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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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Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Bored of Canada on December 19, 2013, 04:11:16 PMOh! Also.
Spoiler alert
Did anyone have the sheer nasty manipulative balls blackmail the pregnant lady?
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Spoiler alert
After she had yet another go at poor Clem, I couldn't resist revealing that I knew her little secret, but I backed down , saying I wouldn't tell. It didn't feel right for Clementine to go the full blackmail route, but showing that, once again, they were underestimating her, felt appropriate.
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Spoiler alert
Regarding the frustrating 'leaving the gun behind' opening section. It does highlight that we're still at a stage where conventional storytelling techniques are at odds with interactive storytelling. I was hovering the cursor over the suddenly inactive gun hotspot, knowing that leaving it there was trouble. I understand why they did it - you want your opening scene to reflect the themes of the story you're telling and in this case it seems to be about Clementine growing up and becoming independent, so her immature, unthinking mistake being responsible for the loss of her current Guardians makes sense thematically, but isn't satisfying when the writers simply remove the obvious choice from the player in order to have the story work the way they need it to.
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Quote from: Bored of Canada on December 19, 2013, 04:11:16 PM
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Who do we reckon the "I thought you were dead!" person is on the next episode?
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Well, my money would be on Lilly. I just don't think Kenny had a way out of that city, and as well as that, we already saw his full arc in season one. He reached a point where he had nothing to live for and went out with a redemptive self-sacrifice. He's spent, as a character. It would be much more interesting to meet Lilly again, and I hope that's what we'll do.
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Looks like the next episode of Wolf a Mongoose is coming soon. Rumour seems to be that it's the first week of February.

New trailer, with a crisp original score provided by the ever-talented Shia Labouf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsypAtacXDQ#t=81

Mister Six

Still haven't started season two, but did play 400 Days.

Does it matter massively who stays at the campsite at the end of 400 Days? I was annoyed that the girls went to the safe zone while the guys stayed at the camp, as I found the beardy stoner and the Asian convict guy were by far the most interesting characters. Will I still get to encounter them if they stay at the camp?

I've no idea. For the first episode, there is absolutely no ramifications or connections to your choices made in 400 Days. There is a definite connection through one small detail, but unrelated to any choices made. So it's entirely possible
Spoiler alert
we'll meet the characters who went with the woman to the safe zone, or we'll meet the characters who stayed on the camp.or both! Or neither!
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They have made a big point about the 400 Days having an effect on season 2, more so than the first one will I reckon, so we should start seeing some new ones soon, surely.

For me, it's been a while since I played 400 Days,
Spoiler alert
Spoiler alert
but those two characters left for the safe-zone with mine.
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chand

Really enjoyed the first episode of TWD season two, but with the reservation that there weren't many really difficult big decisions. I spent more time thinking about minor decisions (ways to answer questions and so on, how honest/evasive to be with people) than I did on the big choices, and at the end when it tells you what the other players did there was only the
Spoiler alert
Pete/Nick
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decision which divided people. The rest were all skewed heavily one way, suggesting that only the 10-15% of gamers who are unhinged psychopaths delighting in doing the wrong thing would take the other option. In the first season the bits that stuck with me were the bits where I made difficult decisions that I might still feel uneasy about later, there was an interesting sense that, like with real life it's not always obvious what to do and you're left with nebulous feelings of regret. Hopefully the 'right' path will feel a bit less obvious in future episodes.

Quote from: chand on January 30, 2014, 12:20:45 PM
Really enjoyed the first episode of TWD season two, but with the reservation that there weren't many really difficult big decisions. I spent more time thinking about minor decisions (ways to answer questions and so on, how honest/evasive to be with people) than I did on the big choices, and at the end when it tells you what the other players did there was only the
Spoiler alert
Pete/Nick
[close]
decision which divided people. The rest were all skewed heavily one way, suggesting that only the 10-15% of gamers who are unhinged psychopaths delighting in doing the wrong thing would take the other option. In the first season the bits that stuck with me were the bits where I made difficult decisions that I might still feel uneasy about later, there was an interesting sense that, like with real life it's not always obvious what to do and you're left with nebulous feelings of regret. Hopefully the 'right' path will feel a bit less obvious in future episodes.

Yeah, I agree. I think they'll definitely address that with the next one. The most enjoyable parts of these games is discussing with people why they chose certain things, but it seems like everyone just had the same idea. I just hopped in now to check the My Choices section, as considerably more people have played it, and it's almost at the 90% for the majority of the decisions, which is incredibly worrying. Think it's just a problem with them starting off the new arc. It's more just setting everything up before giving you lots of meaningful decisions with the later ones, perhaps.

Old Nehamkin


Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on February 03, 2014, 05:06:42 PM
New Wolf Among Us is out tomorrow, lads.

S'about fookin' time. That's the trouble with episodic gaming; any delays can really disrupt the flow of the story, coupled with the fact that they've simultaneously started the second season of The Walking Dead.

DJ Solid Snail

ARGH just make episode two please. I want to play it immediately. Thanks.

Thursday

I enjoyed the new Wolfamongous but it seemed a little shorter than usual and there really wasn't any worthwhile puzzles or decisions. I don't know how many different ways the interrogations can go but it didn't seem like there could be any significant difference. This seems to have been a trend with Telltale lately, but here more than ever. I hope this is partly because of what point things are at the story, but I really can't understand why it took so long to make that.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Thursday on February 09, 2014, 04:57:39 PM
I enjoyed the new Wolfamongous but it seemed a little shorter than usual and there really wasn't any worthwhile puzzles or decisions. I don't know how many different ways the interrogations can go but it didn't seem like there could be any significant difference. This seems to have been a trend with Telltale lately, but here more than ever. I hope this is partly because of what point things are at the story, but I really can't understand why it took so long to make that.

There's a rather thin theory floating around that too many people cottoned onto who the killer was from 'clues' in chapter one, so Telltale have frantically rejigged the story to defy expectations.

Thursday

Well I had no clue after chapter 1, I was guessing it would be a character we hadn't been introduced to yet, but then I'm not the type to try and work out stories in advance. I went and read some of the comics after playing the first episode and become confused because
Spoiler alert
Snow White is very much alive, and these games were supposed to be canon but set before the first comic so I was only really thinking about how they were going to explain that, but they soon answered that in this episode.
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But I don't buy into that theory at all.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Thursday on February 09, 2014, 06:46:59 PM
Well I had no clue after chapter 1, I was guessing it would be a character we hadn't been introduced to yet, but then I'm not the type to try and work out stories in advance. I went and read some of the comics after playing the first episode and become confused because
Spoiler alert
Snow White is very much alive, and these games were supposed to be canon but set before the first comic so I was only really thinking about how they were going to explain that, but they soon answered that in this episode.
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But I don't buy into that theory at all.

I don't either, particularly in a game where a character's appearance can be magically changed if it suits them.

Yeah, I'm still not sold on this game. The first one didn't win me over, and I went into detail about why it didn't, but this one even less so.
There were no interesting choices. Not just in the plot, but the story. I love the Walking Dead games generally because the choices may not end up diverting the plot in entirely new ways, but it shapes your relationships with these people, and changes the context of everything. If you replay the Walking Dead and choose all the other options, there will be differences, but it's still pretty similar to the other path you took, but the way you view the characters and Lee is very different.

In this one, it's still a very by the numbers hardboiled type thing, and Bigby's still a bloody archetypal hardboiled character. Except unlike good examples from the genre, he lacks any interesting flaws. Except for the idea that he killed people thousands of years ago when he was the big bad wolf, but I have absolutely no guilt or give a shit about any of that. I'm playing the game and I don't feel guilty or culpable for that. The only choices you make are being "Good Cop" or "Bad Cop". That's about as deep as it goes.

It doesn't make for very interesting characterisation.

I don't understand why critics are raving about this. Everyone keeps talking about it being a Noir, but it feels like if they're so amazed by this, they've not seen many crime dramas, which have all done these same things. Like I said before, Bigby's a hero. Not an anti-hero. I could play through it again and be an absolute shithead, just punch everyone for no reason, and it might become a slightly more flawed character, but the key thing here is that as an audience member, I'm not being positioned to do that. I feel no urge to role-play as a shithead, since I'm not being guided to. You can really subtly guide players into doing certain behaviours through clever positioning, but there's none of that. At the moment, it's more a Law and Order episode as opposed to Chinatown.

Walking Dead worked for me, because the characters generally felt very human. Wolf: A Mongoose is trying to do something different, in that it's trying to be a genre piece. A hardboiled detective thriller, which is fine! But aside from the fantasy elements, it's just a very cliche type thing. I don't care for any of the characters. Even Snow, who seems the most human, still hasn't fully endeared me to her.

I'm fine with their not being a lot of choices in games. I'd probably forgive this one if I found the writing at all interesting or clever, but I just find it very by the numbers.
IT'S DULL. It lacks anything that interesting to say, and therefore feels pointless to me. I see myself finishing it all off, because I had to buy the whole lot because they only sell it as a season on PC, but I'm not that excited by it.

I am looking forward to the next Walking Dead though. It's also tropey, but since the writing is much more human and naturalistic, it feels a lot stronger than most Zombie fiction, and the 10 hours that it has over a film's length means it can go in new directions and breathe, and explore the story much more than it would in typical Zombie films. The Walking Dead TV Series could have the same appeal, but unfortunately it's just warm garbage.

So yeah, looking forward to Episode 2 of that.

Trailer for Episode 2. Coming soon, but undisclosed date. Generally they do this stuff like a week beforehand.

Christ. They're taking their time with these, aren't they?

Okay, okay, okay.
Just finished the newest one. Really enjoyed it, another great little episode. The decisions felt very much in the background, a bit less signposted then the first season, although still relatively clear at times, so slight improvement over the first season. There's definitely some more decisions in this. Or at least, felt somewhat like there was.

For the moment, it does seem fairly close to 50% between decisions in this with the community, but we'll have to see how those percentages turn out.

As someone who went with Pete at the end of the last episode,
Spoiler alert
I enjoyed the way they subverted my expectations. They provided the "Next Time on The Walking Dead" with Pete and a hacksaw, about to hack off the infected limb, which is the actual shot in the game. But in the actual event, he can't go through with it and stops before he cuts.
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My decisions were as follows:

Spoiler alert
- I took the blame for Sarah's photos, because, why not?
- I sat with Kenny, because he's got a mighty fine beard and it was genuinely heartwarming to catch up with him again. The (optional) hug felt very well earned, and I deliberately left the pause between them very long and dramatic.
- I told Walter the truth about Matthew. I guessed that was going to be the case very quickly on arriving there, and was looking for the very first attempt to actually tell Walter about that, as he deserved to know.
- I convinced Walter to forgive Nick. I really did warm to Walter almost immediately, as opposed to the other people, and it was clear that he was going to die, since nice people don't last long in these kinds of narratives. Looked into it, and despite there being some variables floating about in this one, I think Walter dies no matter what. Possibly via different means, but in the infinite possibility space, Walter is doomed in all parralel universes. At least as of right now, unless someone else saved the guy.
- I stayed to help Carlos, apparently. Carlos can fuck himself, and I didn't realise that was what I was supposedly doing, but as I don't trust the supposedly good group we've been stuck with, as it's clear they've got some dark baggage other than infidelity under their belts, but I didn't want to allow the large possibility of collateral damage of Walter, Kenny, and Kenny's girlfriend if a firefight broke out. Despite the clear framing of Carver as a bad guy, there's clearly more to it than this. Unlike the television series, I don't think there's out and out two dimensional villains in this, like the fucking eye-patched Governor accompanied by his piano stings as he ties women to train tracks.

Christ, the show's a pile of shit, isn't it?

It was very interesting to see Bonnie. It's been a while since I've played 400 Days, so I'm not sure if she went to the camp, or stayed behind. Is Bonnie a variable in this?

Anyway, yeah. I enjoyed this. Had a few more moments of sweetness and positivity, little jokes and stories that are often needed to give us some slight hope. But overall, it was fairly brisk episode. I reckon would have taken me an hour and a half, and again, that felt long enough. Satisfying and I'm happy to wait a bit for the next one. Although I did say this after the last one, but that three month break did actually feel a bit much. Would prefer them to have just released them all a bit later, after having a bit more under control so they could have consistent schedules. If they were all very much self-contained, like Kentucky Route Zero, it'd be acceptable. But with something that hangs it's hat on teasing and cliffhangers, it often can feel exploitational.
[close]

Anyway, yeah, enjoyed it.

EDIT:

Spoiler alert
Apparently the final decision introduces quite a large variable into this. Never have the time nor urge to replay right through these but I am curious about that.
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Thursday



DJ Solid Snail

Quote from: Bored of Canada on March 05, 2014, 12:02:19 PM
Spoiler alert
- I stayed to help Carlos, apparently. Carlos can fuck himself, and I didn't realise that was what I was supposedly doing...
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I had the same problem with the lack of clarity of your choices, at the end:
Spoiler alert
When Kenny's cueing up the shot and evil Michael Madsen's got his second hostage - the black guy with the pregnant missus, who I was no big fan of after this episode due to his constantly ordering Clem around and trying to hog the food, so sod him if he catches friendly fire - I selected GRAB GUN, because I wanted to take the shot myself in case Kenny arsed it up, and... they give themselves up. Rubbish. Is there a way of going back to re-do specific choices, or do I have to do the whole bloody thing again?

I spent most of the ski lodge scenes just trying to get absolutely anyone to explain what they'd done to piss this guy off, and after getting no information whatsoever I decided I couldn't care less what happens to the lot of them.
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Quote from: DJ Solid Snail on March 06, 2014, 05:36:23 PM
I had the same problem with the lack of clarity of your choices, at the end:
Spoiler alert
When Kenny's cueing up the shot and evil Michael Madsen's got his second hostage - the black guy with the pregnant missus, who I was no big fan of after this episode due to his constantly ordering Clem around and trying to hog the food, so sod him if he catches friendly fire - I selected GRAB GUN, because I wanted to take the shot myself in case Kenny arsed it up, and... they give themselves up. Rubbish. Is there a way of going back to re-do specific choices, or do I have to do the whole bloody thing again?

I spent most of the ski lodge scenes just trying to get absolutely anyone to explain what they'd done to piss this guy off, and after getting no information whatsoever I decided I couldn't care less what happens to the lot of them.
[close]

It can be a problem. And it is infurating that it happens.
Spoiler alert
I have warmed to some of the new characters. Primarily Mark(?), the main guy with the machete. Oh. That's a clear sign I don't care too much that I don't remember any of their names. I know Walter and Kenny, and I know Bonnie and Matthew, and Carver I can sorta remember but that's the only new characters I can remember, and none of those are part of the big group you're stuck with.

In these last two episodes, I've had that floundering moment that I never really had with the first series, where the game is trying it's hardest to wrong foot me and make me complicit in something, but I understand what they're trying to do, and in that situation, all it would take is me speaking up honestly about something. As soon Walter said he was waiting for Matthew, I clicked that it was the nice guy we shot before, then started trying my best to just tell the guy, and good work on the developers, there is a point when you can before it's officially explicitly revealed for all the audience, but he just has to cut you off because something happens, which was fair. But I still never felt that guilt it's trying so desperately to get me to make.
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I think the Eurogamer review really sums up a lot of my feelings towards it. It's still a very compelling game, and it excites me a lot more than the Wolf: A Mongoose, so I'd still recommend it to people, but there's a lot of problems with it. That actual graphics engine itself has always been fucked since the first season, but they honestly need to build something new from the ground-up. Just doesn't seem to work whatsoever. It looks nice in the cutscenes, but the exceptionally rare times it lets you walk along, it's still like piloting a forkliftchild. The mouth animations just sometimes don't work, and when they do, they're still pretty clunky. Aesthetically, it looks really lovely, but for a game that's primarily about people talking, the priority needs to be on getting the animations more precise.

That said, from listening to the new Idle Thumbs episodes, the head writer, who's one of them, mentions how they were fixing things right up until five minutes before they had to lock it off. Some things of which probably shouldn't have been done five minutes before you lock something off. And I've heard it's generally like that with their episodes. So they lack polish, and from what I hear of the consoles, there's lots of stuttering between scenes and way more crashes going on. Again, if they just took a bit more time before releasing the first one, and worked on them all an extra month or so, put themselves ahead of this current schedule, they'd be able to get them out more frequently and more polished. People wouldn't complain that they haven't released the first one. But once they released the first one, people were definitely going to complain that there wasn't a second one.

Especially since, at least for PC users like me, they literally made me pay for every single episode upfront.

Thursday

Got round to playing this, good episode a lot more substantial, although trying to keep track of all the characters names is now an impossible task.
Spoiler alert
and if they're going to be slowly bringing in all the 400 days characters, who I can't remember anything about because their stories all lasted 10 minutes and I played that five years ago then I have no chance. It might be worth replaying the whole thing if I can make myself forget enough stuff.

Looking at the wiki I think Bonnie goes to the camp regardless http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Bonnie so there's no alternative characters in her role.

[ I think the stuff with Walter, Matthew and Nick was really well handled as I was so pissed off at Nick but I had to admit he still wasn't a bad person.

It was really touching reuniting with Kenny, but then I did also remember that Kenny is kind of a dick, so I went and sat with Luke. I know the game is trying to hint that these people might actually be bad, but I still suspect they might be justified because this guy pursuing seems a little too evil, because whatever happened he really could just let it go. So I gave myself up and so Alvin didn't die. I'm not sure about him, but it also seems like picking the heroic action is always a winner because Clementine obviously won't die yet.

Rebecca was nicer to me in this episode and confided in me about the baby not being Alvin's which made me glad I didn't try to blackmail her.

I think a problem the game might be running into at the moment is the lack of optional dialogues with the other characters, there's not enough calm moments with the characters where you walk around and talk to people to form your own opinion.
[close]

chand

Spoiler alert
Felt bad that I didn't tell Walter that Matthew had been shot at the very first opportunity; I'd clocked early on that it was probably him we shot but I started second-guessing and wondering if the game was trying a double-bluff, so I hedged my bets thinking I'd try and establish it was definitely him before I told anybody.

I sat with Kenny because he was the host, basically. Plus if it was real life I would want to talk to the person I haven't seen for ages.

I went out to try and find Kenny and Luke to help, but I regretted that once Kenny decided to just shoot, as I knew there were four 'bad guys' and they'd start killing people once they lost one of theirs.

I get why people are reluctant to judge Carver because he seems like he's getting set up an obvious bad guy, but...he is, isn't he? He gains entry to a house using a false name chasing after people who clearly want nothing to do with him, taking advantage of a child in the process despite her clear discomfort with what he's doing. He pursues people through the woods, enters their lodge, breaks people's fingers and beats the shit out of them, threatens them, tells them they have to come with him despite the fact they've fled from him in fear, and then straight-up fucking executes probably the nicest person in the episode.
[close]

Quote from: chand on March 24, 2014, 10:10:27 AM
Spoiler alert
I get why people are reluctant to judge Carver because he seems like he's getting set up an obvious bad guy, but...he is, isn't he? He gains entry to a house using a false name chasing after people who clearly want nothing to do with him, taking advantage of a child in the process despite her clear discomfort with what he's doing. He pursues people through the woods, enters their lodge, breaks people's fingers and beats the shit out of them, threatens them, tells them they have to come with him despite the fact they've fled from him in fear, and then straight-up fucking executes probably the nicest person in the episode.
[close]

Spoiler alert
Well, most importantly, they deliberately cast growly voiced villain Michael bloody Madsen in the role, so everything you just said is superfluous, I guess.
[close]

Thursday


They've just released a launch trailer for episode three of Wolf a mongoose, so I assume it'll be out between right now and tomorrow sometime. Feels a lot quicker between these, but maybe it's just because I only played the new Walking Dead a couple weeks back.

I'm not totally excited but I'll likely play it over the weekend if I get the opportunity.

Thursday

I'm trying to avoid the trailer, because it might take up 75% of the actual episode.

The plan was originally to have each episode be 2 months apart so you'd get Walking Dead one month and Wolfamongous a mongoose the other, but delays screwed that up. Maybe they've actually got it together now... maybe.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Thursday on April 02, 2014, 01:11:24 PM
I'm trying to avoid the trailer, because it might take up 75% of the actual episode.

The plan was originally to have each episode be 2 months apart so you'd get Walking Dead one month and Wolfamongous a mongoose the other, but delays screwed that up. Maybe they've actually got it together now... maybe.

I personally don't think that's a great plan. With two story heavy games on the go at the same time, it's easy to lose focus on one because of the other.

Thursday

I'm pretty sure it's completely different teams working on it. There's no crossover between the writers.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Thursday on April 02, 2014, 01:32:49 PM
I'm pretty sure it's completely different teams working on it. There's no crossover between the writers.

I mean as a player. Switching between two similarly interactive stories - especially with such big gaps in between each chapter - it's easy to lose track of details that would have more impact with a stronger focus.