My experience / my fix
I bought a 360 in the beginning of November after a near four year hiatus from gaming in general. I saw tobuscus playing this on his game chanel and bought it retail since I didn't have a big enough flash drive (4gb slim)
Obviously, game didn't work. My brother has had a couple xbox 360s so, he had an old HDD laying around, a twenty gig. I tore it apart this morning and slapped it in my 360, and I'm at the VERY begining right now, where I'm climbing out of the car, almost to where the demo start. No lag yet. I'll keep everyone updated.
EDIT : It's quite obvious now that the problem layed with no HDD (For some reason, though games like Oblivion, Skyrim, the fallouts, Batman, etc had no problems) Because of Telltale's updates. But I'll let everyone know if I have any other problems in this thread.
Obviously, game didn't work. My brother has had a couple xbox 360s so, he had an old HDD laying around, a twenty gig. I tore it apart this morning and slapped it in my 360, and I'm at the VERY begining right now, where I'm climbing out of the car, almost to where the demo start. No lag yet. I'll keep everyone updated.
EDIT : It's quite obvious now that the problem layed with no HDD (For some reason, though games like Oblivion, Skyrim, the fallouts, Batman, etc had no problems) Because of Telltale's updates. But I'll let everyone know if I have any other problems in this thread.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
So far there has been VERY minor frame rate slow down, but nothing major. Playing great, and the story itself is worthy of the GOTY. Really can't wait to finish now. Just SO disappointed in how POORLY TTG's support is. "Get a hard drive" as a fix is really unacceptable. This is basic QA testing people, seriously! I don't know how this wasn't caught in beta on the disc. Though since it was all done beforehand, they probably took it gold on the disc and just pushed it out the door with no physical disc QA is my guess.
I ran across this game while sitting in my hotel room in California, I was watching tobuscus play through the first episode and was in aw of the feels and how attached that *I* got to the characters even with him playing it! I decided that I was going to have to play this. the game was too amazing not to play! I didn't watch any of the rest of his videos because I didn't want to ruin too much of the story.
A day or two later I went and got my pre-order at my local video game store and was super excited, and went shortly after the store opened to pick up my copy. (On December 11th) I get home, go to my room and pop it in my 360 (4gb slim) and start the game up. New Game. Episode 1.
I watch the camera move... very oddly. Laggy, jittery. "What in the world is this?" I say to my self "A cel-shaded video game having these problems? Must be a bad disc." I call the store and tell them of the problem "Well, it's a point and click adventure game so it's going to have those kinds of problems." They tell me. What? That's ludicrous. I hop onto telltale's support forums a day or two later. A LOT of people having this problem. I thought "Would a hard drive fix this problem? Nah, that makes no sense. I'm not even able to install it to my flash drive" And then reports start rolling in, people go buy a hard drive and the game now works with no problems.
I talk to my brother, who has had many 360s over the past years, and he gives me one of his old hard drive, which I (A month later, just after the announcement that a hard drive fixes the problem) tear apart and put it in my 360. So, I now FINALLY get to play the walking dead. All the critical acclaim and almost no reporting about this issue was disheartening. But, moving onto the game.
I finally get to play, believe it or not, after not being able to play (The lag was game breaking, I would always die on the second zombie because QTE (quick time events) wouldn't show up) for a month was pretty disappointing. So I play through episode 1, I already knew about the decisions that I had to make so it wasn't very impactful on me, and the bad taste in my mouth made it even less impressive. So, episode 1 finishes up after I get my dialogue with all my character, and I pray as I load episode 2 that I don't have the save problems others had.
So, I start loading episode 2, and since this is a non-spoiler review, I had heard about the decisions you had to make in the very beginning, but they were SO impactful, I honestly walked around for ten or fifteen minutes in game because I
Let's say that I forgot about the month's worth of troubles at the beginning of episode 2. Without getting into a lot more details, Episode 2, I would say was the best of all. I felt that we bonded with the characters the most in episode 2, for better or worse, and it's what makes the beginning/middle of episode 3 so perverse. But in a good way.
The pacing throughout all five episodes was pretty good, but one thing got me, and I just thought it took the pacing from "really good" to "pretty good" was when
But, I was still enthralled. The game did make me jump once or twice, and I won't say what but at one point in episode 5 I had to close my eyes and turn away from the TV. In, once again, a good way.
The Graphics, was a great choice. Cel-shading is a style I like and want to see more of, and they did a wonderful job having it match the tone of the game.
A final comment on the game itself. I understand that it's a zombie apocalypse, but seriously guys, what is up with almost every work being a curse word at some moments? If I wanted to hear that much swearing I would go and hang out with the middle schoolers in my area. Seriously man! For someone like Lee, being so obviously intelligent, he certainly swore a lot, which is the mark of someone uneducated. I can understand the hick (Kenny) swearing a lot, but can we tone back on this in the next season? So much of it was just unnecessary.
Telltale games obviously REALLY cared about the source material and if they did this with The waling dead, they could make some even better games with other franchises in the future. Getting this "Contract" if you will was either going to make or break TTG. So, after getting nominated for 60+ Game of the year awards (Including the two reviewers I watch, Zero Punctuation and Angry Joe) It seems that TTG "made" it as it were. Right?
Kind of. TTG made it in terms of the game, I rate it (The GAME) at 9.25/10, with minor bugs here and there accounting for the .75 I knocked off. some things such as frame rate slow downs (After installing the hard drive) and save file issues, which took them a month to patch. Small markdown for not being able to install to hard drive. Kind of silly. I may submit a claim for the XBLM codes because it would be nice to be able to not have the disc spinning in the tray.
Now some of you may be wondering, why did I put so much emphasis on the game itself and in my rating. It's because TTG's support, or lack thereof has been has been disappointing and at worst horrifying. A month of not being able to play the game, or those (Of whom I am not one) having to play episode 1 sometimes four, five or even six times because the game for some reason did not load their saves, it simply unacceptable. This is a point and click linear adventure game, and each play through would take approximately 10-15 hours. With such a high-profile title like "The walking dead" why was there obviously no or almost no quality testing? I can't say. The issue of game breaking lag on the 4gb slim just doesn't make sense. I honestly don't know how a studio does not catch that kind of an issue. And the response of "Buy a hard drive or download the episodes (Don't worry, we'll give you a code)" Just doesn't work, because the game takes up More space than the empty 4gb console gives you.
Because of the issues that I personally experienced and the lack of customer service, the entire experience drops, three whole points. That's right, a WONDERFUL, compelling, emotional interactive experience that in every right could and should have been a perfect 10/10 has been dropped down from a 9.25/10 to a lowly 6.25/10. Some may wonder how I see fit to drop it so low. It's because overall, the entire experience was hard. To see a game nominated for so many GOTY awards to be sitting in a stack of games, collecting dust. It's just sad.