I understand that this is a level of storytelling that is unusually good for video games, but I found it to be relatively predictable for the most part as they draw your attention to things beforehand such as Clemantine talking on the radio and the not at all suspicious car full of food, what's more it's full of plot holes and oversights.

On top of that it was hard work forcing myself not to keep stopping playing it because I knew that i'd have trouble going back, the story is only just worth the plodding pace of the player controlled sections like tedious train section. If you know what you're doing it's fine, but first time through, if you don't do things in the right order you can spend ages fumbling about in futility.

I'm not saying it's not a great game, it is, but I think all the praise heaped on it is partly unwarranted.

I know it's not supposed to be 'fun', but it is supposed to be entertaining, and most of the time I found I wasn't entertained.

Am I the only one that thinks that people worship this game more than it deserves?

Did you play it before or after the hype? I played it along as it was coming out and rarely checked into the community, and absolutely loved it. Maybe it's a matter of putting the game up against the praise, rather than on its own merits.

I found the game's main choice mechanic extremely entertaining; I was on a constant edge for when the game was going to throw the next decision at me and it sort of tickled my brain reflecting on that stuff. Sure, on a visceral level, not much was going on, but I really enjoyed a game that made me think without being a series of logic puzzles.

Is this when we hit the wave of "TWD is overhyped". We'll probably start encountering this. I mean, everyone's talking about it and I can't imagine how some people who haven't played the game yet think it is.

@EpicSteve said:

Is this when we hit the wave of "TWD is overhyped". We'll probably start encountering this. I mean, everyone's talking about it and I can't imagine how some people who haven't played the game yet think it is.

These threads have been pretty constant for a while.

@Branwulf: No it's not overrated, some people just didn't like it as much as others do. You know, like with everything else ever.

I don't think TWD is overrated as much as people forgive its shortcomings because its strengths are so stellar. That is okay as long as people don't deny the shortcomings.

While I think the story is awesome, and I loved my time with the game, I don't feel comfortable calling it GOTY. The parts where you actually have to play the game just got in the way of the enjoyable parts.

The Walking Dead was a game that was consistently talked about by the community all year more than any other. Personally I kept it off my top 10 because of technical issues with saves but it was really good.

Nah, it's underrated. First game that made me really care about the characters. I'll agree that there are some shortcomings and it is somewhat predictable but that doesn't make it have any less effect on me. The constant killing off of characters kind of pissed me off, the first few times yeah okay, but after that it seemed like "Hey we're gonna kill this dude here just because..." Kenny staying with Ben was complete bullshit. But have you played it to the end? That ending man, I saw it coming obviously, but still. Words fail to describe it. I can write pages about it and my experience with the game, so I'll just say it's really awesome and definitely my GOTY.

Sure, there are sections I didn't like, such as that train section, but overall I really enjoyed it. I don't think it's overrated.

@Branwulf said:

I found it to be relatively predictable for the most part as they draw your attention to things beforehand.

*bzzzt* What is "foreshadowing"?

But no, I think it is 100% deserving of the praise it is getting. I have been playing story driven games for many decades and cannot remember one so personally affecting.

I didn't think the writing was good. Guess i'm one of the few but i just found its story frustrating. They want the death of characters to be impactful and meaningful so of course to achieve this they have to kill important and interesting characters.

The problem is, this isn't gonna work if all i'm left with is garbage afterwards. It just becomes frustrating. By episode 3 they had effectively gotten rid of all the important characters in the crew and left me with Ben (the most boring/useless/annoying character in the whole game) and Kenny who managed to make it very clear at every possible occasion that he is useless. Kenny doesn't do shit in that game. From the half point of episode 3 on to the end of the game, every time a new an interesting character appeared they would leave just as quickly as they appeared and once again you're left with the garbage. That garbage mind you isn't just useless towards helping the group through these tough times, they're useless at making the story interesting. And just the relationship between Lee and Clem (which is really well done i'll admit that) was certainly not enough to keep me interested in the whole thing.

That is not what i call good story telling. Good story telling would have been to make every character interesting and important in their own way. Then you can write off a character, make it impactful and still not be left with that frustrating feeling that you're not supposed to have any enjoyment out of the game. And by enjoyment i'm not talking about having happy fun time in Zombieland either.

And then there's the rest of the game which is all bad all the time or just actively on fire.

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

It is a little bit overrated, yes. The story it tells is amazing, but there is lack of payment in the end. And before you jump to any retarted conclusions, I don't mean lack of a happy ending. I mean, doing a little report on what happened to the people I've met followed by a confusing and awfully short cutscene. I wanted to see if my choices mattered. Did the things I said and done actually helped Clem or doomed her. 

I don't mind the illusion of choice, it sometimes works great, sometimes not so much, the point is that through the whole game you are in this mindset that a binary choice is still a choice, while it's not. So much for a story that is tailored by the way you play it. The choices lay somewhere in the middle between "Whatever I do is the order of the day" and "Do whatever you feel is right, no one gives a fuck". Which is ok, I just don't like that it's pretending to be something more.

Technical issues aside, there is only one more thing I don't like. While the game is full of tough moral choices, it never goes overboard. It's always the safe zone, it shows imaginary and not-so imaginary social problems, but never actually comments on them. And it does not let you, the player comment on them.

If the technical issues get resolved I would gladly rate the game 4/5, because it's the closest thing to a perfect zombie game.

I don't think it is, I think it's just a really good game that has a fantastic story and sets the bar very high for video game stories that involve choice in the future.

storytelling was good but the game around it was buggy

game was very generic, i could see the twist coming from a mile long. same "Hey i fucked up" character in every zombie apocalypse medium, terrible mechanics. But hey im 500g richer

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

I had something similar like that happen only I was great buds with Kenny despite not really liking him as a character, and then at the end of Episode 4 he goes "I ask myself Lee would you be there for me if the roles were reversed because in the past you weren't" and I keep thinking WHAT I saved your life like a dozen times Kenny, you stubborn hick piece of shit. Then a second later he says how I was always there for his family completely contradicting what he just said a second ago.

I think it's a neat story telling experience. Some of the gameplay is plodding and slow. Sometimes you are tasked with executing a task, and you know exactly what to do but soon realize that you'll have to go talk to everyone before some scene triggers. I don't think it's near GOTY material simply because for a game of the year award there is very little gaming in it, and the parts there are pretty bad or monotonous. Anyone saying "well it's ok that the gaming is on the low side, fuck it, who cares the story is really good!" well then maybe we should re-evaluate all those games in the past that had great stories but mediocre gameplay. Heck, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West had a really good story and the voice acting was really top notch - the gameplay was average though, so lets give that game 100 stars right now. It's the inconsistency in "gaming press" where standards change from one moment to the next depending how much someone likes a product that makes it hard to even take seriously and put any weight to scores. Asura's Wrath kept getting mentioned by the staff as a great new innovative way of using quick time events. This mechanics that seemingly all people on the internet abhor from the depths of their darkened souls - but you put that quit time prompt to the side of the screen rather than the middle and we have a revolution on our hands. The new GB website should seriously get rid of scoring all together and just have the reviewer say "hey I liked this and this is why" or "I didn't like this and this is why" because that would be a lot more fair than using an inconsistent scoring system.

No way is it overrated. It's a landmark game for storytelling that I think we'll look back on and talk about how great it was.

I played through it all as the fifth episode was coming out. I did not find a place for it on my top 10 list. As someone who has seen "The Road," none of the choices hit me that hard, and a number of the story beats felt telegraphed or just simply bad.

I prefer games with strong gameplay, and if it comes with good characters and a story then that's a bonus, but gameplay is the most important.

I think there's a certain group of people who are going nuts over it having not played an adventure game for some time (or ever in some cases.) I'm almost done, and I've found the game to be pretty great, with mostly well written characters. I'm interested that I'm seeing so many comments along the lines of "I've never cared about video game characters until this game" or some permutation of that. Especially since I'm a big softie, I care for the plight of these guys and gals quite a lot but nothing that's exceeded my attention from games past.

Its an adventure game, it has a slow pace and a lot of talking. Thats what those have.

Save issue had me look for a solution for days. This enraged me as the game's selling point is all about using your save.  
Technical issues in the way my game reads my save as a result of the "fix"; stats at the end of each episode didn't have any text, so the graph made no sense. 
Controller issues during shooting sequences made me switch from controller to K/M and back because analog tuning was horrible. 
Lack of animation polish in a game that is focused on character interaction.   
Some unchangeable events made me lose any sort of immersion at those moments. SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content. 
 
Still in my top 3 this year. 

I enjoyed it and that's all that matters to meeeeeeeeee.

I played through the game over the past couple of days, mostly due to the first episode being free and the others being half off on XBLA, and while I enjoyed the game overall I just don't understand why there is so much love for it. Most of the characters essentially spend all of their time bitching at you or each other and then they die. Why am I supposed to care about them? More often than not I was actually glad that they were gone because when they weren't acting like petty brats, they were leaving someone hanging (sometimes that someone was me) that really needed their help. The only characters I came away caring anything for were Lee and Clementine.

The parts where you move around the environment are tedious and frustrating. There were times when I would see an area I haven't explored yet and think "Damn it's going to take forever to get over there!" just because you move needlessly slow. On top of that I usually found an item I needed before I found out why I needed it, which meant that I needed to backtrack just to pick up a thing I could have already had.

Where the game really grabbed me was making choices and then seeing how things played out. So much so that I didn't want to put the game down, I just really wanted to see what was going to happen next, despite the lack of fun and interest I was getting out of the rest of the game. Sadly I think going back through a second time to see the other choices wouldn't be nearly as engaging now that I know things can only play out a certain way no matter what you do, and that goes for more than just the ending. Speaking of the ending, that was the only part of the entire game that had an emotional impact on me, and was so well done that I felt tears starting to form in my eyes. This wasn't the first game to do that to me though, and I kind of wonder what types of games people have been playing all this time when they say that this is the first game that triggered these kinds of emotional responses in them.

At the end of the day I came away feeling pretty conflicted about TWD. After finishing it I immediately wanted to suggest my friends to play it so I would have someone to talk about it with, which is definitely a good thing, but at the same time I couldn't really recommend it to anyone I knew because the parts where you actually play it are so bad. I also came away with the impression that a lot of people went into this game really wanting to feel something from this game's story and characters, because I personally don't feel that it warrants as much praise as it's gotten. That stuff is well done at times, but the overall package isn't "game of the year" good in my eyes, honestly.

I think a lot of people are just looking for reasons to hate the game now that it's been getting so much praise.

Not that I don't believe they genuinely didn't like it, it's just that I'm seeing people taking issue with even the slightest problems the game has, things that never really bothered me.

I am not sure how one can go "Oh this story was totally predictable". Unless one means "predictable" meaning "I think nothing happy will come from any of this" which isn't any more a prediction than a horoscope.

That said, I have a feeling that the next game is going have to do a story that is really different to avoid toxic comparisons.

I understood the hype going in but I was doubtful and at the same time kept an open mind. I ended up loving the game from start to finish but then again I'll forgive some gameplay downfalls as long as the story is there and few games have had me in near tears by the end of it. That is a testament to the writing.

I played it all the way through. Is it overrated? It depends on what your expectations were. As a pure adventure game? Its rather sparse in its interactivity, which is not going to cut it if Telltale wants to move forward with it. The developers are going to have to figure out how to make deeper game mechanics. Its just not engaging as a game.

As a narrative experience, in the model of a "choose your own adventure" style? I think the narrative and characters were very strong. Strong enough that I didn't really care about the lack of an actual game.

With that said, Telltale can't continue this series with JUST strong writing.

At the end of episode 3 I realized that none of my decisions had any real impact on the story. It felt like a game on rails and that ruined it for me. The writing was good, but the gameplay was non-existent. At some point in episode 4 i just couldn't muster enough interest in the characters or story to continue especially when I knew my decisions didn't mean jack shit. Overrated? Yes.

It's a great game but there are plenty of other strong character driven games that still incorporate a meaningful amount of gameplay. Anyone that thinks it's one of a kind needs to broaden there horizons.

I must admit that I played it after hearing all the hype ( but I also knew who the devs were... so that kinda "countered it if you add up the movie license), still i believe putting it in a "best of 2012 contestant" position is silly.

It uses that cheep " Oh you totally make big choices" illusion" when in the end shit ends up 98% the same way. It tries to get you do be sentimental with the whole "OMG YOU KILL KIDS !!!?!?!" and than gets some filler content in.

The first didn't work for me because I saw it 1000 times already, the second didn't because in general i think i have a pretty cynical and practical look on things, I'm not a parent and I'm not religious and the third was less annoying than expected so good job on handling that.

So overall I do strongly believe it's the fact that most people don't play as many games, hence they don't realize how little the choices actually affect the whole thing because they don't look for clues about "Oh, here he would have died/left anyway" sort of shit, that made this game appear so "amazing" to some.

Add to that the fact that most people are moved by child-death/forced abortion/zombie child shit because most people are bound to be parents, religious or just "softer" hence they could relate to not liking one or all of those and thus getting sentimental about them.

And third is the part where most could agree they did a decent job considering how low the gameplay expectations are for this kind of games.

It's not indigo prophecy level of good and it's certainly not GOTY material, but it's above average no matter how you look at it

It's a fine adventure game with some dark themes. The production bummed me out since huge emotional moments (to me) felt weirdly mechanic and flat with standard canned animations playing over and over to express happy vs sad. The voice actors were really good and I found myself closing my eyes to get more immersed since the graphics and shitty expressions just threw me off. I got bored during episode 3 however since the choices/responses you were given to choose from seemed outright wrong and stupid at times. I quit the game at the beginning of 4.

I've wanted to make this point so many times and keep forgetting it in every discussion I have about this game. So here goes...

The part where you have this massive decision of whether to take the food from the station wagon or leave it. It's one of the big decision's in the game. I wanted to take some of it, so that we could eat, but leave some for whoever owned it in case they came back. Nope, you can only choose a pure binary choice. Take it all or take nothing. I didn't wanted to do either. Fuck that, I wouldn't have made EITHER or those choices! So, yeah, the whole decisions thing fell apart that early for me. It's not like my decision was a really niche thing that only I would've thought about. I mean, take everything, every last crumb, from this (potential) family or take nothing, not even a mouthful for us. Who the fuck would make either of those choices?! Taking everything (which, apparently, you're forced into doing either way, which makes it even shittier) was shitloads of stuff. Like, boxes upon boxes of stuff. Why not take one box of food (enough for a couple of meals for our group) and leave the rest?

I lost my interest in the game during the third episode. Particularly when I realized that none of my decisions in siding with Lilly were worth a shit as soon as they decided to force me into going with Kenny. Whats even worse, despite Kenny hating me so much, I got him to be buddy buddy with me and come with me at the end of 4 after just a couple major decisions. The game might as well just start on the train and completely forget the first two episodes. I actively ignored helping this guy and sided against him in decisions that he thought was best for his family during the first three episodes, and he wants to come help me now? Why the hell would he want to help me?

I feel like the game is a lot better if the player is capable of forgetting its just a game. I loved the first two episodes because I wasn't thinking about them as a game. But as soon as I got pushed out of the experience, the painfully slow and annoying gameplay really shone through to me. Where the story went after three didn't help much for me either considering I didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them aside from Clem, and Clem was on the bottom of my characters I care about list. Every character I had cared about was either dead or otherwise gone already. And then the last interesting character they introduce (the train hobo, Chuck was his name?) also, surprise surprise, dies. The whole shocking death stuff works well, but damn you need to have other good characters to fall back on to replace them with. Ben and Kenny sure as hell won't get the job done unless being useless is suddenly interesting. I don't think its overrated because it is a good game, but it wasn't a game for me and the decisions I made apparently.

@Pr1mus: So glad someone else feels the same way about the characters. I got way too bored with the game after they continually killed off or otherwise got rid of all the characters that I was actually interested in.

I understand the importance of the game, even though I didn't really like the game. So to this latter end I think it's overrated.

Absolutely it is. In terms of scores from the press at least. Curious thing for sure.

I think the story is interesting, but the choices are not consistently impactful. Also the game mechanics are just crap. The UI is a joke, and I honestly can't believe Telltale left them that way. It's a real major flaw that prevents the game from being anything more than average with the story carrying all the load. The characters, and particularly the VO is pretty good, but damn they gotta make the next one with some competent gameplay.

EDIT: I am only on Ep. 4 tbh. Maybe I'll see it a little differently if I can get through to the end. Ep. 3 was a slog for me though with those god aweful shooting sequences, so I don't know if I'll continue.

Maybe, in the same way that anything which receives mega-praise is probably at least a little overrated.

Still, I think the Walking Dead does storytelling better than any other game. Ever. The problem with most games with choice is that the dialog scenes feel stale and flat with static back and forth shots of the main character and whoever he/she is talking to standing rigidly in place.

I (still) love Bioware, but those guys should definitely be taking notes on how to deliver dialog and player choice in a way that's dynamic and exciting.

No, it's not overrated at all. Almost all stories have imperfections of one kind or another. Citizen Kane has some parts where things are told in flashback from the point of view of someone who couldn't have possibly witnessed the events. What you might call a "plot hole," which has got to be the most overused film critique on the Internet because almost all stories--even the greatest--have them. So it's not really pointing out anything too relevant. Obviously, there's a line where too many of such things would start to wear on the experience, but I don't see how someone could really level that charge against TWD. It has a few, but so what? You're really not seeing the forest for the trees if you're getting hung up on stuff like that.

As far as the save issue, that could surely cripple the experience--if it affected you, which it didn't for most people. But again, that's a purely technical issue. I'd compare it to going to the theater and having the projector mess up and you don't see the whole movie or the sound's off sync. Pisses you off, makes you want your money back, but you couldn't really the say the movie was bad because of it. Yes, it's not entirely the same because the theater isn't part of the film's development, but that's really only pointing out a difference in the labor integration of two industries. The point still stands.

As far as the lack of "real" gameplay, sure, if you're looking for something with constant action, this isn't your game. It's plodding, deliberate, and linear. You can say it's not a game if you want, but that's not really saying it's not good, it's just saying you don't really know what it is, which again, doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me.

So no, not overrated just because a few quips can be lodged against it. It's not perfect. It has some rough edges. But it's also the most mature, meaningful, and effective story I've experienced yet in 3 decades of gaming. It should be allowed a few wrinkles.

There will always be people who over-hype things. Does that mean that the thing is not great, or even amazing? Nope. If you let people get to you with too much hype, you won't like pretty much anything that's great because they usually get a lot of praise.

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

So what you're saying is: as long as you're nice to someone they will never be able to treat you like shit and stab you in the back. Sounds reasonable.

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

So what you're saying is: as long as you're nice to someone they will never be able to treat you like shit and stab you in the back. Sounds reasonable.

when did I say that?

@zombie2011 said:

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

So what you're saying is: as long as you're nice to someone they will never be able to treat you like shit and stab you in the back. Sounds reasonable.

when did I say that?

I guess when you said it didn't make sense to you when Lilly took off after you were nice to her and took her side over Kenny's.

@Branwulf: I personally think the whole Walking Dead property is overrated.

Ok maybe not that harsh. If so many people love it to pieces then I guess there is something about it> Personally I find the whole franchise boring.

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

So what you're saying is: as long as you're nice to someone they will never be able to treat you like shit and stab you in the back. Sounds reasonable.

when did I say that?

I guess when you said it didn't make sense to you when Lilly took off after you were nice to her and took her side over Kenny's.

The point I was making is why give me a choice to side with two different people when they scripted a sequence in the game that would screw the player over if they sided with the "wrong" person.

Not sure where you're pulling this if your nice to someone they can't stab you In the back nonsense from.

I think TWD is definitely overrated, but for one reason.

Simply put; people just magically discovered the adventure games and think Walking Dead is the crème de la crème of storytelling and character development. They're totally wrong. TWD is a great game, but a rather poor adventure/point'n'click. It's an interactive story, and that's it. There's very little gameplay/puzzles the further you progress in it. Also, adventure games have been around since nearly 30 years and a lot of them have gigantic stories filled with incredible characters.

Games like Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island and so on. They've always been around. But now, since one of them has zombies in it, now the genre is getting some attention.

@zombie2011 said:

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

So what you're saying is: as long as you're nice to someone they will never be able to treat you like shit and stab you in the back. Sounds reasonable.

when did I say that?

I guess when you said it didn't make sense to you when Lilly took off after you were nice to her and took her side over Kenny's.

The point I was making is why give me a choice to side with two different people when they scripted a sequence in the game that would screw the player over if they sided with the "wrong" person.

Not sure where you're pulling this if your nice to someone they can't stab you In the back nonsense from.

And my point was that it doesn't really matter who you side with. It sure is a scripted sequence if you look at it just as the piece of software the game is. As a world with characters who act like real people in extreme situations, though, I think it's a pretty believable portrayal of what dealing with them would be like.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you're nice to Lilly because she has her own agenda and her own pre-established feelings towards Lee. And it doesn't mean that the character you sided with will have your back because that's not how human relationships work. The world is always reacting to what you choose and you're tilting the direction of the story to a certain point, but you're never in control of pretty much anything other than Lee, and I think that's amazing.

@Klei said:

I think TWD is definitely overrated, but for one reason.

Simply put; people just magically discovered the adventure games and think Walking Dead is the crème de la crème of storytelling and character development. They're totally wrong. TWD is a great game, but a rather poor adventure/point'n'click. It's an interactive story, and that's it. There's very little gameplay/puzzles the further you progress in it. Also, adventure games have been around since nearly 30 years and a lot of them have gigantic stories filled with incredible characters.

Games like Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island and so on. They've always been around. But now, since one of them has zombies in it, now the genre is getting some attention.

Sorry, but this is a load of horseshit. None of those games have the dramatic ambitions of the Walking Dead. They're comedies, and very funny, but to go for the kind of dramatic weight TWD attempts is in many ways harder. Also TWD is not heavy on traditional adventure game puzzles, but puts character interaction and moral choices front and center. The Lucasarts adventures were funny but looking back the puzzles were often obtuse and terrible.

@Apparatus_Unearth said:

No way is it overrated. It's a landmark game for storytelling that I think we'll look back on and talk about how great it was.

Agreed. It's not perfect but none of my favorite games really are.

Red Dead is my game of the generation and a decent amount of it (almost all of Mexico) was kind of bad. But what it did right it did RIGHT. The same applies here.

As to puzzles, it doesn't get any simpler for an adventure game. I don't get the complaint.

@Rasmoss said:

@Klei said:

I think TWD is definitely overrated, but for one reason.

Simply put; people just magically discovered the adventure games and think Walking Dead is the crème de la crème of storytelling and character development. They're totally wrong. TWD is a great game, but a rather poor adventure/point'n'click. It's an interactive story, and that's it. There's very little gameplay/puzzles the further you progress in it. Also, adventure games have been around since nearly 30 years and a lot of them have gigantic stories filled with incredible characters.

Games like Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island and so on. They've always been around. But now, since one of them has zombies in it, now the genre is getting some attention.

Sorry, but this is a load of horseshit. None of those games have the dramatic ambitions of the Walking Dead. They're comedies, and very funny, but to go for the kind of dramatic weight TWD attempts is in many ways harder. Also TWD is not heavy on traditional adventure game puzzles, but puts character interaction and moral choices front and center. The Lucasarts adventures were funny but looking back the puzzles were often obtuse and terrible.

Yeah I've played all your major adventure games just about and none had this level of emotional response. No games at all do. I think Grim Fandango was quite great though at having some drama as well, but not to this level. One of my big annoyances is people who like adventure games now lashing out against Walking Dead because they think it's getting too much credit, more so than other games in the genre. You should be holding this game up for elevating the profile of the genre and being a great adventure game. It's sad.

Zombies has shit all to do with it as well. I hate zombies by this point, they are tired as fuck, but I loved the game. That's just not what it's about at all.

@zombie2011 said:

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

@Maajin said:

@zombie2011 said:

I didn't like the game because I felt all my decisions meant nothing.

For example I was nice to Lilly the entire time and took her side over Kenny's the entire time, then that thing happens but I forgave her then she just takes off. Now i'm stuck with Kenny the guy I've been mean to, it just didn't make sense to me.

So what you're saying is: as long as you're nice to someone they will never be able to treat you like shit and stab you in the back. Sounds reasonable.

when did I say that?

I guess when you said it didn't make sense to you when Lilly took off after you were nice to her and took her side over Kenny's.

The point I was making is why give me a choice to side with two different people when they scripted a sequence in the game that would screw the player over if they sided with the "wrong" person.

Not sure where you're pulling this if your nice to someone they can't stab you In the back nonsense from.

It's kind of what you're saying.

What's awesome about that sequence to me is that it wasn't predictable in the "choice in games" way we see nowadays. I find these "choice" situations boring a lot of times because I can see totally how they will play out. I choose A or B and everything goes according to A or B.

This game said fuck that, this is happening, and toyed with you while doing that, and I was totally taken back. It totally fucked with people's idea of formulaic choice in games (to the point where they thought they could save Carly or Doug) and that is really great stuff. "Carly will remember that" is one of the best moments of the year for sure, even more so maybe than the moment itself, because it just so blatantly is fucking with you.

In real life, you don't get to choose and alter how everything plays out. Sometimes, something is going to happen no matter what you do. I do feel that Season 2 needs a bit more choice altering the plot but I don't think it need too much more. Your choice alters character interaction, and that's a huge part of this game.

I thought it was fantastic, the story and decision-making outweighed its short-comings, on the console however I didn't experience as much technical problems as some people encountered on the pc side. I did however manage to play each episode as it came out avoiding forums containing any spoilers and I have to say I didn't expect some of the major "twists" as one post describes. I loved the story and I believe its worth praising. On a side note I cried at the ending.....not gonna lie....however people are entitled to their opinions and with that I say to each his own...it's not everyone's cup of tea.

@Branwulf said:

Am I the only one that thinks that people worship this game more than it deserves?

Nope, you aren't. I think over rated is in fact a massive understatement. The plot is predictable, many of the characters are disposable cliches, and in the end all the choices are just illusions anyway as it turns out what you choose never actually counted.

I was really happy with the story, but I am a disappointed that my decisions doesn't effect the story to the degree I wanted them to. Hopefully with a bigger budget the diamond can get bigger, also in the next season the gameplay has to get better, I shouldn't feel like I am trudging through it to experience the good stuff. I would put it in my top ten, but not in the top 3.