toblix

The Walking Dead

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On a tangent, there's something enchanting about the French PEGI guy.

PCoUd5-_1Xs

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He doesn't, it's a stock clip.

So I was right, now I can go to sleep in peace, it's 4:00 in the morning here.

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I am sad that this is looking like a very linear yet branching experience. I don't feel anything when playing Heavy Rain and this game looks a lot like Heavy Rain.

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Ahh, if only I could get a Steam key for all the Telltale series and games I've bought from Telltale's shop and vice versa. It annoys me in certain way that Telltale's games are now for me in two different places...

I have everything from Telltale's own shop except Puzzle Agent 2 and that I have just in Steam.

I just noticed Walking Dead pre-order started in Steam.

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I've been hitting F5 on my Telltale game page all afternoon, and it's still not there. Meanwhile, Steam customers have had it for hours. Next time I'll probably pay those extra dollars for the added convenience.

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I've been hitting F5 on my Telltale game page all afternoon, and it's still not there. Meanwhile, Steam customers have had it for hours. Next time I'll probably pay those extra dollars for the added convenience.

Yeah the way that's going down is not very impressive, is it? Sorry!

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Don't worry, I got the steam code and have installed it. Didn't know you were having technical issues – it soothes my entitled gamer rage.

Played the game for a little bit. Seeing Sean and Jake in the credits was cool, the super-serious "the game is tailored by how you play" message screen reminded me of Fargo and Peter Molyneux and Japanese games, and just the intro (in the car), particularly the

"WATCH OUT!"

thing, was maybe the best thing Telltale has or have done.

Unfortunately, I'm having some issues with the game. It seems Telltale has really settled on weirdly low-quality sound in the games (the compression, not the production). If it's for size reasons (there's probably lots of dialogue) I really wish they would let me download a mega hacker's edition with higher quality sound from their ftp and I could unrar it into my game folder at my own peril. The sound's not a game breaker, but it really takes me out of it when a character snorting sounds like my computer is about to crash. It's an old complaint, but I'm not done with it.

Completely game breaking, however, is the general performance – every time a new asset is streamed in (I'm just guessing here) the game freezes for half a second to a second (or skips ahead, making me miss what the hell just happened). This happens every time a new animation is loaded or the camera switches (I just gave up right at the start of chapter 2, as it turned into a frustrating series of pauses).

Anyway, I'm guessing these things (the last thing, anyway) will be sorted out in time, and I'll get to experience it properly. From what I'm hearing, and judging by the little I saw, it's terrific.

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Oh, apparently changing shadow quality from high to low fixed it almost completely.

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We just changed our email operator and somehow managed to miss almost a day's emails in the process, so I missed the Steam key :deranged:

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I haven't yet played it, as a) I also ordered from Telltale's website (as I always do), and B) I'm busy with end-of-school projects, but...

How are the facial animations? This is one area of tech in which I desperately want Telltale to improve, as I feel it's probably more important in this genre than in any other. Watching the heavy go from Valve's excellent-for-a-multiplayer-FPS (and indeed, excellent compared to most games) facial animations to Telltale's engine for Poker Night was kind of sad. Especially because the dialogue was so well written. ):

EDIT: Wait, they sent out Steam keys? I only just ordered now (after discovering I didn't preorder it, despite being 100% certain I did), so I guess I might be too late. D:

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The facial animations seem fine to me, but I wasn't looking too hard at them. They're not incredibly nuanced, but the art style would honestly make that somewhat difficult anyway. I fully agree with toblix about the sound quality, though, I regularly felt like I was hearing hiss or weird wobble in Lee's voice and it threw me off more than once. That said, I didn't have any issues with performance whatsoever, certainly no freezing.

Sean and Jake as top billing in the credits really made me smile, and overall I very much enjoyed the first episode (as is probably evident since I just consumed it today more or less without stopping). I was wondering at the end, does the Next Time on the Walking Dead teaser take your choices into account already? It seemed like it might have had different characters featured if I'd picked some different options, so that's neat.

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Really depressing to hear about the voice. It's such an old complaint. I've never come across distractingly bad voice compression apart from Telltale games.

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I have made a decision to buy Sean's and Jake's The Walking Dead, but only after I've read the comics. I have so far only seen all episodes of the tv show, but I have made a conclusion that I shall read first all the comics before diving in the game, I hear that the comic is already in it's #76 issue?

I read today the first one today so project has started!

Wot, is it so that you get a Steam key even if you buy from Telltale shop? Is that also for the older games that I already own through Telltale's pages or only for new series or just special occasions?

Why is the game still available for pre-order $22.49 at Telltale's webpage if it was released on the 24th already?

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They are having some technical issues releasing in on their own site, so they're handing out Steam keys to those who bought it from them as a workaround. I'm guessing it's only for the first episode, though.

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I have made a decision to buy Sean's and Jake's The Walking Dead, but only after I've read the comics. I have so far only seen all episodes of the tv show, but I have made a conclusion that I shall read first all the comics before diving in the game, I hear that the comic is already in it's #76 issue?

Just in case you're not aware, the game, unlike the TV show, does not follow the events of the comics. It's a completely new story that just ties in to the TV/comics story. The characters and plot are all different. Not to say you shouldn't read the comics if you want to, but it's absolutely not necessary to get where the game is coming from. I've never read beyond the first few issues of the comics and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

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I've never read the comics and actively dislike the show and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

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I was under the impression that the game actually takes place specifically in the world of the comics, not the show (as there are a number of significant differences), but that it's just a different group of people.

They are having some technical issues releasing in on their own site, so they're handing out Steam keys to those who bought it from them as a workaround. I'm guessing it's only for the first episode, though.

Oh. Since I didn't get an email, I guess I bought it too late. Shame.

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Yes, the idea I got from the Q&A videos and Episodes videos was that if you read the comics, you will get more out of the game. Meet characters of the comics before Rick meets them and so on.

As I have understood the games are in the comics world, but not in the same time and place as Rick, but he will meet some familiar characters.

"No need to read the comics in order to play the games, but you will notice little stuff if you have read." something like that I remember Sean and/or Jake saying in the Playing Dead episodes.

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That seems about right. There's one character in particular in the first episode who I'm fairly sure goes on to be a regular in the Rick crew. Nevertheless, with it being about a different group you absolutely do not need to force your way through all the comics first to enjoy it.

In fact, from my vague understanding of the Walking Dead timeline, it seems like episode one of the game story is slightly before the start of the main story. So arguably you'd want to play this first!

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I just thought of something, if the game tracks what happened in each episode, does this mean that the people who used the Steam key will have to play Episode 1 again in the Telltale version?

Anyway, I haven't watched the show or read the comics, I loved the game, I loved how it seemed like every choice mattered and would effect the rest of the game.

But I'm sure people will whine that the game barely had any puzzles at all and it's length.

So... who dies in your game? It seems it's impossible to save both at any path. If you save the farm boys kid do we stay at the farm or we just leave without being kicked out? I picked the girl at the end because I though she could rescue Doug with her gun. It's a shame, Doug could have been useful...

Also, I have the old man, everything that happened was kinda his fault, we would be O.K. if we didn't have to get his medicine! And the bastard left me to die! I wonder if the fisherman that saves you would be the one to try to kill you if you hadn't sided with him?

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So... who dies in your game? It seems it's impossible to save both at any path. If you save the farm boys kid do we stay at the farm or we just leave without being kicked out? I picked the girl at the end because I though she could rescue Doug with her gun. It's a shame, Doug could have been useful...

Also, I have the old man, everything that happened was kinda his fault, we would be O.K. if we didn't have to get his medicine! And the bastard left me to die! I wonder if the fisherman that saves you would be the one to try to kill you if you hadn't sided with him?

Warning: spoilers for pretty much the whole episode.

I actually tried to save Hershel's son, but either I made the wrong choices during the save attempt (first tried to push the tractor, then tried to hit the zombies with a plank) or you can't do it anyway. If you attempt to save him, Kenny comes in and rescues Duck, but then runs off without helping you save Hershel's son. At least, that's how it worked out for me, maybe earlier conversation choices feed in but nothing obvious comes to mind.

I did the same as you with Doug, but I didn't think I'd be able to save him, I just thought the incredible marksmanship of the reporter would be more useful. Additionally, I had her lend the gun to the bitten girl at the motel earlier, and let her kill herself.

Finally, no, I sided against Kenny in the "should we throw the child to the zombies" argument and he still came back to save me at the end. That said, I did kind of patch things up with him afterwards so perhaps that counts. He did call me an asshole even as he was saving me, if I remember correctly. The dad is a dick for sure and I'm pretty certain I'm not going to rush to save his life again any time soon. I mean, he has a point about the whole being-a-murderer thing (if that really is how that went down) but he tried to incapacitate me for the zombies, so that kind of crumbles his moral high ground.

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I picked the girl at the end because I though she could rescue Doug with her gun. It's a shame, Doug could have been useful...

I did the same as you with Doug, but I didn't think I'd be able to save him, I just thought the incredible marksmanship of the reporter would be more useful.

You're all banned ¬¬

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Warning: spoilers for pretty much the whole episode.

I actually tried to save Hershel's son, but either I made the wrong choices during the save attempt (first tried to push the tractor, then tried to hit the zombies with a plank) or you can't do it anyway. If you attempt to save him, Kenny comes in and rescues Duck, but then runs off without helping you save Hershel's son. At least, that's how it worked out for me, maybe earlier conversation choices feed in but nothing obvious comes to mind.

Spoilers for Episode 1 and the first quarter of the comic and maybe the show (I'm not sure).

I tried to save Hershel's son too, and failed, but I guess he has to be killed off eventually for the comic's sake. If I could have traded that damn kid instead...

My favourite part though was the scene when you first scramble into the drug store. It felt as though the timer for dialogue was really strict all throughout that argument, and being really flustered, I ended up shouting at Clementine to just go to the bathroom.

Then in the corner of the camera I could see her walk slowly towards the door and instantly felt terrible and ashamed of what I had done, and had to watch in horror as she opened the door.

I really liked the radio puzzle-esque mechanics, but it was really let down by the narrative around it "How do I radio? What?". Looking forward to what they do with the system in the next few episodes.

EDIT: Oh and I killed Doug :violin:. Can't be having any others on the team who know how to use batteries.

Edited by Laxan

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