Adventure Gamers - Forums

thejobloshow - 31 January 2015 09:04 AM

In reference to the step-dad, I’d like to see him transcend his paranoid vet archetype too and really hope he didn’t do a Laura Palmer on Rachel.

[spoiler]I think he’s more like the Leo Johnson.    Seems like way too big of a red herring too early to be guilty.  I also suspect that he’s actually trying to solve the case for good reasons.

[spoiler]The teacher is the more likely suspect, IMO.  But probably still too obvious.  My money would be on that one kid in front of the school that asked you about the rich kid with the gun, and it gave you a choice to tell him what you saw or not.  Kind of seems like the perfect mix of someone that could’ve done it but they aren’t trying to make you suspect them yet.

In retrospect I felt like I probably shouldn’t have told him what I saw.  Someone on the bad side is going to figure out we have this power at some point or another.

HitBattousai - 04 February 2015 04:27 PM

Think it’s an excellent first episode.  My main wonder is whether or not your choices will actually branch the story in significant ways, which is something that doesn’t happen with Telltale games.  I get the feeling it’s a different case with this series, but we’ll see for sure in future episodes.

I don’t see how it really could be.  With every major branch decision they’d have to make multiple versions of the same game, and each version would keep branching exponentially until they’re making hundreds of games for a 5 episode series.  It’s just not feasible to expect major branching in episodic games like this.

The most you can really hope for is branching near the end, like the last episode of Season 2 of The Walking Dead does.  Or the Heavy Rain way where you just miss out on optional scenes if you didn’t do certain things.

But you’ll never be able to significantly change the course of the story mid-way through.  If you go into an episodic version of this type of game expecting to do that you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Detective Mosely - 17 March 2015 12:06 AM

HitBattousai - 04 February 2015 04:27 PM

Think it’s an excellent first episode.  My main wonder is whether or not your choices will actually branch the story in significant ways, which is something that doesn’t happen with Telltale games.  I get the feeling it’s a different case with this series, but we’ll see for sure in future episodes.

I don’t see how it really could be.  With every major branch decision they’d have to make multiple versions of the same game, and each version would keep branching exponentially until they’re making hundreds of games for a 5 episode series.  It’s just not feasible to expect major branching in episodic games like this.

The most you can really hope for is branching near the end, like the last episode of Season 2 of The Walking Dead does.  Or the Heavy Rain way where you just miss out on optional scenes if you didn’t do certain things.

But you’ll never be able to significantly change the course of the story mid-way through.  If you go into an episodic version of this type of game expecting to do that you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.

It doesn’t have to be a crazy amount of branching, but there needs to be some significant branching.  Our definitions of that might differ.  For an obvious example….

The game isn’t very subtle in the massive toll the supposed “video” is having on Max’s introvert friend Kate.  Everything points to Kate meeting a tragic end(probably killing herself) at some juncture in the story.  If that result can be changed by your actions in the episodes(assuming it happens in the first place as I imagine), and Kate remains at least a quasi-significant character after the fact, I would consider that a solid branch even if Kate’s main storyline is “complete” and she’s really just providing side detail from then out.  It gives the player some reward for saving her.  However, if she just magically vanishes from the story entirely either way or you can’t stop her from dying, that’s a missed opportunity in my view.

HitBattousai - 17 March 2015 02:17 AM

It doesn’t have to be a crazy amount of branching, but there needs to be some significant branching.  Our definitions of that might differ.  For an obvious example….

The game isn’t very subtle in the massive toll the supposed “video” is having on Max’s introvert friend Kate.  Everything points to Kate meeting a tragic end(probably killing herself) at some juncture in the story.  If that result can be changed by your actions in the episodes(assuming it happens in the first place as I imagine), and Kate remains at least a quasi-significant character after the fact, I would consider that a solid branch even if Kate’s main storyline is “complete” and she’s really just providing side detail from then out.  It gives the player some reward for saving her.  However, if she just magically vanishes from the story entirely either way or you can’t stop her from dying, that’s a missed opportunity in my view.

Ahh, okay.  I agree that something like that is totally doable.  I would say that TWD games have done stuff like that in the past though.

The characters whose lives you can save often don’t stick around for the long haul, but so few people do in that universe anyway.  And Kate is really such a minor character so far that her remaining around in a similar capacity as what we’ve seen would probably still amount to her having less of a presence than some of TWD’s determinate characters, after their possible deaths.

I really enjoyed the first episode and it’s a genuine pleasure to play a game that takes a slower pace to typical console fare.

I do agree that the writing’s not up to scratch; it tries too hard and comes across as someone desperate to cram in as much of their background research and personal favourite references as possible, but in a completely unaturalistic fashion. Much of it does sound like adults writing cheesy dialogue based on how they imagine teenagers speak these days.

Someone elsewhere compared it to an indie film and I’d agree, but it comes with all of the wilfully contrived, quirky baggage that so many indie films carry. I personally find this keenness to present a specifically tailored image can impinge on the integrity of the personal artistic expression. You can usually get a sense of whether you’re viewing something genuine, or something that’s currently popular and commercial, and the writing suggests, to me, the latter.

That said, beyond the writing trying too hard, I did really enjoy the actual nature of the game itself.

That said,

A bit harsh on the writing I think. I don’t think it was particularly brilliant, but most of the time it felt fine to me.

I actually find it hard to comprehend being able to enjoy a game like this if you think the writing is that bad, as it’s SUCH an integral aspect of the game. If the writing isn’t sufficient, then I think it would make it hard for me to enjoy it.

But I didn’t have too many problems with it. Just the occassional misstep. I think they actually hired someone from the area to add some local dialect flavor, but maybe I’m wrong.

So excited for ep 2 it’s ridiculous.

The writing is very much a a mixed bag, IMO, so you can still enjoy the game while having problems with it.

On the general plot and story developments they’ve done a great job, but on writing the characters so they seem like believable human beings and not just caricatures of common character types they’ve done a below average job.  Hopefully they get better at that as it goes along.

It’s confusing, because in many ways the game excels in telling story through exploration - there’s lots of subtle information and implication to be found from exploring the environments and drawing conclusions about what you discover, then there’ll be some dialogue or an internal monologue that’s too on-the-nose.

Episode 2 is out! Downloading now (Steam)

Gotta wait till tomorrow to download it on the PS4

Ok, done, no spoilers short review - Doesn’t disappoint, improves on Episode 1 in various aspects, choices and exploration done right so far

Psyched to play this tomorrow. I went the PS4 route as well, though I don’t think I’d have time to play it today anyway.