First Impression: The Walking Dead – Season 1 (PC) ~ Overhyped?

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Deep breaths, Jonez, deep breaths. I might have to hide after this first impression or a horde of fanboys might come and attack and bite me. I’m scared to talk about my first impression with this game. I just finished the first chapter out of five from this game and it’s not what I expected. I’m going to warn you, this game might shock people, and this first impression might give me tons of bad comments. But please, keep in mind that this is my opinion on it and if you want to discuss my opinion, do it in a civilized manner. We have to stick together when we try to survive the horde of bad games lately. I got this game a week ago for an extremely low price. And it’s an adventure game from TellTale, a company that made the excellent Tales Of Monkey Island. And point-&-click / adventure games are my favorite genre ever. But does this game live up to the hype I created for myself or was this a big mistake to hype? Well, let’s make the harsh decision and let’s take a look at it. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game or / and this article. 

The story, such a weird thing. 

Indeed, used a screenshot from GameSpot

Yesterday, I recorded a podcast with Q about this and I already talked about this. Because I was able to verify my fears, I think I can talk about this with more comfort. The story of the Walking Dead game isn’t as good as people claim it to be.

Don’t get me wrong. The setting and idea behind it is pretty nice but there are a few things that made me shake my head pretty bad. There are some major flaws with the story.

The first thing were this game falls flat on it’s face is the fact that you know that there is going to be a victim. Sometimes you have the illusion that you can choose while in reality, the outcome doesn’t change.

Some choices just give you a different dialogue part while the main storyline is pretty much the same.  I can be wrong on this but from what I have played, my impression isn’t the greatest in terms of story.

Most characters die a bit too quickly as well. You barely get any connection time and a poof, they are death. And that is just lame in my opinion.

The second thing that makes me not really like the story is the fact that it exists out of some cliche things. Arguments and zombie attacks. Some things happen to have some gameplay but don’t make sense story wise. There is a moment were you are a in heated argument, somebody collapses and you are allowed to take charge. Ehrm, is it just me or did we make an awkward jump in terms of story here?

Something else that bugs me quite a lot is the fact that you are on a quick time limit. I understand the idea behind it, in real life and at those moments you wouldn’t have time to think about it as well… But when you play through the game for the first time it’s just a annoying thing. Since you barely get any time to read each option. And by the time you have read them, you have to decide quickly before you stay silent or do nothing.

Is the story bad? No, it isn’t bad. It has it’s memorable moments. The writing is nicely done but the execution isn’t the best for a game. I always feel that some main story is taking place and that you simply decides which character is going to die now or later on the road.

And the rest?

Usually I keep my story segment short, but for this game, I made an exception. Honestly, I think that the story isn’t the strong point of the game. The gameplay is. The last thing I’m going to say about the story is that for what I have seen now, the characters are a bit … well, paper thin. Like in episode two, suddenly another guy popped up out of nowhere. No explanation at the start. Just poof, he is a part of the group.

Anyways, enough “ranting” about the story. Let’s talk controls. And they are awkward at best for adventure game veterans. The simple fact you need to scroll when you want to talk or use an item on somebody is unnatural. Nearly every adventure / point-&-click game have a handy inventory where you can drop and drop the items from.

It’s possible to get used to the controls but with some animation flaws, they aren’t pretty good. Try holding the arrow keys and walk into the wall. Yes, the old shacking screen is there. TellTale, you disappoint me here. I know you guys can do better!

Do I have different complaints about the Walking Dead? Yes, yes I have. I’m under the impression that this game is quite short. A normal adventure game takes you on a lengthy adventure that takes you in tons of different places. But after a small 1,5 hours I was done with the first out of 5 chapters. Hearing from a close friend of mine, who has beaten the whole first season, each chapter is around 1,5 hours long. And trust me, veteran adventure gamers won’t get stuck easily. So, a short 5 – 10 hour game. That’s something I finish in an afternoon, and that’s not such a good thing for an adventure game.

So, this first impression sounds extremely negative. It’s almost like I’m about to say that this is a bad game. And trust me, it isn’t. This game suffers from too much hype. Everybody talks how awesome and amazing this game is and don’t look at the flaws this game has. While this game has flaws, it doesn’t make this game a bad game. The charm of the game is that the flaws get hidden behind a well crafted game. I have to give TellTale that.

The story has good voice acting and is graphically extremely well done.

Thinking about it, this game is actually more meant to be discussed with friends. Also, watching to a let’s play of this game is a tad bit more enjoyable then actually playing it. Since the surprise of what’s going to happen is then lost. I’ll finish this game for sure and I’ll write a full review about it. By then my opinion might have changed. And then I will also talk about some other things I didn’t had the time to put in this article.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article. I’m working on a few new articles and I hope to see you guys there. Be sure to also check out the podcast I did with Allahweh! It’s the previous article.

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Review: Fury Racing 3D Real Speed (Android) ~ Still In Alpha

So, I got the honor of the developer actually mailing me to review his Android game. It made me speechless for some time. When I got home from college and when I had some free time, I tested this game for a few hours. Honestly, I don’t like racing games. Yet, for this special first request, I did an effort. While this game is in its alpha stages, I had some troubles with it. Maybe my tablet wasn’t strong enough, but it ran extremely laggy, and I had to use my Android emulator that I had lying around from the time I was still studying computer science. The app ran a bit more smooth on my gaming laptop. And it’s not the emulator’s or my laptop’s fault since it can run games like Alan Wake or Minecraft at 100+ FPS. The game also crashed various times on my tablet, and it consumed memory like it was its only feature. My cleaning app suddenly said that 90%+ of my memory was in use. And I closed EVERYTHING. Besides that, there was a light issue. The game was dark. And still on my emulator it had some problems with it. Since I haven’t finished the game and since it’s an Android game, this article might be shorter than you’re used to me. Anyway, let me think what your thoughts are on the game and/or this review in the comments.

Issues

Let’s dive right into the issues first. Honestly, for a game looking so impressive as this, the menus are just terrible. They are straight forward, yes, I give it that. But I can’t help to think that this game would benefit so much from a much more clean menu. It looks a bit cluttered. With an options bar to the side. And since the Android games their first impressions are the ones of the menu or the first few minutes, this game’ll lose a lot of its customers.

Also, maybe this is a bug, yet the first two tracks are unlocked from the first stage. If this is intentional, that’s a pity. Since smart players are going to play directly the 2nd track instead of the first. Since it wouldn’t unlock anything more.

Also, when you wait long enough, the music on the menu just dies. I had the game open on my 2nd screen, and it just stopped when I started writing this paragraph.

Sadly enough, the menu isn’t the only biggest problem with this game. There is an issue that I often see returning, on the Android market, Reddit and various other locations. The controls aren’t smooth. Even when playing it on my tablet, the controls to move to the sides didn’t respond. I’m maybe guessing that this game doesn’t support multitouch very well.

Bad impressions

This game feels and looks like that it has huge potential. The graphics are extremely well done, and the gameplay is interesting. Yet, the game needs a lot of work. An awful lot. At the state the game is at now, this game is a disaster. Full of great idea’s yet not worked out.

Another example of the issues are the fact that they talk about power-ups. Besides the speeding up one I haven’t seen any other one. And this is a big problem. This feels like false advertising. And I swear that my ship flew through various items without getting a bonus.

The timer is also lagged. It jumps. And it bugs the crap out of me. I feel that the timer in a racing game should be the first part that works flawless. And I checked if it wasn’t an issue of my emulator, my tablet does the same thing. Also, I truly advise the developer to move the health bar of the ship. Since when you speed up, you barely see it. And makes for much confusion.

The game has a low FPS. It wouldn’t surprise me that the graphics eat too many resources which doesn’t leave a lot of left for other processes in the game.

In short, this game needs a lot of work. From more music tracks to a radar, those are features I feel this game would benefit a lot from.

And that’s all for this review, let’s go on to the conclusion!

Final verdict

The good:

+ It’s free.

+ It’s looking extremely nice for on Android.

+ No too annoying ads.

The bad:

– It’s released too early which makes the game lacking a lot of features.

– Hideous menu.

– Low FPS.

– No pause menu.

– Bad controls.

Conclusion:

I want to thank the developer for giving me this chance. And I wish I could have given a more positive review for my first review request from a developer here. I think they are really courageous to ask reviewers like myself to ask to review their alpha product. It’s a move that more developers should do. 

Yet, this game feels extremely unfinished and that’s such a shame. It needs a lot of polishing work before it can be called a final game. I’m not going to score it since it’s an alpha version, yet I might revisit this game after a year to see how it has grown.

Thanks for reading and hopefully until the next time!

Score: 3/5