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Brakketology Plays The Walking Dead: Season 2, Admires Its Shoes

January 22, 2014September 2, 2022 Todd Brakke 3 Comments

On this week’s JtS, Brandon and I talked a lot, in spoilery details, about the first episode of Telltale’s adventure game, The Walking Dead Season 2. We both like it, but where I cannon-balled into this opening chapter, Brandon though it not as strong as the pilot opener for season 1. It occurs to me that the main reason we differ comes down to the notion that our DNA in these things is entirely different. In season 1, Brandon liked entering a world full of characters he’d never met, getting to know them and their histories and developing Lee from an entirely blank slate. I get that. I think that’s how a majority of players are. Or maybe it’s a question of introvert and extrovert tendencies? Being very much the former, I’ve never been big on discovery. Oh sure, once I discover something and like it, then I wrap it around me and live in it like it were a comfy blanket. So warm. So soft. I am home. And safe.

It’s just very tough for me to get to that point. This is true whether I’m playing games, watching movies, or reading books; especially so when reading books. Part of the reason I used to bury myself in fantasy series like Riftwar, and Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire is because I could live in those worlds for so much longer than I could in your typical modern day work of fiction. There was always another book and I didn’t have to spend time figuring out who everyone was and what they were like. I could just jump in and let the adventure continue. It’s the same reason, when confronted with a Netflix list chock full of movies I’ve never seen, that I’m more likely to seek out a sequel or something by a writer or director I already like, or even something I’ve already seen, than to take a risk on something wholly unknown. And so it is that Season 2 of The Walking Dead plays right into my tendencies.

Even with the past set of character largely absent, the central character of Clementine, the one I am to inhabit this time around, is a character I already know. She’s a character that I’ve already journeyed with, protected, and molded. I know who Clementine is and so, when Telltale tells me it’s time to walk a mile in her shoes, I already know how to do that. This makes season 2’s opening chapter much easier to get into. And what an opening chapter it is. (Modest spoilers to follow.)

The curse of a series like The Walking Dead, regardless of its medium is that it relies on shocking you. Oh my god, can you believe they did that? Oh, that’s so awful, how could they do that? And they’re doing it again, oh my god! Oh shit, they killed Kenny! Bastards!!!

You can get away with that for awhile, but eventually the script flips and the only way to shock your viewer/player is not to shock them. The world of The Walking Dead is brutal and at this point we’re wholly conditioned to accept that. It’s no longer a surprise when the friendly puppy turns feral, or the guy who’s the friendliest to you is the first to get bit. It’s not surprising when zombies appear at the most unlikely and inopportune time. And yet, so far, it still works, and that’s because of Clementine.

Season 1 ensured we invested in this girl. She’s young, yes, but we know she’s not helpless anymore. As Lee, we saw to that (or I did, at least). And so now we take a different kind of journey. The mystery is gone. The world has collapsed and the new equilibrium, such as it is, has settled in. Now it’s truly about how you, as an individual, figure a way to go on living and what you’re going to make of life in this world. Because there’s surviving and there is living.

I’m not sure yet if that’s what Telltale’s end-game is for season 2. It could be I’m reading more into it than is there. Maybe what follows will be another four episodes of torture and human foulness and the worst possible things happening at the worst possible times. Maybe, like the TV show, those are the only bullets they have in their gun and you’ll be able to set your watch by the recurrence of human tragedy. But I don’t think so.

Oh I think that element will be there still –it is The Walking Dead– but I think Telltale has something else to say about humanity and how it handles apocalypse. That journey started with Lee, in the first season. Ultimately, however, Lee only existed to shape and mold Clementine. Now it’s time to see what she’s really learned and how she’ll apply those lessons in the face of new challenges and new tragedies. And it’s precisely because I already know this brave girl so well that, as a player, I already feel well-equipped to help her get there. Clementine’s shoes are worn, but they’re sturdy and comfortable.

This is going to be fun.

Brakketology Plays Waterdeep, Muses About Theme

December 11, 2013September 2, 2022 Todd Brakke 2 Comments

I’ve bee playing a bit of Playdek’s Lords of Waterdeep on iOS ($7). This wholly competent boardgame adaptation should be right up my alley. It’s D&D-themed, which I like. It’s a worker-placement game, which tends to be the sort of thing I appreciate and excel at. And yet it’s ultimately rather hollow. Not bad, mind you, the core game mechanics are very good and faithfully translated. Playdek, from whom I received a free code to download this game (full-disclosure and all), could not have done a better job of translating this for iOS. The problem is that the D&D aspects of it don’t add anything to the game. At all. And yet, as an iOS port of a game that doesn’t have many Apps Store counterparts, I can’t help but recommend it for fans of worker-placement games. It’s good enough to be worth your time.

More on Waterdeep, as well as thoughts on the PAR closure and some new Elder Scrolls Online trailers, after the break…

Waterdeep is a game in which, on behalf of a randomly assigned patron, you must complete quests using hired henchman of the fighter (orange), rogue (black), cleric (white), wizard (purple) variety. In any given turn you have three or four avatars (or whatever they’re called) that you can place in one of a host of locations on the game board. Put one on the inn and you can choose a new quest to pick up. Put one on the Fields of Triumph and you can pickup a couple fighter cubes. Put one on the Builder’s Hall and you can add a building to the town. Build the Yawning Portal and you can grab any two cubes of your choice, paying the owner a bit of rent (in the form of a cube). There’s variety to be sure, but mostly it’s about amassing cubes and gold.

Cubes are color-coded to their class, but the game’s biggest problem is that, ultimately, you’re never going to think about them as rogues and wizards. They’re a collection of colored cubes that you acquire and dispose of to complete a quest. (Completing quests, if you haven’t guessed already, is how you acquire victory points for the end game.) That’s not really what characters in D&D are all about. The fact that neither they nor the various places on the map are particularly memorable is telling. I’m not putting my little avatar guy on Waterdeep Harbor, I’m just putting it in that spot that gives me an Intrigue card.

For me, it all makes an interesting contrast with the Firefly boardgame, which I’ve played a few times of late and that Michael reviewed here last week. Firefly is so strong in theme that it makes everything about the game better. The captain I choose for my ship matters and affects how I go about hiring my crew. The jobs I take impact where I go on the board and what kinds of equipment I need. The mechanics are wonderful too, but flying ’round the ‘verse and picking up crew with characters from the show and items from the series all enhance those mechanics. The whole is worth more than the sum of it parts.

Not so with Waterdeep, where my cubes could well be anything and the locations could be replaced with a modern set or a sci-fi set and it wouldn’t make much difference. That’s rather shocking, given how rife with potential the source-material actually is. Imagine if all those little cubes weren’t so disposable. If they carried some kind of more unique identity (as D&D characters should) and the system allowed them to level and grow more useful over time. There are no, “Hey, look, I just got Drizz’t for my party. You guys are so screwed!” moments to cling to here. It’s all generic and replaceable cubes all the time.

This is not said in an attempt to play amateur designer. It’s just that there’s so obviously a great D&D game lurking in this design, but the team of Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson, despite coming up with a very solid worker-placement game, failed to bring it out out as fully as they needed to. Because of that it really doesn’t so much matter how good a job Playdek did of implementing it for iOS. And, as noted, they did do a good job of that. I haven’t touched the online multiplayer, mostly because this is not the sort of game that suits asynchronous play. But as a pass-and-play game it works well and the AI opponents (set to one of three difficulty levels) do a credible enough job to make any game a challenge, especially while you’re still learning it. (The tutorials, which Playdek has sometimes struggled with in the past, also do a swell job of explaining the game to you. One run through the tutorials and one practice game should be all you need to get comfortable.)

If you like worker-placement games and want a competent one to play on your iPad the, by all means, buy this. It’s solid and competent and, in the absence of much competition, it’s worth owning. Just don’t go in expecting a unique D&D experience.

Elsewhere…

PAR, closed for business. I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to point my Feedly subscription at Penny Arcade Report this weekend, to find an article from Ben Kuchera announcing that Penny Arcade had closed up shop on PAR. (The official explanation from PA, here.) That’s depressing. I don’t always see eye-to-eye with Ben’s take on games and the industry at large, but I’ve followed the man since he was at Ars and the fact is, he wrote stuff I was willing to read. Most gaming sites I follow via RSS I click over to read about 1% of what they post. Maybe 3%. PAR and RPS are the exceptions (probably more like 10-20%) and now I have one less reliable place to find quality coverage of the industry that isn’t lumped in with sixteen posts of pure dreck. I doubt you’re reading this, Ben, but you did great work at PAR and we’re all hoping you find a solid place to land in the very near future!

Hey, look! A fantasy MMO! Yay? Speaking of depressing, Elder Scrolls Online has a new trailer:

There’s also this one on class building:

There is nothing about these that tell me why I should be interested in this game. Though it’s true that I’m not an Elder Scrolls guy at heart, I’d sooner load up Skyrim or Oblivion than this.

On the other hand. This Apotheon trailer looks rather nifty:

Makes me think of Mark of the Ninja… in a good way.

Around the web: Telltale will bring us Borderlands and Game of Thrones-licensed games next year. There are trailers for them, though the one for Borderlands shows little and the GoT shows basically nothing. Evidently Telltale aims to monopolize all of my free time next year. Galactic princess looks interesting. Zombie-survival RPG, Dead State, is getting a demo. There’s also a video. GOG wants to let you return your purchased games if they don’t work. I’ve never bought a game from them that hasn’t worked. This actually happens? (rhetorical)

Telling Tales on Telltale

October 30, 2012August 14, 2022 Matt Thrower 24 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, after all the great reviews here on No High Scores and a heartfelt recommendation from Lucy James, I bit the bullet and bought Telltale Games’ Walking Dead: Episode 1 for my original iPad. I figured it might put a bit of a strain on the hardware so before buying I looked at the iTunes page, which you can see reproduced above. It said nothing about iPad 1 compatibility issues in the bottom left where the requirements are, or the description, so I went ahead and bought it.

It ran, but so slowly as to be unplayable. An installation problem, surely, since I’d carefully checked the requirements before buying! So I restarted the device and closed all the background processes. Still too slow. So I googled it. And then, only then, did I discover that it’s not compatible with the original iPad. And the description does in fact mention this fact: several paragraphs down in the description, only visible if you click the “more” tab.

So I felt justified in emailing customer support, pointing out how I’d checked carefully beforehand, politely asked for a refund, and mentioned that I’d go buy it on XBLA once I’d got one. They refused, saying it was stated clearly in the description. I sent the screenshot above, and my receipt so they would know I wasn’t freeloading. So they agreed, great! But then, a couple of days later, another email saying they’d examined the issue and the compatibility was clearly stated, so no refund. So I again pointed out that it wasn’t clearly stated when I looked. And they agreed again, great! But then same again, another support monkey replies to say it’s clearly stated so no refund.

And so here we are. Telltale have now updated the iTunes page to put the warning at the top of the description where it should be. But as my screenshot demonstrates that’s not what I saw when I bought the app. I won’t be buying any more Telltale product, so over £3 they’ve lost an XBLA sale for the whole series and a lot of potential future purchases. Madness.

I’d like to ask you all to look at that screenshot and tell me if you think it’s clearly stated that the app wouldn’t run on my device, and that I’m out of order asking for my money back. If you agree with me, I’m left with little recourse but to warn you all not to expect great service from Telltale games.

The Axeman Cometh – The Walking Dead Ep 2 at E3

June 12, 2012December 4, 2020 Brandon Leave a comment

The most disturbing thing about seeing Telltale’s next episode of The Walking Dead wasn’t the gore, or the tension or the fact that it took three swings of an axe to handle a particularly grisly deed. The worst part was the meat.

No, not human flesh, but the smell of smoked turkey legs sitting in two giant warmers on the other side of Telltale’s booth. When you’re walking around E3 and all you’ve had to eat was a Fiber One bar and a bottle of water, the smell of smoked meat is enough to get your stomach growling. Having that smell then associated with zombies and the consumption of human flesh is an extremely uncomfortable association, especially when you then attempt to take said turkey leg and eat it while not thinking of it being someone’s arm. Oh well, a man’s gotta eat.

Warning, Episode One spoilers to follow…

Episode Two of The Walking Dead is still set amidst the zombie apocalypse of the comic books and the tv show, but while the first episode was more about surviving zombie attacks, episode two focuses more on managing the ragtag group of survivors surrounding main character Lee Everett. That’s not to say that there isn’t a fair amount of walker attacks to fend off, but the decisions you make when you’re not capping walkers are just as important as how well you can swing an axe.

Upon making it back to the settlement after a forest hunting trip goes awry, Lee is faced with the unfortunate task of deciding who should get the last four pieces of food, de-facto leader Lilly having decided that she’s tired of looking like the bad guy for rationing. In this playthrough, Doug was saved in the first episode and while he may not be as good with weapons as Carley was, Doug has put his technical experience to work by rigging up a zombie early warning system.

Unfortunately, Doug can’t use these skills to conjure up enough food for everyone and Lee’s unenviable task of distributing food makes it clear that the developers are forcing the player to make choices that will have ramifications well beyond the immediate future. Choosing to take care of Kenny’s son with a piece of beef jerky makes Kenny open to taking Lee with him to the coast. Similarly, choosing to not provide the other adults with food may make certain people weaker if the zombies do eventually attack, because you know that the zombies will eventually attack. After all, this is the Walking Dead. The zombies aren’t there to make cookies. The developers are currently planning on making Lee’s decisions and the relationships that rise and fall as a result last into the fifth episode but with only one episode in the books, it’s anyone’s guess how well they’ll be able to carry through on the plan.

On my way out of the booth I was able to play the upcoming release of Episode One on the iPad. Like all of the other Telltale properties that have been ported to iOS, this version looked almost identical to the console version and the touchscreen controls worked beautifully. I had originally planned on waiting until every episode was released on the console before playing them all, but if they’re coming to the iPad, I doubt I’ll be able to resist.

Episode Two of The Walking Dead releases this month on PSN and XBLA. The iOS version of Episode One is slated to release this summer.

Jumping the Shark Podcast #121

April 30, 2012August 15, 2020 Todd Brakke 11 Comments

The gang is all back (plus one Brian Rowe) for Jumping the Shark #121 or, as Bill refers to it, #129, #212, and #46. Yes, it’s his attention to detail that makes him such an exciting host; that and his killer segues. This week Brian talks about how he shrugs off stress by playing games that make him angry, games like Trials Evolution. Bill goes walking with the dead in TellTale’s latest series of episodic adventures. I descend into the legend that is Grimlock or Grinkjaw, or whatever it is we’re all calling it this week. As for Brandon, I’m pretty sure he sat there with a mirror in his hand so he could admire is fine mane of hair. Oh, and we return to the used games discussion as we ponder whether or not it’s coincidence that the heads of studios like Crytek have been coming out so regularly of late to decry the used games business. All this and more on a very special episode of ~~Blossom~~ Jumping the Shark!

iTunes Link
Past Episodes
Edit Type: Skype
(The embedded feed is after the break.)