Quick Look: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

They should have released this game between season 3 and 4, maybe with the start of season 4.
Better game, more hype. Win-win.

Also, Kirkman has some amazing things going for him, but he is severely saturating the market with some sub-par stuff. This is starting to look like a very bright flash in the pan.

While this game obviously is horrible and I do think the consensus is that the second season of the TV show is pretty bad, I'm amazed at Patrick's comments about both the TV show and especially the comic. And stating them as if he represents a majority here. As far as I know the TV show Season 1 and Season 3 now are in very high regard as is the comic. Everybody I know, even those who are not interested at all in zombie stuff like the TV show (except season 2) and the comic I believe is regarded as one of the best comic's. And it's all about the characters in the comic!

Patrick sadly does this more often. Which is a shame, as he seems like a great guy and I generally share his taste in video games almost exactly. And discovered a lot of cool stuff due to him mentioning games I never heard about. But sometimes he has very differing opinions from the consensus (which is fine) and presents them like they are the consensus (which is not).

Its been said before but yeah the show Patrick is talking about is called 'In the Flesh'.... here is a 2 minute preview for anyone interested :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLDMqDlrMKo

Patrick is WAY off about the Walking Dead comic and TV Show. Sure the show had a bad second season (although it picked up at the end). But Season 1 and Season 3 are great.

And the comic is absolutely brilliant! It's ALL about the characters and drama and is handled really well. It has fantastic female characters and a wonderful plot. Telltale's game is great because it takes what is great about the comic and puts you into the drama and tough decisions.

I get the impression that the TV show is great when Kirkman has more involvement and worse when he has less. The show suffers when it tries to stretch out plots from the comic for too long (like season 2 when for budget reasons they stretched out a few comics worth of continuity into half a season so as not to leave the farm) and excels when it stays true or Kirkman carves some new ground.

You're right, it's ridiculous and stupid. Ignoring how bizarre it is to "theorize" about something's quality, he's just flat out wrong. In an age where books, especially independant books, don't get more than a few issues unless they're lighting in a bottle, The Walking Dead has had hundreds, over the course of YEARS. And all this was before the show and the game made it a household name. The trades are best selling books at comic book stores and book stores alike. Some of kirkman's characters have made it on lists of the greatest comic book characters of all time.

Patrick is just emprically wrong and the fact that Brad is like "oh, I didn't know that was the general opinion on The Walking Dead" is exactly what makes it so infuriatingly frustrating.

Patrick doesn't know what he's talking about.

Sorry.... but this was a god awful quicklook, neither person had any focus.

patrick talks out of his ass about the comic. great.

patrick then complains about the game being bad when he ignores everything the game is trying to show him. clearly it was pushing for a stealthy approach, but he just runs around like a fucking moron aggroing a huge train of zombies.

i mean the game looks awful, but at least play it as its intended, dont just run around aimlessly like a retarded child

Yea, I totally agree about the show. For me, the second season was mainly bad due to poor/annoying character arch. I don't think there was one likeable character in season 2. Season 3 turned all that around. Lori and Carl weren't insufferable anymore, and I actually really like where they're taking Carl's character (him having to grow up fast but still be a kid). Rick dealing with his sanity has been pretty well handled also, and the drama between the town and prison is exciting.

I can't speak for the comic as I haven't read it.

Yeah Patrick's opinion on the comic was very painful to listen to.

You are very wrong, dude.

It's essentially this. For season 3, Glen Mazarra was largely adamant about wanting to take the series in a new (read as: his own) direction, and it progressively upset a lot of people behind the scenes, not least of all Robert Kirkman himself. Now admittedly the negative reaction to season 2 probably has a lot to do with that decision, but it's still extremely arrogant to come in and say, "Oh, I see what you did here with this thing and that, but I think I can do it better" -- especially for a series which has been running as long as TWD and cultivated such a loyal fan base. Entire characters have been swapped out, reduced to basic stereotypes or ignored altogether in favour of Mazarra trying to give his own take on the events. And given that TWD (comic) is entirely about those characters and their continued development, it's incredibly frustrating.

Patrick, read the comic before you try commenting on it's quality. You're just so incredibly wrong, it hurts.

Please pay attention to the game next time you do a quick look. Talk about the game and not things that are surrounding it.

first parts of season 3 were good (best part since pilot ep) but then kinda quickly devolved into crap again. andrew lincoln's terrible scene chewery didn't help matters.

haven't yet bothered to watch the newer eps but from what i hear it doesn't sound good. i'll admit i'm a bit biased being mainly a fan of the comic. they screwed up lori's death. did bring tyrese in though (finally). seems the governor's plot was dragged out too long and they really misstepped/fumbled around with his character.

I watch shows while doing something else as well,, like internet browsing, reading a comic or playing something on the 3DS but only whith comedy shows or shows with not so much story and complex things going on. With shows I really like like The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad or Madmen for example I focus only on the show.

Patrick really should read the comic he seems to be making assumptions that it just has shitty characters in it. Sure some characters are just red shirts, it also has some really good characters in it. It is just the comics lately haven't been too great.

Patrick is probably one of those fuckers that ruins my movie previews by checking his phone until the last possible moment. The movie starts and finally the phone gets put away.

I don't know, seems about as good as Dead Island and Far Cry 3.

she's fucking awesome in the comic, though.

Thank you Patrick! I'm glad to hear someone else doesn't like Walking Dead.

Finally finished watching the QL (damn laptop keeps shutting down). I don't think it's the best Quick Look ever.

It was very noticeable that you were looking for sequences where you could call it a bad game. Maybe it's better to go into it with an open mind? Of course, you can't and shouldn't ignore any negative criticism the game received elsewhere, but intentionally seeking it out is sort off frustrating to watch.

Also, Patrick, I don't think anyone minds that you vocalize your opinion on The Walking Dead comic and TV show, but it did seem like you were trying to portray how the majority of people felt about the TV show, rather than stating your opinion.

I am fiercely against having to label every other sentence with 'in my opinion', but there was a disconnect here. I'm not sure where it went wrong, maybe it was Brad asking about how the majority of people felt and you (Patrick) replying with your opinion that actually doesn't necessarily represent the general consensus on that stuff.

Don't let the stream of hate comments get to you though. You know how it is with the internet. 'It could be done better' automatically means you grew a goatee to worship Satin and kill puppies with frozen milk.

The comic is pretty bad. It is (unintentionally) very funny at times, like that part with the twin girls, but other than that it's got nothing. Except zombies.

Patrick was sure talking out of his ass for most of this. "I haven't read the comics, but let me spend ten minutes telling you why I think they probably suck."

I haven't read the comics but here's me criticizing them. OK.

Wow, there is a mouse cursor in the top right during the opening credits..on an Xbox game..

Honestly, sometimes I think I can't see the difference between a bad show, a bad movie, or any other format of bad media and it's good counterpart. I was under the impression that nearly everyone loved The Walking Dead.

Oh well, game looks like hell, btw.

I can't stress enough how much I like the tv series and have waited for this game how ever after playing it for the first 10 to 20 mins I was very let down this game could have really been something !

My advise but dead island and pretend your rick can't go wrong

I got Medal of Honor Quick Look flashbacks watching this. That's not a good thing.

I'm normally on Patrick's side but man is he way off base on the comic. The comic is fucking gut wrenching at times because the characters are so strong and when they die... I have to put the book down and take a breath and walk away. You cant read one book and declare an entire series that has been going on for ten years shit. That's just kind of dumb man.

i get the feeling that if someone doesn't get through the prison sequence all the way in the comics they may not see what the big deal is. i'd tell patrick to give it another chance but it's (grudgingly) ok if he's not a fan.

Exactly. These guys need to stick to video game commentary. A person watching their iPad or laptop in front of the TV will have no idea what is going on with a TV show & will not make a connection or get involved in the storyline. Season 3 is up to 11 million viewers, more than when it started. Keywords for anyone interested in the show: PAY ATTENTION. TWD IS NOT an Attention Deficit Disorder Duder's paradise. Listening to them talk about their distaste of the show made me think: What alternate universe do they live in?? hahaha.

As someone that generally likes Patrick and is up for defending him from blind hate, i'm still gonna join the line-up of people calling him out on spouting off a "theory" badmouthing the comic he never read. That might be okay just having a chat off-camera, but for something that's going to be watched by a lot of people in an official capacity, you really shouldn't start talking shit about stuff you have little awareness of.

"We don't want to do a quick look but whatever"

Don't do a quick look if you don't want to. Quality over quantity and nothing at all is always better than being served garbage.

Also,(superfluous punctuation) as everyone already said, ostensibly, read the damn comics before commenting on them.

I am a fan of Patrick, but it's pretty shitty to make the claims he did about the comic even though he admitted to (maybe) reading the first anthology. Also as others have mentioned, Telltale's game was so damn enjoyable because it recognized what makes the comics so great and successfully translated that character drama into a video game.

I have to disagree with Pat, The Walking Dead is not "bad" series. Season 2 was pretty sucky except for a few episodes but Season 3 has been pretty fucking good.

One reason I hate the show is this:

The Governor really sucks. He looks like my neighbor. I'm pretty sure I can beat my neighbor up, so I'm not too scared of the Governor. His eye patch was also crocheted or something, which means the show must exist in a world where everyone stole all of the real eye patches. That's fucking dumb.

I mean, I like the idea behind that attention to detail, but it really shows how dumb the show's priorities are. They cram details in places where they aren't needed (like the awful, awful second season, where a detailed account of a boring-ass farm with boring-ass characters spans ten whole episodes.) And then the stuff that's enjoyable to watch (and at times, brilliant,) only lasts one episode. Like this season's episode with Morgan. That episode was really, really, really good. Or the beginning of Season 3, where they're on what seems like their last legs. The show has promise a couple of times per season, and then Andrea shows up and the show quality drops by a rate of about 100% per second she's on the screen.

Edit: Also, zombies haven't been scary since the 60's. It's all just action movie tropes now.

I don't really care all that much about his opinion of the comics, but yes, his manner of talking about it misrepresents the general consensus on it. Which is that it's generally a great comic, mostly because of it's characters. All his "theories" are way off-base, but whatever, his intellectual posturing isn't new at this point. It's his lionizing of the telltale game, and how it's so good because of the characters, but the comic is shit because the characters suck...I couldn't be rolling my eyes with any more disdain.

Saying the comic is bad when not having read it?

Kinda dumb.

Patrick reads only a few parts of the comic and then declares the comic is not as good as the game because it has bad characters. Right , okay....

TWD comic has bad characters? Wow. Half the reason the game is so good in the first place is because it takes a bunch of it's best moments from the comic.

The comic is the best Walking Dead product by far.

Yep, this game looks really fucking terrible.

well save some brief moments in each season the plot's been meandering and clunky. they reduced Michonne to some mute emotionless "bad-ass," Andrea to pretty much a helpless blundering fool, the governor's lost pretty much all his menace, there's been useless characters cut from whole cloth left and right, Carl's mostly a pathetic whiner, and Andrew Lincoln can't sell Rick's character worth a damn. it has its moments but they're few and far between. i also don't mind deviations but they're changing things for the sake of changing them and not to try to improve on them or take them in interesting directions. also i did start watching the show before reading the comics, so i'm not coming to it from some bias.

i'll say it was kind of flippant of patrick to dismiss the comic as he did (but if he honestly tried and didn't like it more power to him) , but he's pretty spot on about the show. there's really nothing there to miss now, plot-wise.

i will give the disclaimer that i haven't watched any of the 2nd half of season 3. if it somehow magically rescued itself in those episodes then i'll admit i'm wrong. that i was struggling along with the show for so long, even when it was pretty terrible, and just now gave up should be pretty telling.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct : sweat technology

so yeh this game looks fuckin TITE.

Can't stand the show, and this game looks pretty awful. GG Activision.
Now, I really should go and finish the Telltale TWD...

goty

Man, Patrick talks a whoole load of bullshit in this Quick Look.

The T.V. show and comic book are both great. The T.V. show has had it's ups and downs though, I'll give you that. Also, this game does not look very good at all.

I super agree with Brad... I've been there since the beginning... watching Walking Dead... and it's not enough to want to stop watching, but it's just not good anymore

I also watch the walking dead with my phone. The dialogue and drama just are not worth paying attention to in 80% of the episodes.