon.
[close]

Quote from: Thursday on November 02, 2013, 08:22:56 PM
Played through it and enjoyed it more than BOC it seems. I'm very intrigued by the world and finding out what's happening in the story. It's very hard to judge because it's obviously setting the stage I believe it's also more closely based on the comics than The Walking Dead. Which means it's less free to create it's own characters. Even though Lee was still his own thing he's more of a blank slate for the audience, whereas with Bigby they have to walk a finer line between the two. It influences your decision slightly because you're roleplaying as the character more rather than just thinking what would I do if I were Lee. Although I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
Spoiler alert
It's early days of course and it's probably more a fault of the comics, but it's going to be annoying if they keep introducing, likable, potentially interesting characters and then killing them off so soon.
[close]

Yeah, definitely. I don't know. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood when I was playing it and I should keep in mind that it's the first episode and it's setting everything up. I did like it, I just didn't love it.

Spoiler alert
I agree though about killing off the most interesting character. I understand why they did it, so we can have more stake in it, but I feel like I still didn't really have enough time with her to build a connection, and that twist would have done better at the end of maybe the second episode. I did like her though because she was the only person who's at all transparent and not a complete dick, although Mr Toad and The Woodsman really did win me over with their later scenes. Talking with the Woodsman in the bar was a great sequence, and I actually did enjoy the very, very basic bit where you investigate Mr Toad's room and try to poke holes in his story.

I mean, in retrospect, it seems hard to fail that since the dialog options kind of giveaway the thought process you may have already been thinking but still. For what it was, I enjoyed it
[close]

The fight-sequences were incredibly spectacular in just how brutal and dirty they were. Thumbs go in eyes, people bite each other. I think I might actually play through it again with different choices, see how differently it plays out and see how I feel after that.

It was good, but I didn't think it was great. Not yet. I'll definitely play the next episode...And in fact, since I had to buy it all as a complete pack, I really don't see myself not completing the whole series.

wasp_f15ting

That was bloody good that first episode.. however I now feel like I need to play all the walking dead stuff..


The second season of the Walking Dead starts on the coming Tuesday.

I'd be more excited but Telltale has lost my save-game after I finished Walking Dead so my actions won't be showing up in the new one, which honestly, is really upsetting.

Two things would make me very happy with this game, one: they release an optional checklist for the many people who did lose save games, where you just tick all the major decisions you did throughout, might take like 15/20 minutes. I've heard of a few games with similar choice systems doing stuff like this in the past, so it'd be really good if they at least offered. I tried playing through it all making the exact same decisions, but it was just utterly mundane. The tension was gone and I just didn't have the heart to spend 10 hours going through it all, remembering my decisions and just playing it LIKE IT WERE a checklist. And I don't want to play it differently, because that was my story and I'd prefer to keep my mistakes as they are, because that's what a good narratives all about.

I don't know if they'll do that. Probably not. It'd be really nice though.

But the second thing that has me very worried after the Wolf A Mongoose is that the intrusive bloody narrative hints are mandatory. You can't disable them, despite you being able to disable them in the Walking Dead. It was absolutely inexplicable, but they better not do that again with this. I like going through it organically, doing something small and then being surprised when it comes back to bite me. It's like real life, and it allows you the space to deconstruct things from yourself.

You don't get books with a character betraying his best friend, and then a little footnote at the end explaining, "This character will think less of the protagonist now when they next meet in the book". Don't tell me what to feel, let the actions speak for it because it's shit storytelling otherwise. I got very angry about that, and I have absolutely no idea why they made it so you couldn't disable it. It was in the Walking Dead from the start, so it was a conscious decision, so they really better not be doing this for the new one.
It might even be a dealbreaker for me, to be honest.

I'm feeling sour towards Telltale after Wolf A Mongoose, and since the writers from Season 1 left Telltale to make their own games at this point, I can't even rely on blind-faith in the writing, especially since, again, I found the Fables one lacking, personally. Although obviously, these are all just my opinions. Seems quite a lot of people loved Wolf a Mongoose, so if your tastes are similar to theirs you may love it! Seems a lot of people do. 

Thursday

I really don't think your actions are going to carry across seasons that much anyway. I mean the main thing you worry about throughout the game is the impact you have on Clementine, and if you're controlling her that doesn't matter much anyway. The first game was always more about creating the illusion that your decisions mattered more than they actually did.

Quote from: Thursday on December 11, 2013, 11:43:36 AM
I really don't think your actions are going to carry across seasons that much anyway. I mean the main thing you worry about throughout the game is the impact you have on Clementine, and if you're controlling her that doesn't matter much anyway.

That's true! But I still can't deny that I'm kind of a bit sad that they've advised people to hold onto their saves, and there will be content that follows through, and I'll miss out on that. That kind of stuff's a really nice touch and I'll miss out on it. Obviously, it probably won't be huge stuff, maybe just a moment here and there, but still, I'd rather have it than not.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

The DLC pack 500 Days demonstrated the little differences that your decisions made on the game world -
Spoiler alert
The best example being that one of the characters happens across the rotting corpse of whichever character you chose to save in episode one, who was subsequently shot and left by the roadside in episode 3.
[close]

It's a tiny detail that doesn't really matter, but it's all part of creating the impression that your choices shape the story.

Quote from: Sexton Brackets Drugbust on December 11, 2013, 12:36:32 PM
The DLC pack 500 Days demonstrated the little differences that your decisions made on the game world -
Spoiler alert
The best example being that one of the characters happens across the rotting corpse of whichever character you chose to save in episode one, who was subsequently shot and left by the roadside in episode 3.
[close]

It's a tiny detail that doesn't really matter, but it's all part of creating the impression that your choices shape the story.

Yeah, exactly! I played 500 Days and I really enjoyed it, actually.
Spoiler alert
I saved Karlie or whatever her name was, and despite not having the save, she was the default body there so that was a nice touch. I did read that the Cancer Survivor group you meet in one of the segments that you met in Episodes 4 and 5 talk specifically about your about your actions in the previous game, and who from the group they stole the boat off, depending on who you left to guard it or some such thing. There was no conversation about any of that stuff in my version. They didn't talk about their pasy which is annoying.
[close]
Maybe I should just bite the bullet, get a pot of tea and a TV show in the background, try and speedrun throught it with the decisions in preparation for the new one. I'd actually quite like to replay 500 Days and take my time with that one though.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

I enjoyed 500 Days too. It was an interesting format that could be built upon; rather than create sprawling stories, where myriad choices make it supremely difficult to engineer truly divergent story paths, concentrate on small, intense scenarios with a greater depth of choices and outcomes.

It's what impressed people about Fahrenheit's opening sequence, but was sorely lacking in later portions of the game.


Thursday

In the middle of  episode 1 now.

Spoiler alert
Fucking Hell
[close]

DJ Solid Snail

^ Heh, crazy bleak isn't it?
Spoiler alert
Kicked off with an emotional gut-punch and then hit the floor running.
[close]

I finished it in one sitting and loved it. I've got really high hopes after that first episode, can't wait for the rest.

Brilliant idea too to incorporate saved games from season one - unfortunately mine were long gone, but I might replay it on XBLA. The randomiser was close enough though.

My choices:
Spoiler alert
Saved Christa? Yes - 92.3%
Killed the dog? Yes - 91%
Gave water to the dying man? No - 30.9% - this makes me feel like a right tight bastard, but I was planning on using it as incentive to get info on Christa
Accepted Nick's apology? Yes - 92.4%
Nick or Pete? Pete - 45.3% - this was actually an accident, as I thought Pete was done for and I guess I couldn't make out who was where, but I'm glad I did as he seems like a good bloke and based on the preview for the next ep it looks like he might make it by sawing his leg off. That's GOT to work ONCE at least.
[close]

Thursday

Finished it now and
Spoiler alert

Saved Christa, Killed the dog, Gave water to the dying man, although very grudgingly I have to admit, accepted Nick's apology and saved Nick because I figured Pete was done for. Which looks to have been the wrong choice now, but who knows how that'll play out.
[close]

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Thursday on December 18, 2013, 10:38:53 PM
Finished it now and
Spoiler alert

Saved Christa, Killed the dog, Gave water to the dying man, although very grudgingly I have to admit, accepted Nick's apology and saved Nick because I figured Pete was done for. Which looks to have been the wrong choice now, but who knows how that'll play out.
[close]

I did the same,
Spoiler alert
except for saving Pete - he'd given my bite the benefit of the doubt and Nick still had ammo. Also, Pete had been nice enough for me to risk a probably futile attempt at saving him.
[close]

Man, this game is relentlessly bleak.
Spoiler alert
Fair play to them having the balls to kill a cute dog in such a harsh way - audiences typically hate that kind of thing way more than any amount of human slaughter. And poor Clem's self surgery was arduous. Poor girl.
[close]

Question:
Spoiler alert
During the sneaky search for bandages, a needle and iodine, did anyone else find the watch and if so, did they take it or not - I decided to leave it, thinking it must be of sentimental value to someone and also that, while I could justify taking the medical supplies to patch myself up, being potentially caught with someone's stolen watch would confirm me to be trouble.
[close]

Finally, did players of the 400 Days DLC spot the little nod to one of that episode's characters?
Spoiler alert
Roman - the leather jacket clad leader of the group holed up in the diner during both Shel and Bonnie's stories - was one of the corpses at the riverside massacre. Anyone else spot any little crossover gags?
[close]

Thursday

Spoiler alert
Missed the 400 days reference, I think there were so many characters in that that we saw so briefly that I'm going to have a a hard time remembering it properly. I left the watch for the same reason as you, didn't see a good reason to take it.

And yes the stitching scene was horrific. I found myself thinking of all the violent things I've done in games but I've never found myself squirming and having to look away from the screen like I did with that. It made me ill to watch that
[close]

I haven't picked this up yet. I'm very conflicted about hopping into this without all my decisions from season 1 carrying through, as they're gone.
But after trying a few times, I just don't have the ten hours and commitment to just play through the first season, practically checking boxes in order to get this.

So far, preferably without any major spoilers, has there been any noticable stuff carried through from the save games? Or is it just maybe a small nod here and there? 

Quote from: Bored of Canada on December 19, 2013, 05:22:14 AM
So far, preferably without any major spoilers, has there been any noticable stuff carried through from the save games? Or is it just maybe a small nod here and there?

The only thing I noticed was a dialogue option about Lee's fate. I had Clem kill Lee, and I was able to tell a character that, but it seemed like a bad idea to do so and I chose to say something more vague instead.

#28
Okay. So I bit the bullet and played it anyway. Really loved it!

Spoiler alert


Okay. So:

Saved Christa? Yes
Killed the dog? Yes
Gave water to the dying man? Yes
Accepted Nick's apology? Yes. I had no problem with Nick. He was utterly reasonable in the situation.
Nick or Pete? Pete. He was hurt, and felt like he needed the most help. Nick could run away into the bushes! They were coming from opposite sides, but he's in a three dimensional space. It's like movies where people run away from the chasing car in a straight-line. And yeah, Pete was bitten, but he did the Chekhov's Gun thing about mentioning the Amputation working for his friend earlier in the game, so I felt he had a chance at safety. Does he immediately die if you chose to save Nick?

It started a bit shakey for me. Honestly, the bathroom scene with Clem leaving the gun on the bench felt far too contrived. She wouldn't have left the gun there on the bench. That's the kind of thing that happens in Horror movies, and is annoying, but in this when I could clearly see what was coming, and was hovering my mouse over it, trying to pick it up. That was infuriating. I'm not one who cares about plot-holes and stuff. That's how narratives work, the writers/directors are offering you this stuff, and you as an audience member are accepting the logic of this scenario. But the logic there didn't ring true. It felt far too contrived and it felt against the setting of this kind of apocalypse to EVER leave a gun away from your person. But I did enjoy the conversation with the scavenger.

I also felt Omid died way too quickly. It was almost like blink and you miss it. It would have been way more of a gut-punch if they had just had an extra ten minutes to space out that prologue bit.

But yeah, apart from that, my only other thing was that it felt the most reasonable thing to do in the shed would just be to go to sleep and sort it out in the morning, as she wasn't bitten by a zombie and could just wait another couple hours till morning, as opposed to burning your bridges by robbing 'em and making the world's worst first impression. BUT, despite me personally wanting to do something very different, I still accepted what the writers were offering there, as it had a logic for the character. I'm definitely opposed to the idea that I should be able to do anything I want and always play as a character that is just a surrogate for myself. It's like people complaining about Joel's Actions at the end of the Last Of Us. We AREN'T him. This isn't our story. It's his. So yeah, this situation wasn't too much a problem for me. It just felt a bit different from the first season, when really, I always seemed to have the opportunity to do what I would have done in that situation.

Anyway, those aside, I really enjoyed this. Far stronger an opening compared to the first season, I reckon!

The dog scene was really well done, caught me off guard, because obviously I wanted to feed the poor guy, and he reacted exactly how a hungry animal would have done.
And I just had this sinking feeling afterwards that if I met anyone, no-one would believe it was a dog-bite. Just a really clever set-up!

I really didn't want to make friends with the 15 year old you met. I'm not sure how you guys reacted, but I didn't want to get the girl in trouble, and deliberately avoided telling her my name, just in case she accidentally blurted out my name when asking about me, and revealed that she had helped me. But she was fairly persistent, so after a couple negative responses, she kept asking and I did the whole pinking swear.

But the doctor guy still somehow found out she had helped me afterwards, so I should have just stuck to my guns and said no, to keep her out of any culpability.

And yeah, I did notice Roman there! That was a nice touch. Especially since it was ambiguous what happened with that group in 400 days, because in my version, which I transported over for this, I stuck with that group, and shot the lady for the group. I think most other players chose to escape. Another thing I did in 400 Days, which I'm wondering if it'll come back for OTHER players is that in the prison van, I didn't quite understand that I was making a choice between the two guys when you have to shotgun off chain. I thought I was shooting the chain, but you're actually blowing off their foot. So I saved the Wall-Street dude and left the more well-meaning (likely statutory but I think that was unclear) rapist to his death.

But most people DIDN'T choose to save the douchey Wall-Street dick, and was really positioned to not choose that guy, which means that the majority of people are being guided to play a series where you're playing a young girl, and there's another naive 15 year old girl around, with a man who has been convincted of having sex with a minor.
I don't know if that'll come back, but, honestly, they've positioned it a certain way, and they have made clear that 400 Days was important and deliberately there as a transition for the saves. So it's potentially an upcoming problem for people. Not me! 

Oh, and it randomised my choices almost entirely the opposite way I did it. She was wearing the hoodie, which means they looted the stationwagon, which I didn't. Lee still had his arm, which means he didn't attempt to amputate. Lee killed the dudes at the farm. Which I didn't. Oh, and Clem shot The Stranger, which didn't happen for me, because I strangled that James Woods lookin' motherfucker to death before he could get the upperhand.
The only thing that was correct was that I didn't get Clem to kill Lee, and that's how it played out. 

Quote from: Default to the negative on December 19, 2013, 01:57:06 PM
The only thing I noticed was a dialogue option about Lee's fate. I had Clem kill Lee, and I was able to tell a character that, but it seemed like a bad idea to do so and I chose to say something more vague instead.

And yeah, that moment offers players the way to say either you killed him, or you left him, or the ambiguous one, or silence. Doesn't seem like you're locked in either way depending on your decision. I didn't see any other follow-throughs from Season One.

I picked up the first season when it first came out on steam last year or so, and played through it, and loved it, but I honestly didn't know anyone else who was playing it until that last episode came around, so it's super exciting that I know people now who are playing this, and we have to wait and build suspense over each break between them. I'm genuinely not annoyed about the wait. Seems to work super well with this format.

Spoiler alert
Who do we reckon the "I thought you were dead!" person is on the next episode? Christa seems too obvious the person, as it's really the only person in this episode who it could be. Unless all you evil bastards who refused to give the fella the water didn't get that bit. In which case, might be him.

My money? Kenny. They always fetishistically show all the gorey-deaths of everyone. But for his one, he was still fine and you never got to see his death, just him sacrificing himself whilst he fought the zombies. And then you can't find his body afterwards. Genuinely reckon it's him.
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Oh! Also.
Spoiler alert
Did anyone have the sheer nasty manipulative balls blackmail the pregnant lady?
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Thursday

Yeah the next episode Spoiler
Spoiler alert
I kind of wish they wouldn't have these, it sort of spoils their own game and yet I can't resist watching because it comes up immediately. It seems like it has to be Kenny because Clementine probably wouldn't say "I thought you were dead" if it was Crysta, it'd be more like "I thought I might never see you again" Of course there's also an outside chance of it being Lily as we didn't see her die either.

Unless it's all a red herring and it's a character only Clementine meet's briefly early in episode 2, then they seemingly die, and then see again slightly later in episode 2.
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