So, I bought The Walking Dead: The New Frontier during one of the multiple sales there have been lately and jeez. The writers really hate Clementine's left arm. If they time jump or something for Season 4 I suspect she will have a nub at this point.
Only up to episode two, and that "telling off" prompt was just dumb... as was the ending parts of episode 2 and yeesh. Still gonna finish it, but hope it gets better.
Also, why are there so many ads in this? I'm playing the Win10 version, but does the console tell you about the batman game/the telltale club/etc so much?
edit2: IDK if it's still spoiler territory, but episode 3... eh...
Like, I killed Badger because leaving him to turn with a gut wound would potentially pose a risk to anyone else but Jesus is all "you killed a man, you are bad" despite my keeping Max alive?
This... whole thing is just meh.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
I guess it was fine overall, but Clementine felt unnecessary (and I like Clementine!) and it seemed like most of the game was a non-stop series of events with zero time to really reflect on what happened or what the character did. A few campfire-style scenes would have been nice.
Also, I swear some Telltale game or another already did the thing where (ep 4 "big choice" spoiler)
you have to choose who lives and who dies. And then screw you, the person you picked to live gets killed! Saw that coming a mile away.
I also agree with whoever implied that having Clementine there really, really informed what choices you'd make. Have to decide between what Clem wants to do and what any other character wants you to do? Pick the badass kid survivor every time.
Got a few hard crashes, and on top of that, I kept getting weird glitches where these lines would shoot out of Javi and stretch out for infinity. (They even cast shadows!) And they just stayed there through most of episode 3 and 4.
Well, they're definitely stepping away from Clem after season 4 since it's going to be the finale of TellTale's TWD games. Hopefully the conclusion of her story is a good one. I feel like it will be since I haven't disliked any of TT's Walking Dead stuff :^:
I thought it was an odd idea to turn her into a npc in the third season, but it was still good. Of course it shoe-horned me into just always agreeing or going along with Clem :P
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
*after seeing reveal of Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy* Oh, they're doing it like the movie? Eh.
*after playing through Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy* They did it like the movie, and it was pretty good!
The game was surprisingly introspective and went into a deep examination of the characters, which was a nice change from the "oh shit, now what's happening" of Walking Dead 3. It had a bit of a feeling that your choices ultimately didn't matter and it didn't reach the heights of Tales from the Borderlands, but it was a solid good time.
But... did many people play this thing? I can't even find a wiki that shows what happens when you make other choices.
Telltale Guardians tells a pretty original story with a new bad guy and some new locations. It's technically its own continuity but the characters act exactly like the movie versions. It's not quite an overlooked gem but it's also not Telltale's worst Walking Dead-era game and is a fun time if you're up for more Drax and Rocket one-liners.
I got curious and dug into the SteamSpy reports, which can show how well a game's performing on PCs. (It's not total sales by a longshot, but it can give a reasonable peek into how popular a game can be.)
I had a pretty terrible experience with Batman season one. The story was OK, and I was into it, but it was a technical shitshow. Long stretches of missing audio and laggy action sequences were quite frequent through the whole season. Put me off TT games for a bit. Figure I'll wait for the last season of TWD, and then pick up other stuff in sales.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
I wonder if people are getting tired of the formula. They've done six properties with five episodes each (eight in the case of the first Minecraft) over the last two years. That's a hell of a lot. Guardians of the Galaxy (even though I enjoyed it) and Minecraft Season 2 probably didn't need to be made.
Telltale game fall into that Uncanny Valley of being almost a Visual novel and almost a game, but not really much of either. I mean, if the choices you're going to make don't really matter why have them at all? And if you're going to have choices (that ultimately don't matter), why do you have a post-episode breakdown of what others chose? Game of Thrones was the last Telltale game I'll buy.
Release date: Nov 25, 2014 Price: $24.99
Score rank: 92% Userscore: 95% Old userscore: 95%
Owners: 833,874 ± 28,862
Players in the last 2 weeks: 6,799 ± 2,608 (0.82%)
Players total: 482,439 ± 21,961 (57.86%)
Maybe Telltale should've made more Tales from the Borderlands, eh?
You know I was wondering about that, with Telltale folks on record saying it didn't sell well. I wish the sales data extended more than two weeks -- maybe great word of mouth caused it to continue selling well over time?
Though given the general decline in sales of all properties over the last two years I suspect a TftB season two wouldn't sell as well.
(Then again I would start hacking off my left leg with a spoon right now if it would make TftB season two happen.)
I wonder if Telltale would benefit from a more varied style of game. Don't do two series at once and instead do one series with episodes twice as long, that finishes twice as fast? Release in the episode format and call it early access and spend ALL the marketing on the concluding episode, which they call "the game" and their whole push is there? That latter one would be iffy because of spoilers from people already playing through it though...
They could go REAL ham on choices instead of the whole "tailored experience" thing. I guess the problem there would be that some people would play through once and move on, ignoring the huge depth of the content available.
They could make it more like Nier or some JP visual novels where there are "routes" and you're expected to do all of them eventually, at your own pace to see more and more of the story.
I wonder if Telltale would benefit from a more varied style of game. Don't do two series at once and instead do one series with episodes twice as long, that finishes twice as fast? Release in the episode format and call it early access and spend ALL the marketing on the concluding episode, which they call "the game" and their whole push is there? That latter one would be iffy because of spoilers from people already playing through it though...
They could go REAL ham on choices instead of the whole "tailored experience" thing. I guess the problem there would be that some people would play through once and move on, ignoring the huge depth of the content available.
They could make it more like Nier or some JP visual novels where there are "routes" and you're expected to do all of them eventually, at your own pace to see more and more of the story.
I think I"d be less inclined to buy a game like that. Especially if to complete the achievements I have to play through plotlines that I find to be dumb and/or not interesting.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Telltale Guardians tells a pretty original story with a new bad guy and some new locations. It's technically its own continuity but the characters act exactly like the movie versions. It's not quite an overlooked gem but it's also not Telltale's worst Walking Dead-era game and is a fun time if you're up for more Drax and Rocket one-liners.
I tried Guardians (picked up the series on Steam once), cause I'm a big Guardians fan (both DnA comic and current movies), but couldn't make it through the series. I think I'm stuck at the beginning of the second episode. Characters and jokes felt so flat and boring. I loved Borderlands and despite its technical issues I liked Batman season 1 for doing some unexpected things.
On the upside: Guardians did at least one unexpected thing I enjoyed and the new character introduced in the series has potential, so it's not all bad, but I'm not seeing myself continue anytime soon.
The Verge has a tale to tell about the situation leading up to Telltale's recent bout of layoffs. Though it does require a "stories from former/otherwise disgruntled employees" alert, it puts the blame for the current scenario on toxic management.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Telltale Guardians tells a pretty original story with a new bad guy and some new locations. It's technically its own continuity but the characters act exactly like the movie versions. It's not quite an overlooked gem but it's also not Telltale's worst Walking Dead-era game and is a fun time if you're up for more Drax and Rocket one-liners.
I tried Guardians (picked up the series on Steam once), cause I'm a big Guardians fan (both DnA comic and current movies), but couldn't make it through the series. I think I'm stuck at the beginning of the second episode. Characters and jokes felt so flat and boring. I loved Borderlands and despite its technical issues I liked Batman season 1 for doing some unexpected things.
On the upside: Guardians did at least one unexpected thing I enjoyed and the new character introduced in the series has potential, so it's not all bad, but I'm not seeing myself continue anytime soon.
Yeah, I played Guardians all the way through and ultimately felt it was incredibly poorly written. Terrible jokes and hollow emotions. There are two side stories arcs that are excellent, but everything else is forgettable at best.
The Verge has a tale to tell about the situation leading up to Telltale's recent bout of layoffs. Though it does require a "stories from former/otherwise disgruntled employees" alert, it puts the blame for the current scenario on toxic management.
Very interesting. Easy to see how perpetual crunch could happen with that gigantic slate of games. And definitely puts the claim by the devs of Tales from the Borderlands that they got largely ignored by management in a new, positive light.
Yeah, it is very interesting. One thing that did surprise me was this bit re the recent layoffs:
Many say they don’t fault Hawley for the cuts, but see them as the result of years of questionable business decisions. “Where Telltale was [as a company] right then, absolutely inevitable,” says Rafferty*. “It was certainly preventable by not scaling up as aggressively as they did … I think this new guy came in and saw that, and was like we’ve gotta do something about it. I don’t totally blame him for doing what needs to be done to make the studio work.”
At least two sources said it was an inevitable move for a company that continued to pump out the same sort of games over and over. “I kept kind of wondering if the audience was going to become a little fatigued with the amount of games we were putting out, and the kind of games we were making,” says a former employee. “I guess my surprise was that maybe it didn’t happen sooner.”
*Tulley Rafferty is a former Telltale programmer who worked at the company from 2008 until the layoffs.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
The final Batman ep was pretty good, and from what i've seen of the alternative villain route on youtube, pretty varied as well.
I had a vigilante Joker, and I liked how most of that played out. I don't know if I've "fixed" him in my game as I went to visit him in his cell at the end of the game and he seemed happy to see me. The villain joker ending is more to-type, but I never tried to use John, I was always level with him when I had that option, and knew it was my duty to save him.
I "gave up" being Batman for Alfred, partly because I wanted him to stay, but also cynically because it'll be undone in the next series anyway.
Hopefully that doesn't mean that Telltale tries to capture lightning in a bottle again by literally reiterating the first TWD story, except with Clem as Lee. :P
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
It would be hard considering that a lot of people who were at Telltale during Season 1 aren't there anymore, and with their recent layoffs because of 'toxic management', I dunno.
Quick question regarding the Shane scenario in the new frontier...
If you choose to say that you have feelings for Kate, does it give you the option of "but you're still married to my Brother and I thought he was dead, so maybe us getting together now is a bad thing?"
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
TWD final season launches on August 14th. Kinda ominous... I hope Clem doesn't get bit or die! Or if she get's bit, hopefully the Rick Grimes method finally works in one of these dang games...
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
+2
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
Excited to end this saga actually, also yeah. I would rather it not end on Clem dying, but I guess it would have to in order to actually end.
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If you want to feel angry at the world, imagine how many more people bought TT's Game of Thrones instead.
And probably didn't even finish playing it.
This series is definitely playing fast and loose with Bat-traditions.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Only up to episode two, and that "telling off" prompt was just dumb... as was the ending parts of episode 2 and yeesh. Still gonna finish it, but hope it gets better.
Also, why are there so many ads in this? I'm playing the Win10 version, but does the console tell you about the batman game/the telltale club/etc so much?
edit2: IDK if it's still spoiler territory, but episode 3... eh...
This... whole thing is just meh.
Still on episode one:
EDIT: The game crashed so badly I had to unplug my Xbox One X to hard reboot it. Never change, Telltale engine.
I guess it was fine overall, but Clementine felt unnecessary (and I like Clementine!) and it seemed like most of the game was a non-stop series of events with zero time to really reflect on what happened or what the character did. A few campfire-style scenes would have been nice.
Also, I swear some Telltale game or another already did the thing where (ep 4 "big choice" spoiler)
I also agree with whoever implied that having Clementine there really, really informed what choices you'd make. Have to decide between what Clem wants to do and what any other character wants you to do? Pick the badass kid survivor every time.
Got a few hard crashes, and on top of that, I kept getting weird glitches where these lines would shoot out of Javi and stretch out for infinity. (They even cast shadows!) And they just stayed there through most of episode 3 and 4.
I didn't think it was bad necessarily, since there's still some harrowing scenes and decent character moments and such.
But if you're bored and not really invested in the fate of Richmond you're probably not missing much.
I hope Telltale has some great ideas for season 4 because it seems like they've taken The Walking Dead about as far as it can go in this medium.
Had I not bothered to give this a shot and simply waited for Season 4 with Clementine I don't think anything would have been missed.
I thought it was an odd idea to turn her into a npc in the third season, but it was still good. Of course it shoe-horned me into just always agreeing or going along with Clem :P
It'd work better if you actually did play as a villain or antihero.
*after playing through Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy* They did it like the movie, and it was pretty good!
The game was surprisingly introspective and went into a deep examination of the characters, which was a nice change from the "oh shit, now what's happening" of Walking Dead 3. It had a bit of a feeling that your choices ultimately didn't matter and it didn't reach the heights of Tales from the Borderlands, but it was a solid good time.
But... did many people play this thing? I can't even find a wiki that shows what happens when you make other choices.
Guess I'm not the only one who was turned off by the trailer. And I can't help but notice that the final episode was released the exact same day Telltale announced sweeping layoffs.
For a benchmark, Batman Season 1 topped out at 320,000 people, with Walking Dead Season 3 in the same range.
Guardians of the Galaxy topped off at about 69,000 people. Minecraft Season 2 did even worse at 42,000, with Batman Season 2 at about 78,000.
And that compares to 3.5 million for Walking Dead season one and 1.4 million for Walking Dead season two. Granted both games have been out longer and may have benefitted from sales, but still.
Telltale's in trouble.
Maybe Telltale should've made more Tales from the Borderlands, eh?
You know I was wondering about that, with Telltale folks on record saying it didn't sell well. I wish the sales data extended more than two weeks -- maybe great word of mouth caused it to continue selling well over time?
Though given the general decline in sales of all properties over the last two years I suspect a TftB season two wouldn't sell as well.
(Then again I would start hacking off my left leg with a spoon right now if it would make TftB season two happen.)
I'll play it... one day.
They could go REAL ham on choices instead of the whole "tailored experience" thing. I guess the problem there would be that some people would play through once and move on, ignoring the huge depth of the content available.
They could make it more like Nier or some JP visual novels where there are "routes" and you're expected to do all of them eventually, at your own pace to see more and more of the story.
I think I"d be less inclined to buy a game like that. Especially if to complete the achievements I have to play through plotlines that I find to be dumb and/or not interesting.
I tried Guardians (picked up the series on Steam once), cause I'm a big Guardians fan (both DnA comic and current movies), but couldn't make it through the series. I think I'm stuck at the beginning of the second episode. Characters and jokes felt so flat and boring. I loved Borderlands and despite its technical issues I liked Batman season 1 for doing some unexpected things.
On the upside: Guardians did at least one unexpected thing I enjoyed and the new character introduced in the series has potential, so it's not all bad, but I'm not seeing myself continue anytime soon.
Yeah, I played Guardians all the way through and ultimately felt it was incredibly poorly written. Terrible jokes and hollow emotions. There are two side stories arcs that are excellent, but everything else is forgettable at best.
Very interesting. Easy to see how perpetual crunch could happen with that gigantic slate of games. And definitely puts the claim by the devs of Tales from the Borderlands that they got largely ignored by management in a new, positive light.
*Tulley Rafferty is a former Telltale programmer who worked at the company from 2008 until the layoffs.
I "gave up" being Batman for Alfred, partly because I wanted him to stay, but also cynically because it'll be undone in the next series anyway.
I really like their take on the Bat universe.
edit: yes, batman: the enemy within is on sale for 40% off.
Notable that it's the same pose as Lee and Clem from Season 1.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Honestly, I'm all for it. Telltale absolutely needs to shake things up.
TWD final season launches on August 14th. Kinda ominous... I hope Clem doesn't get bit or die! Or if she get's bit, hopefully the Rick Grimes method finally works in one of these dang games...
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah