After Years of YouTube Walk-Throughs, I Finally Played *The Walking Dead: Season 1*
I shared this elsewhere, so sorry if you have already seen this. I'm giving this place another shot. Below is my post. It is rather lengthy, so I'm not offended if someone wants to just skip to the last paragraph. Here we go.
Preamble: Hello everyone. Just a little while ago, I finished played The Walking Dead: Season 1. Boy, was it a ride. I’m happy I finally had a chance to play it. When I came across TTG’s TWD series, it was around Christmas 2013 during my community college days. I had been seeing these memes on Facebook of some black dude and a little girl. I went to see what the fanfare was about. It was Lee and Clementine from TWD:S1. Since Season 2 was under way, I decided to join the ride. Unfortunately for me, my laptop that was great for school work wasn’t designed for even a low-end graphics game. Due to this technical issue, I watched YouTube walkthroughs to get my fix. This has been my ritual for all TTG series since then… until now. Fast forward to today: I transferred to ODU and graduated, I have an engineering job, and I finally had income to spend on a higher end computer that will allow me to mess with CAD programs and do some low-end gaming. After watching one video of Ties That Bind: Parts 1 and 2 on YouTube, I told myself I would not watch anything episode 3 related (including any trailers) until I had played through Season 1, 400 Days, and Season 2. Well, Season 1 is complete. Here is my retrospective of the season: the positives and negatives.
Positive - Story: That Story was spectacular. Even knowing what was going to happen didn’t take away from the story at all. It blended the theme of hope, the reality of death, and a balance of horror, adventure, and humor. The flow from scene to scene was pretty fluid. Each episode covered it arc nicely. I literally was playing the game as if I was Lee due to the immersion. I made decisions that I regretted and championed. As a result, my Lee was no angel yet no villain; just a man trying to do what was best for him and Clementine. There was also a very tangible nature to the conflicts, which I loved. This story was great; enjoyed it 100%. I see why TTG is called “TellTale”: it’s all about the story.
Positive - Choices: Well I have to say, those choices were hard even with knowledge of the outcomes. I found myself cycling through the options trying to figure out the choice I should make up until the last second. What was even more surprising was my choice selection. I made choices that had I been watching a YouTube video, I would have been screaming at the screen. Story immersion combined with tough choices creates a lot of tension, and I really don’t need blood pressure problems at age 25. With all of this, silence is totally an option. Having only a few dialogue options to choose from made that even more so. There were several occasions where I elected to let the timer run out because I couldn’t decide on a choice or that I didn’t any of the option. I also had situations where I didn’t want to be silent, but I also didn’t like any of the other options. This is greaty because it adds back to that real world feel; not electing an option or voicing an opinion is still classified as making a choice. No one makes decision for you in life You have choices you have to make; even if that choice is to reel back and abstain. While I know many people despise it, I actually enjoy the fact that some of the text for the choices were very ambiguous. It added to the complexity of the choices. It reminds me of how what you say and what you mean can be two completely different things depending on the perspective of the listener. Loved the choices by TTG.
Positive - Characters: I liked the complexity of the characters. Death followed Lee everywhere. It was as if he had to pay a debt for robbing someone else of their life. The supporting characters, while being protagonists, had depth and complexity. They weren’t obvious “good guys.” They had both positive and negative traits. It was a good representation of how we (humanity) really are. I never realized how much depth there was in Clementine’s personality. Her independence was woven in so subliminally that it wasn’t until after I finished a scene that I realized what I just missed. The sourness of the ending from everyone was great. You could feel the hope literally leaving everyone. The final scene with Clementine and Lee was great as well. Melissa Hutchinson did a great job playing a convincing 9-year-old. Speaking of Clementine, I like how you could sense the reality of this new life setting in with her as the season progressed. Her dialog at the end was as if she had long knew her parents were most likely dead and that she was just lying to herself that they were alive. This cast was pretty good.
Negative - Episode Length: I may lose some of you here, but hear me out first. I work from about 6:30 AM to about 5:00 PM (on a good day). There are only a few hours at home to myself, most of that time being dinner and getting ready for the next day. The episodes ran a little over 2 hours each for me. Every time I had to run an errand or get something important done, I had to pause the game. Some of these pauses lasted for several days at a time. This made it hard for a working adult like me to stay engaged. While having lots of content is great, this situation makes engaging with online communities hard as you would have to avoid spoilers (as I’m doing now with ANF, which is hard). The interaction with others who made different choices than you is a piece that makes these games have more value. Due to this, I think I understand why TTG pushed for keeping games down to 60-90 minutes: to allow the game to be treated as a tv show and enjoyed in 1 to 2 days time. This allows people to easily catch up and join in the online discussions. Playing through TWD:S2 will be the ultimate test to this theory. As for now it’s a negative but not a turn-off nor a detractor from this great season.
Negative - Hubs: When I watched YouTube walkthroughs, I loved hubs and wished TellTale did more. When I took over as Lee, the tension of the situations made me all of the sudden not care. There were sections that I originally wanted to explore that I pushed to the wayside for the sake of getting Clementine to Savannah (another tip of the hat to the game’s story to make do that despite knowing the ending). As a result of this, a few of the hubs (like the drug store and the train) became a bit frustrating because I was struggling to figure out what to do next until I annoyingly just started clicking everything to figure out what triggered the next scene. This is obviously something from TTG’s older game style, so that would explain why it was in there. Again, it wasn’t a major detractor, just another small nitpick.
Negative - Graphics: This negative was bit more detracting than the other two. The old graphics of TWD:S1 were a bit annoying from the first episode to about halfway through episode 3. After that, I kind of got used to it. It obviously didn’t take away much from the game, but glitches and errors were obvious to see. These were very apparent in scenes where I wanted to click on something during a timed event but couldn’t due to weird anomalies from the older engine, and I ended up dieing as a result. I think Season 1 is more than deserving of a remastered re-release. It doesn’t have to be a super overhaul. I believe if they updated the characters and assets a little bit to Season 2’s quality, it would be enough. I’m an advocate against TTG upgrading their engine to AAA game standards and enjoy the living-comic-book look of TWD, but a touch up to Season 1 would help make the engine’s age and limitations not so obvious.
Summary: TWD:S1 was really good. I enjoyed it and do not regret playing it. As a matter of fact, I’m excited I finally played it. I’ve been missing out on a lot watching walkthroughs on YouTube. There’s something that happens when you sit down at the controls and enter the world yourself than through the eyes of another player. These games are like books: the story is worth reliving. While I will say that TWD:S1 is not as perfect and flawless as some TellTale fans will worship it, it is a game that I will definitely recommend to friends. If you have a laptop or a mobile device that can play low-graphic-intense games, this season is a great way to kill time on bus or train ride to work. You can probably finish an episode or two a week.
I’m looking forward to playing TWD:S2 once I play through 400 Days to set up my Howe’s group. After that, I’ll finally get on ANF’s schedule. I might be able to catch up a little after episode 4’s release. Here’s to the journey. I’ll see you around when I do my Season 2 review. Peace out.
Comments
Excellent review, look forward to your thoughts on Season 2.
Dude, you sound like someone who prefers to watch a movie rather than play a game.
No offense, but I can't take this seriously.
Sure, Telltale focus on story ( even when they are weak ) but games are meant to be entertaining as well. I get that you work and have little time to spend on gaming, but paying something for full price and having and prefering 6 hours long gameplay are really low standards, it's not like you have to play all at once.
You never had to pause it for days at a time. It autosave regularly throughout the episode. You could've shut it off and picked up from an autosave point.
sigh... Here we go... I never said anything nor implied anything about liking low quality games. This is the internet where text only conveys so much (or little) context in communication. Therefore, I'll just say this:
There are multiple types of game plays and game styles. Not every game has to be this long 20+ hour experience. Not every game has to be BioShock, Watch Dogs, or Half-Life. Most importantly, not everyone has to have the same definition of what a video game is. That's something the industry is starting to realize as more and more unique styles and interpretations of a video game arrive.
TTG wants to make an interactive-story game. To me, that means a plot focused game where we have some player control and can have our actions make slight variations to the story. I'm not expecting a whole lot of puzzles, combat, nor open map exploration. Any of these that do appear in the game will only exist to do one thing: service the story. Some may agree with me, others may not. That's fine.
Some games focus on puzzles, some graphics, multiplayer, open-world exploration, classic linear gameplay, and the list goes on. TTG now is focusing on story. I'm sorry to hear they have disappointed you, but I fortunately don't share that perspective. Luckily as I stated before, the industry is changing therefore I'm sure there is a developer out there who is making what you are looking for. I actually hope TTG grows some more so that way they can do various types of game styles. Unfortunately, they are still a small company and currently are sticking to one gaming style. Fortunately for me, I enjoy these games. The fact of the matter at the end of all this is...
...it just our opinions and no one is right.
It's was just more convenient for me to just have it up and ready than to shut it down. I usually planned to get back to it that night but won't find myself coming back to the computer until a couple days later.
Since some of you wanted shorter episodes to finish it in "one sitting" for some fucking reason, TT have made episodes shorter. Have fun in S3 where each episode lasts an hour. 80 minutes if we're lucky. You'll regret ever wishing hubs were absent or episodes were shorter after you play S3. Fucking great.
Everything else in your review is good.
How many action games are less than 6 hours nowadays?
You mustn't do much gaming.
What? I never said anything about low quality games.
Please, stop deluding yourself like their games are all about story. They are not. I'll give you an example: ANF ep 1 and 2 are both 1 hour long episodes, and both have surely about 20+ minutes of action each, not exaggerating. Thing is, gameplay is mashing buttons... if that's fun to you, well... Nope, Telltale games ( even now ) aren't for sure totally movie-like and for that reason they need to include hubs and stuff like that.
Just saying, not trying to be rude, but... facts, man. But yep, everyone is free to have their own opinion.
LOL
Telltale has more employees than Naughty Dog and even Guerrilla Games. They're not a small company anymore.
We're talking about season 1, not a new frontier so please don't try and compare the 2 because you have nothing left to say -.-
"For some fucking reason" this quote talks to me monkey, I love it.
C'mon dude... really? (and I call everyone dude, it's a Good Burger thing)
Ok, I'll first say this. In your first sentence (I never said anything about low quality games); I took your other statement (...Telltale focus on story ( even when they are weak )) as you were saying I like low quality. That was me assuming things that weren't typed up. That's my fault, I'll take the L on that one.
Another thing I want to point out is that all of my negatives were stated towards the end of their section as being minor (or "...not a turn-off nor a detractor" or "a small nitpick" as I expressed). My negative points were dwarfed by how much I liked the season. I was just trying to give a 100% transparent review.
Now about TTG focusing on story. That is what their game mechanic, the dialogue options, is focusing on. Puzzles don't drive their games anymore, nor are the QTE sequences (I'm guessing this is the "mashing buttons" you are referring to, correct me if I'm wrong). Season 1 was entirely story driven. There were only a few puzzle sequences, and QTE's were here and there each episode.
Now let me clear up what I meant with the hubs because I didn't include it and can see how it can be misinterpreted. The only hubs and puzzles that bugged me only a little bit were the drug store and the train (the train more than the drug store). This was only because I wanted to get moving; I wanted to get Clementine to Savannah. This was from the sense of urgency the story gave to me: move.
In terms of the story. An enjoyable length of something is 100% up to that person's taste. The total runtime was fine, I wished (once a game, a very minor nitpick) that it was 7 or 8 shorter episodes. However, my rule for TTG episodes has always been this: the game needs to be as long as it needs to be. Whether that means 60 minutes or 2.5 hours; as long as it needs to be for the story.
Now about games. Websters dictionary says that a game is an "...activity engaged in for diversion or amusement". Just because a click-the-dialogue-option-you-like game isn't your cup of tea doesn't mean it has to be mine. It wasn't long ago when people snubbed their noses at mobile gaming, and look at that market now. Are TTG perfect, not by any means. Do I think they have something going, I think they do. I'm looking forward to hoping on over to Tales From The Borderlands and The Wolf Among Us when I'm done. I'm not deluding myself. Just a guy who is, once again, just expressing an opinion.
Btw, I hope you don't feel like I'm overly typing to desperately explain myself. It's just it's the internet and I'm typing, I just want to make sure I'm not conveying a wrong or misleading message. Thus, why I'm doing this last paragraph.
I didn't like all the hubs. Some were ok. The only 2 I didn't like were the drug store and the train. I was more upset with the train because I was standing there with the right tool to lift the pic off the car for about 10-15 minutes with no success, only to realize that I had to start the train first. I enjoyed the motel hubs and the Crawford hubs a lot actually.
The only reason I didn't like those other two was because I wanted to get moving. I wanted to get Clementine to safety, and hanging and talking around some dangerous place was against that. However, I credit this to the story since it gave me the sense of urgency where I played episodes 1 to 3 with "move now, talk later" attitude.
And I while I wanted shorter episodes for one sitting, this doesn't have to mean that the season is only 5 episodes long. while I think Season 2 had good episode lengths, I think it could have benefited from 1 to 2 extra episodes to flesh out that Carver arc. But like I said, my theory will be put to the test as I begin Season 2 tonight. So let's see what happens.
It's a shame Telltale aren't small anymore. Maybe their games would be good again if that was the case