The Walking Dead

[Grim]

Played through the entire part 1 on PS3 today and personaly I really loved it!!! Never cared much about other Telltale games, but this one I think was excellent. They are definitely heading in the right direction. I can't wait for another chapter! I wonder what you guys think. Anyone had a chance to play yet?

[NickyNyce]

I just finished part 1 yesterday. I haven't played through a second time to try and change things around, but it does have me thinking about all the different options I could have done differently. I really liked it too. I felt a real sense of closeness with the little girl, the story and everything came together better than I thought it would. Well worth the 400 micro points I spent on it. I wish the game had a bit more puzzles, but perhaps in the upcoming chapters. The dialogs felt just right...not too long, not too short. I think the game accomplished what it set out to do, make you stress every action and sentence you had to pick....well done!

Does anyone know how long it will be between chapters?

[Grim]

Well, first thing you notice about this game, just few seconds in, is how brilliant the voice acting is. There's one scene in the demo, in which you listen to 3 recorded voicemail messages, as they go from your usual "some crazy guy bit me, we're off to the hospital" to panicked screams of "don't leave the house, call 911!!!" and such. The acting is just fantastic, its quality almost unheard in videogames.

Spoiler

Nicky, you mention you cared about Clementine- and so did I. All through the game I felt I wanted to keep her safe and acted in her best interest. I was honest with her from the start- about her parents, the undead and my own past. Zombie apocalypse is no time to lie to kids....

When I got to decide between Doug the IT guy and the lady reporter, I chose to help Doug. Why?  Because reporter knew of Lee's past. She was a threat and if she'd told everyone in the group they could've split up Lee and the child... At least,  that was what went through my head in those few seconds I had to think about it. Apparently, only about 22% of players did that. Doug is a chubby geek. The reporter- now dead, was an attractive outspoken woman. And she had a gun... My wife didn't understand my decision- I should've saved a woman- always save women and children first!;) But that's exactly what I did- Clementine needed Lee to save her from the world, and I made this strange sacrifice for her.

[close]

So, to sum it up, this game works pretty much like a personality test, but under pressure and with only seconds to think about your decisions, it truly shows what kind of person you are. And you might be surprised... I still am!;)

[NickyNyce]

Pretty funny, because I made all the same decisions you did. It seems you and I are a rare breed of people...lol.

[stu]

I think it's great! Played episode 1 through a few times now, making different  decisions and seeing where it leads.

A great example of a modern day point 'n click adventure game. Took me a little while to get used to the '3D comic book sketch' graphics, but I totally dig them now!

Team Xbox have revealed the release dates for the future episodes, I guess it'll be the same dates for PSN and Steam.
â–  Episode 2: Starved for Help - May 30th, 2012
â–  Episode 3: Long Road Ahead - June 25th, 2012
â–  Episode 4: Around Every Corner - July 27th, 2012
â–  Episode 5: No Time Left - August 29th, 2012

[CaptainD]

I've got two Steam keys for the PC version of this to give away - first two people to PM me get them.  Even better if you could send me a short write-up of your thoughts about the game afterwards.

**BOTH NOW GONE**

[Eggie]

Played a little bit at my girlfriend's house. Really, really pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it.

The button-mash quicktime events are as lame as they were back in Heavy Rain but everything else... I dunno... just kind of works. You feel involved without the game losing any of it's classy TV show-feeling sheen.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

It's about what I expected, a fairly disappointing clone of Jurassic Park's mechanics with a few improvements set in a zombie apocalypse.  No real exploration of dark alleys or corners, no real connection to the actual Walking Dead comic beyond some cameos, and by that I mean the entire sense of scrounging and making your own way is completely lost in the way the game was designed, which is basically a drama to drama slideshow event.  It's not quite as bad as I feared, but it's certainly far from the source material in terms of what they had to work with and could have done had they been less intellectually lazy with the design.  They could have at least made the zombie confrontations more directly interactive than slamming a button repeatedly.

[CaptainD]

My 17 month-old had a screaming fit last night between 2am and 4am, now I feel like the walking dead... still haven't played the game yet, and ProgZmax's description of it being similar to Jurassic Park has really made me unenthusiastic about it.

[Khris]

I really liked it.
The level of immersion was pretty high, and more than I'm used to from other similar games.
I'd say definitely give it a try.

[Anian]

Would I buy the game? Probably not, but that's more due to me liking the idea of zombie stories sicne usually those stories end up using elements like - he's bitten, but let's try to help him or characters freaking out and opening doors, being generally stupid. And this does happen in this game as well. Even when the obvious metaphor of "humans are the real monsters" needs to be addressed, it just usually gets messed up within "people are stupid" category.
In short - I liked the game, it was tense and story was interesting.

About the choice at the end of the game, I find it actually clear cut:

Spoiler

Doug or Carley - obviously Carley - shoots a gun pretty good, she seems not to want to tell people who I am and trusts me and Doug was pretty infatuated with and already saved her life once, so I think he wouldn't really mind the sacrifice. I think most people thought about it in that way, that's why the percentage was high.

[close]

Even though we might not agree, still shows a game has a good story concept when you actually have doubts about the choices and think about them.

[LTGiants2000]

I've really liked Telltales's other games since they started (Sam & Max & MI have been done really well IMO). I'm def. gonna try this one out too, looks great.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

My choice was:

Spoiler

Doug because nobody really explained how he saved Carly and he's a tech whiz which I think makes him a good commodity to have since the lead can use weapons just fine.  Plus..

Carly was essentially blackmailing you about your past, so that got rid of her as a potential loose end...though they had to bring in that idiotic loudmouth to take her place at the end of the ep.

[close]

[Mati256]

I really liked this game.
I have been reading The Walking Dead, and also watched the TV series, and I think the game is pretty faithful to the idea of the comic. It focuses on people interaction and the zombies are just some kind of prop to trigger people into these interactions. If you have read the comic you have seen the dehumanization of Rick, Carl and the rest of the group as numbers go by.

My opinions are pretty much the same as NickyNyce. I loved the game but felt it lacked some serious puzzles. The radio puzzle is a joke. 
Having played Jurassic Park, I must disagree with ProgZmax, this is nothing like JP. It's not some smash-buttons-at-the-right-time thing, it's like a soften up point n' click.

As for my choices:

Spoiler

I saved Carly because she has a gun and knows how to use it. I also saved the kid at Hershel's farm and took his side on the pharmacy, let's see if all this loyalty is rewarded by the boy's father. This put the old guy against me, and he knows about the main character's past so he is someone to keep an eye on. I don't remember everyones name.

[close]

I might play the game and choose all the opposite actions, just to see what happens. 
I'm just really curious to see how my actions will influence the game in the future, this is one of the best thing about TWD.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I guess we played two entirely different games then since the zombie attacks always had a button mash sequence...

[Anian]

I guess we played two entirely different games then since the zombie attacks always had a button mash sequence...

Not only did they have mashing, but on pc version if you look at controls options, you can still see instruction for an xbox controller. 

It would be interesting to see if they stick with choices made through the episodes, just don't know if that might lead to too much branching out from a technical standpoint though. I mean  there's 2-3 major branches just in this episode, in the next it goes exponential and then by the end of episode 5 there's really a great amount of major differences. Also the fact that they kind of count on you replaying an episode one at a time, the choices you end up with in the end might just be from an experimental gameplay you played last.

[Mati256]

Yes, on Zombie attacks you must press buttons, but it's not the main gameplay of the game like in Jurassic Park.

[Eggie]

That Jurassic Park game sounds so awful, I don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. it's the main reason I was iffy on getting Walking Dead but I have been proven wrong and it is a good game of it's type and ytou shouldn't let Jurassic Park affect your hudgement is my jhudgemenr juggle juggernaut jugs,.

[Grim]

I enjoyed most of all the fact that a lot of cut-scenes were interactive. Even little things like being able to move your head while events take place add lots of value to the game in my opinion... And the button mashing... well. If there was some kind of proper fighting system in the game they would get totally slaughtered for it. People'd start to expect some kind of God of War clone or something... But when you have a choice of just watching a scene in  which a zombie gets killed or actually having some- minimal or not- input, I really prefer the latter. It doesn't require skill, true, but just adds to intensity of it all.

I'm thinking that maybe

Spoiler

Doug, the IT guy could turn out to be some really great character further along the line?... There was a moment in that game, silly as it sounds, while me and Doug sat behind that locked door watching zombies as they strolled the street, talking and kinda bonding as friends. I thought it was a really good dialogue there. I thought: hey, this guy's alright. Maybe that's why I saved him? I hardly spoke to the reporter. I got an impression she was some kind of cold bitch, actually... Anyway, if Doug dies in next episode, I will be seriously disappointed...

[close]

[selmiak]

I'm up to the point just returned from trying to save the bitten girl from the zombies at her door.

Spoiler

She asked the reporter for the gun, I failed to reply fast enough, we dropped down one floor and in the end she got the gun and shot herlsef.
Is there any way to make her go back inside without killing herself at once?

[close]

by now I like the overall presentation. The nice cellshaded with a paintover effect rendering and the atmosphere. Voiceacting is also good. I don't know why the all sounds were on 10 as a default setting as I had a really hard time understanding the talk with the music so loud over it. But that's an easy fix though. For riddles, well, it's sooo straightforward, little to no exploration possible this is a bit of a downside, but all in all it's a fun interactive clicky movie.