The Walking Dead 400 Days - Open spoiler thread

[youmeyou]

It wasn't totally clear to me what choices led to my characters joining the settlement or not. With Vince yeah sure, I did the choice where I left Eddie behind (did not even know that was a choice as I was just hitting on inputs to not die as I had already 3-4 times prior to truck-dude). But with Russel I chose to not aid truck-dude and he still didn't join. Same with Shel and her sister. I shot Stephanie but am not convinced that would preclude joining the settlement as the only other option was to ditch a settlement which would make them inclined to ditch settlements in the future I'd think?

 

I agree with the sentiments that this DLC feels a lot more replayable than season 1 - as some of the choices appear to carry more of a right/wrong state (could be wrong here, but the fact that I'm tempted to even try to replay, unlike with S1, says it all)

[Problem Machine]

Just played through. Verdict: Really good, and definitely has rewhetted my appetite for S2, rewhetted it to the max.

 

I think it's an interesting observation that when you don't have an ethical principle to fall back on when it comes to decision making it makes it a lot harder to make that decision, which is probably one of the reasons we've developed such ethical principles in the first place. Vince's decision basically comes down to which of two dudes you like better, and there's really no right answer there-- shades of the Doug/Carley decision, except stripped of the differences in sex and survival skill which perhaps helped people make that decision before.

 

I do somewhat agree with the observation that it's not exactly clear what in your decision makes someone stay or go. I have no idea what it was that made Vince decide to stay, even when everyone he knew was leaving-- in fact, that's just a strange decision in general, hanging out in a camp by oneself after the zombie apocalypse for nebulous reasons. I think that the closing segment, while useful for context, made the whole thing just feel way more video-gamey in a way I'm not totally into -- similar to what I was worried S1 would do after the first episode, with a series of obvious branching binary trees at the end of each story where one character lives and one character dies, but which it actually avoids very elegantly most of the time

 

Also, a pleasant surprise in how tightly the vignettes are tied together. Because they all take place in more or less the same area you see all these clues from one story relating to another, which really pulls the whole experience together and makes it feel cohesive. The bloodstain in the diner, the missing flashlight, the busted headlight, the cop's body, all these subtle things that make 5 stories feel like one story. Real good shit.

 

Edit: Also, I'm sad now. The authentic Walking Dead experience!

[Twig]

Wyatt on the other hand, stayed in the car in my playthrough and instantly jumped to find Eddie, because he feels extremely guilty over leaving him (most likely to die) and wants to be able to take that back. I wasn't surprised to hear at all that Twig had the opposite experience.

Huh? No, Wyatt decided to go to the camp for me specifically to find Eddie, even though Eddie was the one who left him... Shel is the only one who didn't go to the camp for me, and I figured it was because I made her kill the girl.

[Erkki]

Played it last night. Good goldgame! When starting I was prepared to make choices I would regret later, but there was one choice where I still almost wanted to start over. Then I later remembered that playing through Season 1, one of the things I enjoyed most was that the game made me want to live with my choices, and I accepted my choice.

 

I haven't read the rest of this thread, so someone might have talked about this already -- it was the one in the car where the other dude leaves to investigate, then someone attacks you. I didn't mean to abandon my friend, but thought that if I started the car I would still have a choice to go back and help him. I was wrong. But later I made it make sense to me -- I was again under time pressure and had to do something. I wasn't thinking 100% clearly and during those few seconds my own survival seemed more important than whatever situation my friend would be in, so I drove away and didn't see a way to get back there without getting myself killed -- just hoping my friend would somehow survive.

[Salacious Snake]

 I think that the closing segment, while useful for context, made the whole thing just feel way more video-gamey in a way I'm not totally into -- similar to what I was worried S1 would do after the first episode, with a series of obvious branching binary trees at the end of each story where one character lives and one character dies, but which it actually avoids very elegantly most of the time

 

 

I had a similar reaction. I imagine that last scene is important in terms of how it'll tie into the season proper, but this episode would better stand alone without it. Maybe cutting right after the walkie-talkie woman picks up the photos would be effective, or simply at the end of whichever vignette the player finishes last. 

 

That one niggle aside, I am experiencing maximum stokage on all fronts. The new cast seems interesting. The structure of the episode works very well, because there isn't any filler; it was all very tense.

 

Shel's younger sister should prove fascinating; exploring the effect of the zombie outbreak on someone in such a formative time has me excited. It's like fast-forwarding a bit and seeing the kind of person Clem could potentially become. I'm already feeling pretty heartbroken about how cold she has grown, and that's without having a significant amount of time to develop an attachment to the character. Like how the fuck do you balance instilling the necessary tools for survival with not turning into a survivalist asshole? Is that even a worthwhile goal?

[syntheticgerbil]

Wow, surprised to see everyone was really in to this DLC because I personally thought it just sucked. I finished it up a couple of weeks ago for the fourth time because I wanted a save with everyone joining the camp and Vince's decision was arbitrary crap. For whatever reason the writing in this DLC is pretty shlocky and forced in my eyes and the situations and puzzles seem boring. The only part I had a good time with was when playing Russel, but that didn't last because weird white trucker's motivations were never revealed, nor why he was chasing Wyatt and painfully unfunny dude early on. Also a manboob joke in this. Fucking classy.

 

The only character here I could get on board with is Shel, but her sequence was just walk to from one place to another, look at something, walk back. Her situation was just idiotic. Why on earth are they in some kind of society where people must be murdered in cold blood for trying to leave? That's incredibly bizarre, no matter what reasons the characters give. Yeah Stephanie's endangering them by leaving because someone might find a deluxe truck stop on the side of the road? What?! Their place was just obvious and not reinforced. The little sister was just a poorly written psycho and all situations lead to Stephanie being executed. Also, I was really annoyed that the sound effect for Stephanie being locked inside the semi was strange dissonant knocking without any kind of urgency. Is that what you do when someone is holding you against your will? Knock here and there quietly, loudly, softly, loud again? No yelling? Just really bizarre forced drama and most things felt rushed or just uninvolved, nothing felt grounded or believable like Lee's saga.

 

Every single time I played the campground section I just started to see more and more plot holes. If Shel and her sister did not want to be found by Ramon then why did they put their photos at the truck stop? If everyone had reservations about being found, why were they hanging out in an open campground with a fire going while loudly playing around? This is the Walking Dead right? Every time I played this section at some point I would get confused who I was controlling as well and answer the wrong response.

 

I really hope season 2 just sticks to one playable character. I was sort of hoping you'd play an older version of Clementine, but I guess that's not happening here.