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omeysalvi's The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC)
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| [February 25, 2015 11:24:40 AM]
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Wednesday 25th January 2015
The suture scene was hard to watch. That scene followed by the bashing of the zombie’s head by the 12 year old girl, I feel, sets up the character of Clementine. Since I had not played the earlier game, it becomes hard to believe that a 12 year old girl has such strength and tenacity to operate on herself and then right after that - kill a zombie.
I have to note that after that establishing scene, I found myself making dialogue choices that are not as aggressive, insecure or defiant. I picked dialogue options that appear to be mature, coming from a world
wise, strong willed person. This change may be because I’m playing this on a different time and day or because of the difficult situation that the game just put Clementine through.
The one time I felt like being a punk was when Rebecca comes and talks to Clementine while she is having dinner. I felt like taking the dialogue option and asking her “Who is the baby’s father?” but
stopped short when I realized that is not something that Clementine would do.
At the very end of the episode I was faced with two choices – Giving the dying man water and saving Nick or Pete. I stuck to the good guy mindset and gave the man water. The last one was difficult – knowing that Pete was bitten and would turn but was a more valuable asset than Nick who was a loose cannon. Finally, contrary to logical judgment, I decided to save Pete. In the next episode preview it hinted that Pete takes the choice to cut off his own leg to prevent the infection from spreading. That
alleviated some of the guilt from the last choice. Just to satisfy my curiosity I went to youtube and checked the change in the final cutscene if I had decided to save Nick instead of Pete. It showed Nick
drinking, looking broken and dejected. This gave me further assurance of having made the right choice.
I also have a hard time recollecting the dialogue options as I’m writing this so I’m going to a walkthrough or lets play video to make notes. Till now most the dilemmas faced in the game haven’t caused me to think about them much, they being straightforward for me and my moral compass. After playing this episode and looking at the teaser for the next one, I can see that the strength of the game is not in the interaction or the dialogue choices but the multiple branching storyline directions that the game can go in based on story choices. I don’t think the game has enough of those branching stories to warrant multiple playthroughs right now but the hint of possibilities is very exciting for future games in general.
I’m looking forward to play the next episodes in the near future!
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| [February 25, 2015 12:08:17 AM]
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Tuesday 24th January 2015
At the start of my second playthrough Luke and Pete rescued Clementine. It was entertaining to see them argue about the decision about taking in clementine. I found myself inserting my decisions on the characters depending on the situation. As much as I tried to keep an emotionally removed mindset towards the characters, I found myself roleplaying and thinking of my own reaction in those situations. In that regards, the game succeeded in making me care.
I figured out that the story of the game was going to place a lot of emphasis on group dynamics. Also, I was trying hard to figure out the nuances between the dialogue options this time more than ever because in a lot of the conversations, I couldn’t make out the tone of the dialogue and what emotion that would show. English, being a second language, for me a lot of times the dialogue options seemed similar to each other with no difference between them.
I also feel the game could’ve benefitted from adventure game style puzzles because right now it feels like they are trying to do that but the puzzles are so trivial that there is no challenge here. It makes sense for a cinematic game like this but I cant help think they could have made it better by including harder puzzles. I actually hated when there was a supposed stealth section where Clementine sneaks through the house that was turned into an interactive cutscene. I love stealth games in general so this seemed like a mindless drag in comparison.
Further in the story, the difference between Sarah who has been sheltered throughout most of this apocalypse and clementine was striking and fun to watch. It was fun to see similar characters that were separated by a world of experiences. I have a feeling that the scene is foreshadowing some really hard to make decision somewhere ahead in the game.
The scene where Rebecca talks to herself while looking in the mirror, wondering who is the father of her child, reminds us that regular cultural norms still matter and haven’t broken down completely in the wake of an apocalypse. The choice of stealing and taking a watch was also interesting. I don’t know yet how it will play out but an action like that made a lot of sense in a post apocalyptic world and I wish the game has more of these kind of interactions as I play ahead.
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| [February 25, 2015 12:07:34 AM]
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Monday 23rd January 2015
The Walking Dead series of video games is and episodic interactive drama graphic adventure video game series by Telltale Games - a developer that popularized and mastered this genre of games. They have lots of similar other games but this one was no doubt the most popular and well received owing to the impressive story and popularity of the tv series and comic books. Having never played this kind of game before, I’m buckling myself in for a unique experience.
In the beginning, the game showed me a flashback of the previous season. From that, I understood that this is the story of the girl Clementine, who was under the care of a man named Lee. At the end of the first season, she ends up shooting the man, because he had been bitten by a zombie and that last moment of the recap set the mood for the first play-through.
The game began with a playful conversation between two people. Clementine is asked to choose a name and I had to come up with a response before a bar that keeps shrinking disappeared entirely. That mechanic took some time to figure out and I got the right choice as I wanted to make on the second or third such question. That scene did well to set up the relationship between the characters. On important dialogue choices, the game told me that "X will remember that". This made me think that these dialogue choices will have some sort of impact later in the story.
Clicking through scenes I was preparing myself for a jump scare of two as the game does a good job of creating tension. I also found the image of a young girl carrying around a gun to be very unsettling.
The first death was a very tragic experience. Christa's expression upon discovering Omid’s body was horrifying. I didn’t know whether any of my choices had led to that scenario or that it was inevitable in the story. Was I guilty for having the gun on me?
I found the QTE based gameplay very boring and restrictive, it is my first time playing the game. I also didn’t have enough time to read and think about the options but I feel it does it to simulate, real life split second decisions. During my play through, I always tried to discern the emotion behind the dialogue options given their tone. I made assertive choices, being rude, even when a gun was pointed at me. I chose a lot of dialogue options that reminded Christa of her late husband just to see the response it would elicit from that NPC. I wish I could go back and play every possible combination of decisions but that would take too much time.
In a few situations I felt the choices were just padding. For example, when I threw a stone at a bunch of zombies approaching me, it didn’t feel like the choice had any consequence. I feel these interactions were added just to add some level of interactivity for it to be called a game.
Sometime later, the moment when you play catch with the dog was really impactful in bonding the dog’s character to the player. It added some joy to the bleak landscape. Some moments later, I liked it how the game went full 180 and made me hate the dog for biting me when I fed it the food. It was a bad move but it didn’t stop me from being merciful and killing the dog and ending its suffering.
At this point I had a thought whether I would do the same if I was bitten in real life. I feel being hungry and bitten I would have left the dog to die. In real life I would have been exacting revenge. Since I’m just playing a game and not in that actual situation I put the dog out of its misery, trying to be forgiving and moving on.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 25th, 2015 at 00:08:49.
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omeysalvi's The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 25 February, 2015
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