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December 9, 2014

Review – Game of Thrones: Episode One – Iron from Ice

Game of Thrones Episode One Iron From Ice review
Out now is the first episode of Telltale’s latest game series, Game of Thrones: Episode I – Iron from Ice. I have a track record with Telltale games that might be described as criminal; frankly, I have a tendency not to finish them. It’s not a matter of quality or even interest; I commend the storytelling of the titles, and the properties portrayed fall right into my realm of interest. I suppose the problem is merely that I have distinct times where I sit down to play games, and when I sit down to watch television—and a Telltale game exists in some unknown third state my rigid leisure time finds difficult to accommodate.

Telltale’s Game of Thrones, however, is a pairing that transcends such considerations. For the uninitiated, the title brings the dangerous, nuanced world of HBO’s Game of Thrones television series to life through Telltale’s (virtually trademarked, at this point) style of the choice-driven episodic point-and-click adventure.

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November 21, 2012

Review – The Walking Dead

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Jason Westhaver @ 8:47 pm

Review The Walking Dead
Mere words cannot adequately describe what it’s like to play Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead. No game has ever taken me on such an emotional roller coaster; no game has ever made me shed as many tears; and no game has ever made me feel like such of a piece of shit for doing what I thought was right.

This is the epitome of interactive storytelling; the level of artistry we have spent decades searching for, and the most human game I have ever played.

Based on the comic series created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, The Walking Dead is the story of life after the zombie apocalypse. While that may sound like a played out cliché, the series has always set itself apart by focusing on the human side of the story, rather than the traditional joyous killing sprees and high body counts. Unfortunately, in the case of the TV adaptation by Frank Darabont for AMC, they’ve decided to exploit this drama and bastardize the story into a run-of-the-mill soap opera.

Telltale has shown their intelligence and resolve by avoiding falling into the melodrama trap and creating a work of fiction that is genuinely moving, without being positively cartoony.

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June 28, 2012

Sweet’N Low – Down on the Farm

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:44 am

The Walking Dead chapter 2
I’m not entirely happy with the choices that I made whilst stumbling through the second chapter of Telltale Game’s The Walking Dead series.

An awkward feeling lingered after I put down the controller, thinking back on being directly confronted about something I’d decided to say about another member of the group, moments where I could have reacted more quickly to help, and making a hasty decision that caused Clementine to witness a violent act by my own hands. But this isn’t the typical groundhog day situation where I feel obliged to go back and live a more ideal day, because there are no ideal choices to be made here, only the constant pull between survival and my own humanity – the core of the source material that Telltale does such an exemplary job of capturing, so that all one can do is take a deep reflective breath after the experience draws to a close.

I’ve spent countless hours living the virtual lives of others and making decisions for them. And while that process has strived to become less black and white in the gaming medium, The Walking Dead hits a nerve of discomfort for me that seems to speak to how it is raising the bar, not just because there are no right or wrong decisions here, but because these are decisions I’d simply rather not have to make – I suppose this is another instance of being confronted with the downside of that being an adult business.

I still catch myself trying to outthink the process, searching for some ideal solution for each point of conflict, but the chaotic nature of the zombie apocalypse works well here to force more heated reactions that I can’t entirely explain my rationale for, which seems a bit more honest in capturing what really sucks about making hard decisions – living with them afterwards.

Elsewhere, Telltale continues to surprise me with a level of more direct interaction that convinces the idea that The Walking Dead is a game and not a visual novel. Action sequences continually arise, using quicktime prompts and some hectic windows of reaction time that certainly played a part in influencing several of those uncomfortable decisions. The greater stress remains the fight to maintain the group rather than fending off the zombie horde, convincing me that Telltale’s shtick was the best choice in trying to capture the franchise for the gaming set.

As with the source material, I only wish the constant tension didn’t remind me how impossible it is to keep everyone happy, and maybe how spending too much time with anyone inevitable discovers some bumps in the relationship.

The most interesting bit about making decisions here remains the way the reactions of others to one decision influences how I approach each new situation. I can’t recall ever making a decision within a videogame based on feeling bad about how the last one might have made me look. I suppose that has me slightly dreading where my decisions might lead me in the next chapter, but I can’t deny that I’m several shades eager to find out.

February 2, 2012

Review – Law & Order: Legacies (Episodes 1-3)

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Gregory Gay @ 2:56 pm


I’ve never really thought about it, but I have watched a lot of Law & Order. I wouldn’t call myself a diehard fan – I certainly don’t follow it with the same fervor that I do Fringe or Doctor Who – but I have probably caught hundreds of episodes of the show and its myriad spin-offs while searching the channels for some decent background noise.

It’s great comfort TV – often extremely clever, but at the same time, extremely structured. You know what to expect from the show; there’ll be a few witty cast members, a bit of mystery, and an interesting case that will be wrapped up within the hour (organized in such a manner that the first half will consist of the police investigation, while the second half will focus on the prosecution as they make their case in the courtroom). In fact, it’s a formula that seems to slot quite well into Telltale’s episodic game structure.

Even with a format perfect for a game adaptation, I would not in a million years have expected the Law & Order license to produce a good game. While flawed in several ways, by dropping many of the adventure game tropes that you expect from the studio and borrowing bits and pieces from the similarly themed LA Noire and Phoenix Wright, Telltale Games has produced an intriguing title that perfectly captures the spirit and conventions of its licensed material.

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November 29, 2011

Review – Jurassic Park: The Game

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 8:06 pm

Review Jurassic Park The Game
Remember that knife fight against Krauser in Resident Evil 4, the one that consisted entirely of quick time events? Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Krauser had been a bunch of dinosaurs, and the fight lasted several hours while being interrupted by inconsequential dialogue trees?

I’m guessing no given that if that had been the case, I sure as hell wouldn’t be wistfully mentioning RE4 at the beginning of a review once again.

Alas, my bizarre question is rooted in reality with the release of Jurassic Park: The Game, Telltale’s newest episodic movie-to-adventure game adaptation. Events unfold around the time period of the first film courtesy of a new cast of characters; some of whom work on the island, some of whom are mercenaries flying to the island to evacuate that first batch of people, and still others are sneaking onto the island to retrieve the million dollar Barbasol can full of dinosaur embryos that Nedry was trying to steal at the epicenter of this dino-disaster. In fact, ol’ Newman himself is the only character from the movie to appear in the game, though only as a mangled and faceless corpse.

For the record, there actually is a QTE-driven knife fight between one of the mercenaries and a Velociraptor, which turns out to be pretty awesome.

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October 7, 2011

Review – Hector: Badge of Carnage
Episode 3: Beyond Reasonable Doom

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 9:06 am

Hector Episode 3 Review
Well, the wait for Hector: Badge of Carnage Episode 3 – Beyond Reasonable Doom, certainly wasn’t as long as I was expecting for a game with “Episode 3” in its title.

With that dig out of the way, it’s time to return to Clapper’s Wreake and conclude this season of Straandlooper’s point-and-click adventure featuring Detective Inspector Hector, the hero that Clapper’s Wreake deserves – that is to say, a hilariously corrupt and loathsome one.

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September 4, 2011

Review – Hector: Badge of Carnage
Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice

Hector Badge of Carnage Episode 2 Senseless Acts of Justice
Hector: Badge of Carnage, Episode 2 – Senseless Acts of Justice, which I’ll just be calling “Episode 2” for the duration of this review, is the long-awaited followup to Straandlooper’s iPhone point-and-click adventure game Hector: Episode 1; however, if you played the PC, Mac, or iPad versions of the game, the wait was of short to moderate length.

Either way, Clapper Wreake’s finest obese, alcoholic curmudgeon of a constable is back to hunt down a terrorist, wallow in depravity, and grumble about everything.

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