toblix

The Walking Dead

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Kenny was the most real dude in the game.

 

yeah, real people hold grudges and can decide they don't like people just for one thing, real people don't have friendship slider bars where you can do something really bad "-50 friendship" and then do some other small things "+10 friendship" until they like you again.

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Yeah that blanket statement is not true at all. Sure there's some like that out there, but they sound exhausting to be friends with.

 

Besides, none of the other characters in the game were inconsistent like Kenny. Only problem is the dude happens to be in every episode of the game.

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if you break the game down the most important decision when it comes to kenny is

whether you kill larry or not

most other things kenny doesn't really care about that much, and after 

his family dies

i just felt his behaviour was understandable

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if you break the game down the most important decision when it comes to kenny is

whether you kill larry or not

most other things kenny doesn't really care about that much, and after

his family dies

i just felt his behaviour was understandable

See, that's kinda crap though, because

I saved his son three other times, both before and after Larry died,

which should have meant more to him based on what the game communicated to me about his character. I didn't even really have minded that Kenny's rampant hypocrisy, except that at no point was there an option to make Lee be like, "You make no sense, Kenny." Surely that thought occurred to Lee at least once, even just by the end of episode three.

 

 

EDIT: I'm focusing too much on this one character beat (or lack thereof), aren't I? No script is perfect.

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See, that's kinda crap though, because

I saved his son three other times, both before and after Larry died,

which should have meant more to him based on what the game communicated to me about his character. I didn't even really have minded that Kenny's rampant hypocrisy, except that at no point was there an option to make Lee be like, "You make no sense, Kenny." Surely that thought occurred to Lee at least once, even just by the end of episode three.

 

 

EDIT: I'm focusing too much on this one character beat (or lack thereof), aren't I? No script is perfect.

 

yeah it is kind of odd considering his family is the most important thing to him, but it's just one of those turning point moments (which was about of saving his family indirectly) in a relationship between two people, you are either on his side or you against him and if you are against him in such a serious decision he will hold it against you and forget about how you have helped him, which real people do, and if you are talking about that fight you may have with him, i just saw what he said as pure anger, grief and denial about what is happening, so to say he wasn't making sense would kind of be pointless.

 

but yeah no scripts are perfect, but a lot of it sort of depends on how the reader interprets it, so a perfect script wouldn't be perfect for everyone

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Yeah, Kenny's swings seemed really annoying at first, but then I realized that he is perhaps one of the realest people in the game.

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"You make no sense."

Sounds eerily familiar. It's almost like I've felt that way before. It's almost like other people have felt that way about me. It's almost like... people are inconsistent and weird and do crazy things that make you question reality all the time because we're all different and react to different things in wildly different ways.

 

KENNY WAS GREAT

 

I don't like this assumption that fiction should always explain every action and that every character within fiction should make perfect sense and be completely logical.

 

(I know that wasn't really your point, so I'm sorry for responding to something you didn't actually say. I'm more responding to the general distaste for Kenny than I am to you specifically. Sorry again! Sorry sorry!)

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Sounds eerily familiar. It's almost like I've felt that way before. It's almost like other people have felt that way about me. It's almost like... people are inconsistent and weird and do crazy things that make you question reality all the time because we're all different and react to different things in wildly different ways.

 

KENNY WAS GREAT

 

Dude, I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying, if you're writing a character built around human inconsistencies, build it into the dialogue around him, too. Otherwise everyone seems crazy. Why was Lee never like, "What? I've done plenty for you," the ten thousand times that Kenny told him he'd never had his back?

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Yeah, sorry, I edited my post to clarify that I wasn't really arguing against what you were saying. SORRY AGAIN!!

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Dude, I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying, if you're writing a character built around human inconsistencies, build it into the dialogue around him, too. Otherwise everyone seems crazy. Why was Lee never like, "What? I've done plenty for you," the ten thousand times that Kenny told him he'd never had his back?

 

i kind of just think of it like Lee wasn't the kind of guy to point out other peoples hypocrisy (basically my conclusion after the fact kind of thing) and he would concentrate on the task at hand, like in life it isn't always the best choice to call people out on their lies and bullshit because it generally won't achieve anything

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I get the feeling Kenny's inconsistencies don't necessarily come from him being so real, but that he is the only character with major choices carried out through 5 episodes and he mostly likely started to become a task for the writers and designers to keep track of, much like Lee just doing everything all alone while characters watched and talked at him in Episode 5. Much like the stranger accused me of not telling Clementine I was a convicted murderer when I told her in episode 1, down to a part of the game where I was suddenly using the wrench even though I had chosen the railroad spike remover. I don't know the inner workings of what events are counted more drastically or what doesn't matter at all, but I am not buying the fact that Kenny is some kind of stroke of brilliance just because real people are sometimes inconsistent, especially in a game that wants you to think about what you are saying to people. I mean the Walking Dead can't be perfect, and that's okay.

 

Or really, what Gormongous already said.

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I get the feeling Kenny's inconsistencies don't necessarily come from him being so real, but that he is the only character with major choices carried out through 5 episodes and he mostly likely started to become a task for the writers and designers to keep track of, much like Lee just doing everything all alone while characters watched and talked at him in Episode 5. Much like the stranger accused me of not telling Clementine I was a convicted murderer when I told her in episode 1, down to a part of the game where I was suddenly using the wrench even though I had chosen the railroad spike remover. I don't know the inner workings of what events are counted more drastically or what doesn't matter at all, but I am not buying the fact that Kenny is some kind of stroke of brilliance just because real people are sometimes inconsistent, especially in a game that wants you to think about what you are saying to people. I mean the Walking Dead can't be perfect, and that's okay.

Or really, what Gormongous already said.

Sounds like your save game may have lost its mind between episodes 3 and 5 somewhere, if what you say about the weapon changing is true. :/

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Hmmm, that might explain why Kenny seemed mad at me starting Episode 4 from what I can tell even though I didn't do anything wrong outside of protesting the Larry stituation and helped him in every way episode 3. He didn't seem to forget me

saving and later shooting Duck though.

I guess at least it remembered I was nice enough to everyone to still get them all to come with me on Episode 5, which is good. I did have to play the

family card with Kenny to get him to go with me in Episode 5, as he seemed unwilling at first.

I rewound the game after failing to convince him the first time.

 

Actually thinking about it, there were a couple of small things I remember people commenting incorrectly on a few of my past actions during Episode 4 where I was thinking the saved game may have lost some information and filled the choices in as random. I can't remember specifically what they were though, but it was at least two things that were not a big deal. At least it remembered I did not raid the abandoned car.

 

Crap, I guess Kenny is not THAT inconsistent. My apologies guys.

 

The railroad spike remover and wrench thing was really weird because it did show Lee using the right tool after unlocking the car, but every use after that turned out to be the wrench. The icon was correct the whole time though. Also when propping the door open in the train station, the wrench and other tool (forgot what it was) showed up as hotspots in the environment but did not do anything when pressing X (on PS3). I am not sure there is any impact to the plot based on the tool you choose, but I suppose I will find out on my second playthrough.

 

I'm planning to be a complete dishonest and angry jerk on my second playthrough, but maybe my third I will try again with telling Clementine the truth on episode 1 and seeing

if the stranger remembers.

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I just finished the final episode of Lee's story and now I am all sad. I feel like I could have managed things so much better, even besides the ending. 

 

It's an amazing game guys, well done. I have never had a game make me feel quite like this.

 

 

Now someone suggest a game to cheer me up!

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Hmm, last month or so I finished my silent playthrough and my asshole playthrough. Asshole one doesn't do much except allow me to see some alternate paths and experience Clementine crying an extra time (that was no fun, but she hilarious stops short for the next line of dialogue). The silent one was just ridiculously hilarious. It pretty much ruins the game by making Lee seem like either an inept doofus or a passive aggressive jerk. I did every section I could possibly do being silent and the dialogue exchanges were just a riot, especially when meeting the St. Johns for the first time. Totally kills the last sequence of the game though by making it really disjointed and interrupting all emotion. My favorite part is that Amid will push you this time if you don't bother saying anything. Also apparently being silent totally means you'd like your arm cut off.

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I played The Walking Dead a while ago, and I didn't enjoy it. My problem was that I saw through the illusion of choice the game is built around, and that sort of ruined the whole experience. What confused me was why everyone else liked it so much, including the people who seemed to understand that most of their choices didn't really matter. After hearing from someone else who understood the game's choice system, I was finally able to put my finger on it.

 

Walking Dead succeeds for me simply because it’s done what so many other games have failed to do: It creates an intense emotional connection and an investment with the plight of the characters. I cared more about protecting Clem than I did about protecting the entire Earth the last 4 or 5 times I’ve saved it.

 

My problem with TWD was that seeing the game's false choice made me (accurately) nihilistic. I didn't care about protecting Clem because I knew I wasn't protecting Clem, I knew none of my actions would ever make the difference between her living or dying. The worst example of this was with cutting off your arm.

As soon as it came up, I thought "There's no way they would allow me to live based on this choice, so obviously I might as well keep my arm", but then I thought "Wait a minute, they're not going to have any branching consequences to this at all! It doesn't matter if I lose my arm."

At that point, something had obviously gone terribly wrong with my experience of the game. So I thought I'd ask you Thumbs: Did anyone else have this problem with nihilism? If any of you started to figure out that your choices didn't really affect things, how did you avoid the sense that nothing mattered?

 

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The game only seems nihilistic if you only judge choices for the external consequences they bring about. It doesn't matter whether or not you protect Clem; what matters is that you try to protect Clem and how you make that attempt. For the arm, there are absolutely consequences: in one instance Lee tries to save himself by going through an intensely painful experience; in the other, he avoids that experience and decides to take the risk. Just because there isn't a crazy branching tree doesn't mean the choices don't matter.

 

As an analogy, I chose yesterday to hang out with some friends instead of coming home and getting work done. Over the next couple of days, that will probably affect my schedule slightly. By next week the consequences will be lost in a haze of other decisions I've made. But the choice still mattered: yesterday was vastly different because of that choice than it would have otherwise been.

 

To put it more simply, The Walking Dead is about the effects of choices in the present, not their effects in the future.

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I was totally aware of choices not mattering in the cause and effect sense, and that made me appreciate the choices for the responses of the characters and the micro level storytelling going on. I essentially roleplayed the game, shaping a Lee in my head as best I could and making the kind of choices he'd make.

 

With the arm cutting scene, I wasn't thinking about the consequences. I was thinking that Lee would do anything if it might help lead to saving Clem. My Lee was sceptical that cutting off his arm would actually save in the long term but it might prevent him passing out and allow him enough time to do what he needs to.

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I was totally aware of choices not mattering in the cause and effect sense, and that made me appreciate the choices for the responses of the characters and the micro level storytelling going on. I essentially roleplayed the game, shaping a Lee in my head as best I could and making the kind of choices he'd make.

 

With the arm cutting scene, I wasn't thinking about the consequences. I was thinking that Lee would do anything if it might help lead to saving Clem. My Lee was sceptical that cutting off his arm would actually save in the long term but it might prevent him passing out and allow him enough time to do what he needs to.

I did the exact same thing, the same way, for the same reasons.

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I find it hard to roleplay making a choice when I know the choice won't have consequences.

Lee is choosing whether or not the pain and disability of a missing arm are worth a chance at survival, but I know he's dead either way, and he won't be impaired by the loss.

I can't get inside a character's head when I have information that so undermines their motivations. It's sort of like the problem prequel movies have: Because you've seen the original, you know how things are going to end up, which undercuts some of the dramatic tension.

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What about a book you've heard the ending to? Or historical fiction?

 

I guess I can't argue with that sentiment, but I also can't understand it.

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What about a book you've heard the ending to?

 

<not_rhetorical>Are you saying having details spoiled for you doesn't worsen the experience?</not_rhetorical>

 

But to answer more broadly, my issue is that out of character knowledge undermines making the choice. If you made a movie out of TWD, knowing that the consequences will be the same regardless of what he does with his arm removes some of the dramatic tension. When you play the game, there's still the movie-esque element of watching cutscenes where dramatic tension gets undermined, then there's also the game asking you to make a choice which is undermined.

 

So basically, in games, more things get made worse by it. But it's not like I'm a fan of it in movies. When I am spoiled on a movie's plot elements, or figure them out long ahead of when the audience is supposed to, I enjoy it less than when that doesn't happen.

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Sometimes I enjoy it less, sometimes it doesn't matter. Depends on the story.

 

But that doesn't change the fact that you're prioritizing external consequences over internal ones. Regardless of whether or not the outcome is the same, the decision about Lee's arm changes the story.

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It seems to depend an awful lot on the game on whether or not that "my choices don't matter" thing end up kicking me out.  Like ME2/ME3 were disasters as far as the grand story went, for me.  The illusion of choice mattering for my game broke, and once broke, it was all kind of hollow (which, I still love all 3 games, but the whole choice thing ended up not important at all). 

 

But in the Walking Dead, the illusion never broke for me.  And maybe that was because I was ironclad in my resolve to never back up, never replay a chapter, and never look anything up (which I am normally terrible about all of those things).  The experience of being the father of a daughter also probably changed my perception of that game quite a bit, making it more emotional for me, which in turn made it much less likely for me to nit pick it or over think the mechanics. 

 

With these types of games, unfortunately unless there are a whole bunch of more time and money to allow for radically different branching narratives, you just have to allow that there's going to be limited actual branching or choice, and that ultimately the illusion will hold or not for you. 

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