by Akin to the rating system, I think we need to put disclaimers on digital media. “WARNING. THIS DIGITAL MEDIA IS NOT A GAME.” The first game that needs this tag is…
Okay, let’s go back a bit and be a little fair. I fully expected to hate this game a lot. I’ve never played a Telltale game before, but with such a title as “Minecraft: Story Mode” under Telltale’s belt in addition to a few concerning comments made by my peers, I was preparing for an awful experience. What I got… wasn’t that bad.
In the game, you play the role of a convict, Lee, who may or may not deserve his current fate, who may or may not have caused the death of his ex-wife, who may or may not have emotional family-issue baggage–you know, the normal things associated with the main characters of shows like this. Midway through Lee’s prison transportation ride, the car crashes, he escapes and he finds himself in the world of zombies that now encompasses the world he used to know. Along the way he’ll do typical zombie-story related things like bash a teenage zombie’s brains in with a hammer, befriend a small timid girl and shuffle aimlessly from people group to people group looking for a place to settle down and make sense of the world as it is. In spite of it not really being anything new, it sets a good mood, there are a few exciting bits and it didn’t feel like it contained any filler (for the first hour that I played at least).
Mechanically speaking though, this is not a game. It’s best to think of it as a form of digital media that lies somewhere between a point-and-click adventure and a choose-your-own adventure book. Imagine it as if someone took any of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games and removed everything from the game except the dialogue choices and a few isolated bits of walking around and clicking on a things. These kinds of games have been done before; Heavy Rain comes to mind. For whatever reason though, Heavy Rain felt better and its difficult to say why. Maybe it’s because Heavy Rain felt like a game that was entirely designed with this sort of mechanic in mind, whereas Walking Dead feels like a TV show that they had to find the best way to put in video game form, and choose-your-own-adventure-point-and-click was the best way to do it.
A big problem that exists within the game is the illusion of choice. The game starts out with the statement above. “The story is tailored by how you play,” is a pretty bold way to start the game and I’m not certain how accurate it is. Firstly, you don’t really “play” the game–you make a few dialogue choices and things just sort of unfold the way they’re predestined to. There were a couple parts where I noticed the dialogue had picked up something I had chosen earlier in the game, but “tailored” is just far too strong of a word. Technically, any game that rates your actions and gives you a different ending has “tailored” its game to you. By opening up dramatically with this statement as the first screen that the player sees, what the developers of Walking Dead seem to be insinuating is that your ability to have input into the game will be so influential that your experience in the game will be very unique. I did not really feel that this was the case.
Since we’re using the word “tailored,” let me paint a scenario for you involving the same. Let’s say you need a suit and you go to a tailor. You tell the tailor you want a black suit. He responds “ah, I see you want a black suit.” You nod and continue and tell him you want the one with three buttons, two gold cuff links and broad shoulders. The tailor responds “Ah, yes, three buttons is a lucky number. I too think that the gold would go best with the black. Broad shoulders is doable.” One last time, you point out that you are on a budget, and you can’t afford the most expensive suit. The tailor gives you an understanding look. “Ah yes, we can get something for you that looks nice but is affordable.” He takes your measurements, you leave the store and one week later your suit is delivered to you–it is a brown suit with 6 gray buttons, silver cuff links, slim shoulders and $50 more than you bargained for. Yes, you got a suit and yes, it isn’t the worst suit in the world, and yes you can technically afford it but to say that this suit was “tailored” to you would be false.
Back to the Walking Dead, Lee encountered a skeptical farmer who begrudgingly agreed to house him and Clementine (the little girl Lee found) in addition to a family that the farmer was already sheltering. During every conversation I could have with the farmer, I chose the most honest dialogue options available because I believed I owed it to be as open as I could to this man that was helping me and gaining little in return. Later on, the farmer’s son would become accidentally pinned under a tractor by “Duck,” the son of the other displaced family. Suddenly, zombies attack and you are given the choice to try to save Duck or the farmer’s son. I went to save the farmer’s son. During Lee’s rescue attempt, Duck’s father grabs Duck and runs off without helping the farmer’s son. Lee is unsuccessful and the farmer’s son is mortally wounded; the farmer kills the zombies and runs over to his dying boy. The boy’s last words were “Lee tried to rescue me.” As you can see, every single thing I could do within the game’s allowance was in support of the farmer. In spite of this, the farmer becomes enraged, screaming that everyone leaves, resulting in Lee and Clementine traveling to a new town with Duck and his father and mother. This does not feel like a tailored experience at all and in fact, I think most choose-your-own-adventure books are more reactive to the choices that you make within them. I was forced to follow the path that the game wanted me to, making me feel like all my previous actions were meaningless.
To call this media a “game” just doesn’t feel right. Games like this along with A Bird Story, however well-made they are, are just plainly more of an interactive experience. If you like watching TV and you like soap-operas with zombies and you like having a little input here and there then you’ll probably like this sort of thing. For me though, I think I’d rather just watch an actual TV show or read a book if I wanted a story. If I could, I would give this game a “Tier Null” classification, because I still don’t recognize it as an actual game. That being said, taken at face value I can see no blaring flaws in its design, and if I had to credit it as a game I would place it in Tier 2.
