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[Leatra]

I'm surprised there isn't a thread about this. So, what do you think? I just finished the last episode and my mind is blown into it's atoms. This game exceeded well beyond my exceptions.

For those who don't know about it, you probably came across the comic series or the tv series. If you didn't you are missing a lot. It's a game about a zombie apocalypse but it's more psychological than games like Left 4 Dead. "It's the living you need to worry about" This quote explains how things are. People fight against themselves more than they fight zombies. Since a bite is all you need to turn and zombies are attracted by noise, you mostly end up avoiding zombies or taking them out with melee weapons silently rather than going full auto with machine guns. I also never came across a machine gun in this game anyway.

If I say don't press the spoiler button I know you will so, reveal the spoiler if you can. Ha!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was kinda expecting the stuff that happened in last episode but they delievered in it such a way that you can't help yourself but cry. I also never expected Kenny sacrificing himself like that. The guy pretty much became a pragmatist anti-hero after his family's death. Kenny always wished Ben was dead and never held himself back from screaming it into Ben's face and when Ben finally snapped and got extremely angry at Kenny, it made Kenny realize how fucked up he is I guess.

I also heard of another The Walking Dead game being developed that will take the tv series as canon.

[Grakelin]

Finished all five episodes, but I still think this thread needs spoiler tags to prevent the inevitable. Game really gets ruined if you know what will happen.

[Leatra]

Yeah, I found about a character's fate in the game because of a spoiler myself. Since the story is everything, it really sucks if you know what's going to happen. That's what's stopping me from going for a second playthrough by taking all the ruthless actions.

Telltale is working on a Season 2 but they haven't told anything other than that. Maybe we will play as one of the characters who were in the group or have a new group altogether.

[Neonivek]

I am not sure I am a fan of Telltale's bitesized games. I feel like whenever I am just getting into one I am done the episode.

I beat Wallace and Gromit and Back to the Future being able to average about an hour and a half without hints.

How are these games in that respect?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

It had solid writing throughout the whole series although it did fall into some typical "zombie tropes" traps. Most of the "major" plot twists I saw straight away. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Did anyone really not work out that a family in a serene diary farm who offered meat were cannibals? I had a hunch the first time I saw that fucker's eyes (Danny?).

Also was anyone really expecting anything else from the ending? I saw that coming from the start of chapter 1.

I was a bit upset with the final chapter though, it seemed like it had the biggest plot-holes and had some of the best and worse writing of the series.
The bad.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All the crew meeting up with you even if you told them not to.

Vernon stealing the boat and not trying to take Clem.

I'll talk about that pathetic excuse for a villain, "Radioman", in the next spoiler.

No choices mattering, removing your arm means nothing, your actions have no affect on the outcome of the characters.

Ben not being able to redeem himself in anyway which was a real disappointment since I gave the kid so many chances.

Kenny killing himself for no reason to save Ben/Christa when he could have easily fixed the situation without killing himself. All of this AFTER his big speech about suicide being weak.

Extremely short chapter.

The cliff hanger ending after the credits. I paused the game and the shadows do look like Omid and Christa however I'm not sure what the bullets scattered all around the ground is meant to symbolise. Originally I thought that the bullets might indicate that the shadows might be bandits or some other extremely shady (punny) characters.

Why was Clem in a field instead of meeting up with Omid and Christa ontop of the hotel like I asked?

Not a very impressive conclusion with Clem's parents. I assumed at the start of the game they were already dead and/or zombified. I expected that either myself or Clem would have to kill them however. Just casually passing wasn't as powerful as it could be. At first I thought it was Brenda from all the way from the farm. 

The good.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some extremely good characterisation, particularly with Ben.

A well written, if predictable ending.

The scene where you're slashing through the horde is just epic. If Lee is armless he should win the biggest badarse of all time award.

Some great imagery. I loved the arm imagery althroughout the chapter making you either aware you've lost your arm or that you "could have done more" and slashed it off. Lee coming full circle with the handcuffs, cop and having to save Clem by giving her a weapon. The ultimate in passing the torch.

The whole decision to chop off your arm or keep it was an extremely difficult one for me (I choose to lop it off, Lee was done for anyway might as well pretend I have a faint glimpse of hope).

As stupid as Radioman was as a villain the scene where you sit down and discuss your "sins" is quite a powerful one. Radioman had great voice acting and perhaps the best character art of the whole series. What was in the room Clem was so worried about you opening? a zombified daughter? What a mystery!

Decent pacing.

The Villain.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I can't be alone in thinking that the "Radioman" was a poor concept. An action all the way back in chapter 3(?) coming back and biting you is meant to be the big twist?

Basically he lost his kid, left everything he had alone and unguarded, caused his family to leave him and then for him to blame all of this on a group of people trying to survive is a believable character? He thinks he can take care of Clem better when he has no resources and he already caused the death of his own family? The amount of effort and planning and effort that it would take for "his revenge" is meant to be believable?

Then we have the nonsense of the radio. How did it get fixed? Why didn't Clem tell anyone, why didn't anyone hear the discussions (much earlier), why did Clem tell complete secrets about Lee to the stranger when she wouldn't even tell the other survivors?

Moving that out of the way how did Radioman follow the crew? How did follow the crew when they were in the train and all the roads were likely blocked, how did he avoid "the herd" that was following the crew? Where did he get the supplies to survive if scavengers had already cleared everything? How did he reach the Marsh Hotel first? How did he clear the Marsh Hotel of zombies? How did Radioman think he could take on five armed people with only a single pistol? Why did Radioman not take a bigger interest in Duck and Kenny? How did he expect to escape the motel with the herd outside?

I'm sure there's stuff I missed and I haven't really been able to eloquent my opinions all that well since I'm tired but I hope I get the general point across.

[BunnyBob77]

I just finished this game about an hour ago.  Overall it was a really great game, although

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I thought that it seemed like a lot of your decisions didn't really matter, other than choosing to save doug or carley at the beginning. Everything is so railroaded it's not really possible to make any substantial change to the plot's course. You can't save any of the characters who die other than doug, carley or ben (even though ben proceeds to die a little while later for no good reason). One thing that did annoy was the farm in episode 2.  I knew that they were evil and hiding something from the start, but the game keeps telling you "Gee, look at how great this farm is!  they have an electric fence and food and everything is so wonderful!

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I thought that it seemed like a lot of your decisions didn't really matter, other than choosing to save doug or carley at the beginning. Everything is so railroaded it's not really possible to make any substantial change to the plot's course. You can't save any of the characters who die other than doug, carley or ben (even though ben proceeds to die a little while later for no good reason). One thing that did annoy was the farm in episode 2.  I knew that they were evil and hiding something from the start, but the game keeps telling you "Gee, look at how great this farm is!  they have an electric fence and food and everything is so wonderful!

Yeah it was something I found annoying.
That said they did state the game was "tailored" to your decisions rather than it having any meaningful impact on the story. The game however has ZERO replayability. If anything I found that trying to replay the game distracted from the experience.
They should really have a warning on the splash screen that the game is really only good for one round. I suppose the most replayability you can expect out of it is "Good-guy Lee" and "Scum-bag Lee".

[Zyxl]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was kinda expecting the stuff that happened in last episode but they delievered in it such a way that you can't help yourself but cry. I also never expected Kenny sacrificing himself like that. The guy pretty much became a pragmatist anti-hero after his family's death. Kenny always wished Ben was dead and never held himself back from screaming it into Ben's face and when Ben finally snapped and got extremely angry at Kenny, it made Kenny realize how fucked up he is I guess.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had the same ending for Kenny. When they're sitting on the couch in the attic and Ben is in the corner, I mentioned Ben told me to drop him and let him die in Ep4. Kenny had this definitive 180 on the spot, regretting that he would have dropped Ben if it was him and finally showing real empathy with Ben. Made Kenny's sacrifice extra dramatic. The suicide couple right before that was very intentional, when you talk to Kenny while searching the house he blows it off but then you realize how easily he could have escaped with Lee.  Someone said in the same episode "Easy to forget [Ben] is still just a kid." Ben's (impending) death is what finally broke him. Ben even comments in the suicide-house "Smart idea, all the pain they escaped".

Does the post-credits cutscene change depending on where you told Omid/Christa to find you and where you told Clementine to look for them?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When telling Omid/Christa I stumbled on the decision, said nothing, then immediately realized no wait lets get out of here by train. Kenny's dead anyway, nothing stopping us from not taking a boat. Realizing I'd told Omid/Christa no particular location, I told Clementine no particular location either, saying to just look for them. The post-credit cutscene was out in some rolling country fields, and two silloutted people on the hill spot Clementine by a tree.

Anyone else

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

feel kind of gypped cutting off Lee's arm did effectively nothing? I was expecting him to "die", then surprise! The discoloration and passing out was from blood loss and shock, not zombification. Haha, fooled you. He'll (barely) live.

[Leatra]

Well, yeah most of the stuff you do still doesn't matter in the end.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Especially the part where you decide to cut off your arm or not. Even if I didn't read what was gonna happen I knew that the writers couldn't allow Lee to live in one ending and kill him off in another. So I did what I would do without paying attention to that. If you think about it too much you can't enjoy the game.

Still, I think decisions still do a good job at changing how the story unfolds. I don't know about you guys but if I was making this game I couldn't create a game which all these decisions we did would have a big effect on the ending. Nice use of words by Telltale. "This story is taliored by the choices you make." We all ended up with the same clothing which just had little different colors here and there.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It doesn't matter if you save Ben or let him fall. Kenny dies in the exact same part of the game anyway. If you let Ben fall, Kenny doesn't die by sacrificing himself. If you save Ben, Kenny will help the guy who he wished was dead. If I didn't save Ben I would probably think like "Well, he was turning out to be a bad guy anyway." but when he died to stay with Ben I realized he was my favorite character. The guy went on and on about how Ben should have died and he died with him in the end. Granted, his sacrifice was more of an "I want to end my life and this seems to be a good chance to do it" sacrifice, which he spoke against a moment earlier. He could just mercy kill Ben and get away with Lee. On a side note, before I close this spoiler, the villain sucked. Something you do months ago comes back biting you in the ass thing might have been sounded good at first but the guy just didn't feel... real.

Anyway, they still managed to pull off the illusion of decisions better than most games I played. I'm just glad there wasn't any "good" or "evil" decision. I hate it when games do that. Shades of gray is the best way to go rather than moral-o-meter that says how good or evil your "karma" is.

Despite the flaws, this game is my personal GOTY. I had to many games failing to live to their hype this year.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The part where Clem leaves you/shoots you was definitely awesome. I was staring at the credits for a while there.

About the farm, as everybody else I knew something bad was going to happen in the farm. I was just expecting a bandit attack or something, not... that. The thing that happened with Vernon's group while you weren't at the house was unexpected though. Maybe a little too unrealistic. I'm assuming the Vernon's group manipulated him since Vernon didn't really seem like someone like that.

@Zyxl

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think the post-credits ending is same for everyone. I intentionally told Clem, Christina and Omid to meet at the train and avoid the cities. I got the same ending.

Also, when I saw that suicide couple, I also thought that it's wrong and suicide is the courage of a coward. At the end, when Clem was trying to get the gun from the zombified policeman, I saw Clem almost dying there and I thought no way this girl is gonna be ready for a world like this, even after all I taught her and what she went through. Even if she makes it out in a city full of zombies, she has no chance of surviving if she doesn't meet with Christina and Omid. Even if she does, she will still live a painful life since her parents are dead and the guy who protected him all along died too. Then, I thought about killing Clem and myself both (I know the game doesn't allow this) would be better, rather than being trapped with a zombified Lee. Then I remembered what I thought about the suicide couple. I also remembered when I thought it didn't make any sense when Kenny reflected on the suicide couple and was against suicide but died by pretty much commiting suicide under the name of sacrificing himself.

I think it's not that absurd, him being against suicide for a second and then dying like that later. It's weird but people tend to change their minds when things are looking grim.

[Apple Master]

Honestly, i think this is one of the most memorable games/series I've played in the last decade. Frigging incredible.

[Leatra]

Yeah, the downside is I finished it today and while playing another game I have realized that I can't enjoy FPS games with lousy stories anymore

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

By the way, anyone have an explanation to how Clem managed to carry Lee to a safe place when he passed out in the middle of a zombie horde at the last episode? That didn't make any sense for me.

Oh and, the stranger's car had no fuel when Lee's group robbed it but he managed to make it to Savannah before Lee somehow. That was weird too.

[BunnyBob77]

Yeah, the downside is I finished it today and while playing another game I have realized that I can't enjoy FPS games with lousy stories anymore

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

By the way, anyone have an explanation to how Clem managed to carry Lee to a safe place when he passed out in the middle of a zombie horde at the last episode? That didn't make any sense for me.

Oh and, the stranger's car had no fuel when Lee's group robbed it but he managed to make it to Savannah before Lee somehow. That was weird too.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I guess the place they were in was nearby, and they were sorta disguised by the blood covering them.  As for the stranger, I guess that Lee and the group still spent some time in the motel and took awhile to actually start to get to savannah while the stranger started to go there immediately.  I suppose he found another car or something.

[Gamerboy4life]

Don't know if this is considered necro'ing the thread, but at least I used search function.

But.. Oh man, The Walking Dead..
I just finished it, and I am sure for a fact this will be my favorite game of all time. I cried like a little bitch. No other game, book, or movie was ever able to do that.
This is why I love these games, you make choices and get invested with the characters and the story, like Mass Effect, KOTOR, or certain VN's.

No game ever came close to producing the range of emotions I felt when playing this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I felt absolutely pissed at Ben when he abandoned Clementine in the city, felt absolutely betrayed when Lilly went axe-fucking crazy, I felt so glad whenever I made Clementine happy, and I almost threw my keyboard against the wall when I heard Duck was bit. I almost wanted to kill Ben when he revealed the truth about the bandits, and so many many more emotions and shit man.

In the first act, I felt like taking care of Clementine was an obligation, because I'm in a situation to help her. Cause she's a kid! She grew on me episode after episode, and I found myself not only liking this child, but loving her, and I spent the entire game making choices that would only protect HER, and ME. I risked nothing on Clementine's behalf. The only reason I took her to the compound in Savannah is because Ben was too much of a fucking idiot. He abandoned her on the street, and lost her when I came back, so I was not leaving her alone with an injured man, a stalker watching her.

Lee getting bit was one of the worst moments. The first thought I had was that I would never get to see Clementine after she was taken. I ended up waging a war path, cutting off Lee's hand felt like no small choice if it meant I could save Clementine. Going through an entire CROWD of the goddamn things felt like nothing, with just one hand and a big freaking knife. If only I could get to Clementine.

I met the stranger, the guy who took Clementine, and I did nothing but hate him, though Clementine eventually ended up killing him. But I didn't care. I might survive the bite, I cut off the hand! And I have Clementine.

The parents, though, almost ruined the flow for me, when walking back through the crowd, but I seriously didn't think about it at all until I came upon this thread.

And I'm rambling, but the reason that the Walking Dead is the best game I have ever played to this day, is the end. I was crying, as I "passed the torch" to Clem, as I told her to cuff me to the vent and I knew what would happen next. It was the single most emotional moment of gaming for me, Final Fantasy could never hold a torch, Mass Effect is laughable compared to the choices you make in the Walking Dead, KOTOR is shunned, Hanako's route is put to damn shame compared to the Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead did something I have always waited for. Grey decisions. There are only bad, and worse. I love that, I loved and hated the game at times with my decisions, leaving Lilly after she shot Carly, letting Ben fall... and having Clementine shoot Lee.

That was the single most emotional moment I have ever, ever seen in a video game. You play god knows how many hours of this game, watching Lee and Clementine develop together, through support or scoff at their relationship. You see Lee teach her to shoot, cut her hair, protect her from the outside world as best as he could. Clementine was the biggest symbol of innocence, naivety and growth in the game, where she goes from a terrified girl in a treehouse to a hardened person. She was immensely likable, made even more so with the moments she spends with Lee, like the salt lick, the smell of "Shit" comments, all of the little things that made her small, almost demeaning character, one of the most well written characters I have seen.

I simply can't say everything I want to, and correctly, about how I feel about this game. It is far from perfect, but you know what? I could give two shits, the game was great enough to make me look past all the gaping flaws other people criticize it with, was the only game successful to actually make me FEEL anything in years.

10/10.

Goddamn, I don't care about what anyone says about it. In my mind, it's perfect. It really, really is. For anyone who actually wants to read my angst-ridden rambling, I'm sorry. Too busy crying about the ending.

[Leatra]

That's similar to how I felt when I finished the game. I have never felt this much emotion with any video game and the flaws of the game doesn't cast any shadows to this.

So, we'll have to wait for Season 2. I guess. Maybe we can play as Clem's protector again

[Gamerboy4life]

That's similar to how I felt when I finished the game. I have never felt this much emotion with any video game and the flaws of the game doesn't cast any shadows to this.

So, we'll have to wait for Season 2. I guess. Maybe we can play as Clem's protector again

No.

I really, really want closure to Clem's story, but it's over.

I'd be happier not knowing, or having a vague assumption about what happens to Clem, than to have a game ruin the mystery for us. They would have a very, VERY high bar to set.

Clem lived though. That's what I think. She survived.
She better.

I taught her how.

Ogawd it was the greatest game I've played.