Adelion

About lessons and environmental influences

Well, this does sound heavier as it is meant :P Today, I will talk about the last two games I completed (both for the monthly theme, yay). While the first is for the most part just a rant (beware HEAVY spoilers), the second is about prejudices and a comparison.

  • The Walking Dead: Season Two
    The Walking Dead: Season Two

    9 hours playtime

    40 of 40 achievements

  • Gal*Gun: Double Peace
    Gal*Gun: Double Peace

    42 hours playtime

    39 of 39 achievements

The Walking Dead: Season 2: ….. wants to teach me a lesson …… I don’t want to learn. And while I know that decisions in Telltale games hardly matter this is not a rant about Telltale games but about The Walking Dead specifically. Just to be clear on that. The Walking Dead’s gameplay and story (for the books and the series) is based on drama. As such you often have unnecessary drama which could be avoided if people would just think for a second. Granted the second is not always there but still, the urge to punch people for obviously bad decisions is huge. All this is to support the main lesson here: There is no hope. The game is not about the survival of the people in there but how they die. You like someone? Good, the more reason for them to die. Is there at some point in the game where you have to decided between two characters? This just means that you determine who will die first and who later. There is this characters dragging you down permanently? No, problem he will probably redeem himself later. No, noone in this universe redeems himself, ever. Let’s give some examples. Luke, one of the more sympathic characters in Season 2. Out of the blue just drowns in the sea. Just like that, without much built up. Ben, Season 1, keeps making bad decisions. For fairness, most of them are just based on poor knwoledge and judgemental powers. But he never gets the chance to redeem himself. I could only pity him. Then season 2, you have Sarah. On several occasions you have to decide what to do with her. To give her the will to live through this, but then comes the point where no matter you do. She will just die. Everytime, the only thing you can influence is HOW they die. And while this is also teh responisibilty of Telltale this is mostly due to background scenario from the Walking Dead. Because: There is no hope. Then you have the characters from 400 days. Some of us went the extra mile to get them join that promising camp. Only to find out in Season 2 that it is run by a psycho. And not only that, the camp will be overrun by a walker horde fittingly initiated by the player character himself. And so the people you wanted to save just died (probably) because of you. Maybe they would have been better of without joining the camp. And then, like mentioned before, you have the bad decisions. You watch them, you listen to the talk and choose one of the answers (and not always you have one available which would be necessary …). And you just have to shake your head as you wonder how this could escalate like this. This is interesting as you - the player - controls one of the few childs in the game and clearly can act more mature then 90 % of the cast. This is infuriating me so much that if I would have more motivation I would create a group and try out my own zombie apocalypse scenario (all events would be timely scripted before hand with modifiers, so if you have good timing and good decisions you can get through without much problems). But no: You help someone, he dies later. You trust someone, he betrays you. There is no hope. And I’m currently not sure if I ever wanted to play season 3 as The Walking Dead wants to teach me a lesson I don’t want to learn. Also at this point in time meeting Clementine is a granted Death Flag for every human still alive …..

Gal*Gun: Double Peace: Well, to the second game which is a lot more light-hearted. Currently, I have the idea to make a double review concerning this game and The Typing of the Dead: Overkill. Why, you may ask. This is like comparing apples and peaches, you may say. And I would tell you, that both games are quite similar to an astonishing high level. Both games are rail shooters, both games are kinda grindy (if you go for achievements), both games don’t take themselves seriously and have no qualm about showing this, and both games can be deemed quite offensive depending on your personal attitude and probably where you have been born and lived for the most part of your life. In Ga*Gun you are constantly chased by female high school students, trying to confess their love to you. Your only chance to defend yourself is to shot them with pheromones bringing them Euphoria (or giving them Double Peace). As this was quite close to how my life actually works I thought why not buying and playing it. Then you have mountains of panty shots and your typical tentacle scene and other obscure scenarios like one of the heroines being stuck in a window. And inbetween you have the banter and talk showing the obvious satire existent in the game. Still most people would instantly understand why someone could find this offensive and deem someone playing this as pervert or what else. But what about the Typing of the Dead? Why would that be offensive. Well you have your mutants, are constantly shooting and splattering them, some kind of obscure sexuality references, high violence and gore and a fuckton of swearing (although it is all “justified” for one stupid joke at the end). Strangely enough most people are okay with this form of super brutality without batting an eye, while light sexuality instantly makes you a gruesome, pervert pedophile. Talking about double standards :P On a gameplay site Gal*Gun has actually to offer pretty much. Four to five different main routes (with levels shared between routes and levels specific to certain routes), a bad/normal/true ending to all the routes, different paths for some levels, boss battles, events, a lot of humour, some collectibles and a lot of adorable girls all with their own weak points and voice and characteristics. So if you want to play through every main route at least once you have to do a bit of gaming. And then if the main heroines are not enough you have access to the True love route where you can specifically chase that one girl you want to have with a few specific extra lines at the end. They really did put in effort into those girls. For the achievement hunter there is to do a lot as well. Most of the stuff is rather easy (although three fights can be very annoying if you haven’t found the cheap way, which I only discovered ater 4 hours of cursing -_-) and then comes the grind. The last 6 achievements I would say are ultra grind heavy especially the collection of all the pictures and girl’s data. From the technical side they didn’t put in to much effort. The port shows and explains the whole time the gamepad controlseven if none is linked to your pc (game can be player fine with gamepad, sometimes it is easier and sometimes not, I played after 3-4 hours with keyboard and mouse as aiming is easier), the opening movie is non-existant and for several users there is an annoying crash at the end of level 1-2 (and some minor crashed at other points, 1-2 is the most infuriating however). I don’t know how often I played that level just for it to crash at the end. And circumventing doesn’t always work or you have to take the sour pill of not understanding some lines which is stupid too. So if you can overcome the technical side (and I swear it does munch away at your patience!) and like some rail shooting action the game can only be recommanded as a light-hearted satire with a lot of heart (and euphoria).

EvilBlackSheep

I really think your whole “rant” about TWD is pretty accurate, and fair warning, season 3 is more of the same, and sometimes to the point of infuriating. It seems like meeting Clem doesn’t just flag you for death, it also makes you abandon all common sense.You have been warned. Like you said, it also applies to the TV show (and the books, but i’m really behind on that).

Mully

telltale games: no matter what to do, devs already scripted everything xD

i take them just as a an interactive tv-show. sit back and watch it develop.
you can change some things but results are almost the same.

Adelion

Well, I like them as interactive movies. Like I said my main problem is with the Walking Dead. As the game/series/comic book has this awful to just kill everything. For example in (obvious spoiler coming) Tales from the Borderlands you had the same principle but not everything had to die. And while some stuff was inevitable like Jack’s betrayal (surprise, surprise) you could at least change minor unimportant stuff like letting the secretary live or that one Atlas Worker. Maybe it will change for a potential second season. But you could make a difference. I just don’t like this Death to anyone story type -_-