The Walking Dead: Season 2

[fistfulofmetal]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/261030/?snr=1_4_4__105_2

[demi]

Neat that it continues with Clementine.

[cool breeze]

curious about the involvement of the season 1 leads/writers before they left

[Himu]

ANNOUNCING IT ON MY BDAY?!?!?!

thank you so much, TT!

[fistfulofmetal]

curious about the involvement of the season 1 leads/writers before they left

I'm more curious if it will be as fucking buggy as season 1

[Cerveza mas fina]

Would only buy if telltale pays me

[chronovore]

Newsletter from TT games flat-out, straight-up SPOILS the ending of Season 1.

I own all of them, but have only played through the first chapter. Inconsiderate bastards.

Damnit, damnit, damnit. JERKS.

Now they're T_T Games, as far as I'm concerned.

[helios]

curious about the involvement of the season 1 leads/writers before they left

It is me, and thanks! Season two is probably going to be pretty sweet from where it was when we were on it, and from everything I've heard since from the season two leads. Day one perch for sure.

[Stoney Mason]

[Himu]

Get hype.

[Stoney Mason]

Kind of annoys me that I'm stuck on the 360 version just because that's where I played the first. Wish I could transfer my saves over to another platform.

[fistfulofmetal]

I swear to god this game better see every single fucking choice I made in season 1 and 400 days.

[Himu]

I hated every 400 days character. Hopefully they're better in season 2.

[fistfulofmetal]

Season 2 Episode 1 is out today guys.


Thoughts:

It runs a little under 2 hours and packs a lot. Plenty of tense moments. There aren't as many slow moments where you walk around and talk to people, but in the context of the events of the episode it's not surprising. Obviously you're playing as Clem and overall I think they managed to make it work. The only issue I'm seeing is that the voice actor isn't as strong as Lee from Season 1. She was fine in S1 because she was a 'side' character of sorts and didn't essentially narrate the events. So here, you get Clem's tone applied to all events and some may find that annoying. She gets better nearer to the end as she 'hardens' up.

Spoilerly thoughts:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Omid getting popped was a serious bummer but I should have expected it when they started talking about naming Christa's child.
I liked that they flashed forward over a year to allow Clem to grow up a bit.

The second with the dog was truly shocking. I COMPLETELY thought the dog was going to be a pet character going forward. Those manipulative bastards KNEW we would offer the dog food and then the dog ATTACKS you.

The entire "stealth" section (which isn't really a stealth second at all) was pretty tense and I enjoyed meeting the new "Clem", Sarah. She's gonna be the wide-eye'd character to play off of Clem. When Clem killed the walker and everyone busted into the shed I chose the "Still. Not. Bitten." option and felt like a badass.

Then shortly after where Clem recounts the events from Season 1 to Luke. "His name was Lee" I got a bit misty eye'd
I also talked back to that preggers bitch because fuck her.

I really like the dynamic we're going for here. It's similar to how nobody trusted Lee that much in Season 1 but here we're just a little girl and aren't really a physical threat to anyone. Clem doesn't trust anyone and nobody trusts her. Interested to see where it goes.

Here's my end of episode choices recap:

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edit: the game picked up season 1 but it didn't pick up my 400 days save. LOL FUCK OFF

[The Sceneman]

I bitch about season 1 all the time, but fuck it I'll play this. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to find out what happens.

You beat off to Clementine yet?

[Sho Nuff]

I heard that there is some fucked up DRM if you don't buy it off steam, what's up with that

[helios]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I let the dog suffer.

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[Stoney Mason]

Played the first episode tonight. It was good. Not a great episode but a good one.

I like that

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Clementine is a bit older. You can only go with the baby girl routine for so long.

[close]

I went ahead and just bought the season pass.

[Bebpo]

Does Season 2 carry over choices from Season 1?

[Stoney Mason]

Does Season 2 carry over choices from Season 1?

Yes as long as it finds the save files.

[Stoney Mason]

Played the first episode tonight. It was good. Not a great episode but a good one.

I like that

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Clementine is a bit older. You can only go with the baby girl routine for so long.

[close]

I went ahead and just bought the season pass.

Doesnt it start right after the events of episode 1?

It starts shortly after the events of Season 1 and then... 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

there is a time jump.

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[Stoney Mason]

[helios]

I finished it today. Pretty damn good and Michael Madsen is doing a voice

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Kenny 

[close]

[Stoney Mason]

Very good episode. Far superior to the first episode which was mainly a tone setting episode.

[Stoney Mason]

[helios]

Just finished it.

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Fuck you, Bill Carver.

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That's why your skull got crowbarred, you bitch

[close]

[close]

[Stoney Mason]

Finished episode 3.

Certainly a dark one.

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(I would have preferred if Carver was slightly less evil. So the choices would have been a bit harder. Instead it was like fuck this psychopath which is entertaining from a visceral level but less complex and therefore less deep imo. )

[close]

[Himu]

Not surprising given 400 Days. Hopefully it picks up. Does season 2 feature the stupid stuff that was in episode 4 of season 1? Ninja girl, and all that stupid shit in that Gary Whitta written episode? That was the only episode I didn't like in season 1. Does Gary write an episode at all this season?

[Stoney Mason]

Finished episode 4. It was better than I had been led to believe but still flawed in many ways much like Season 2 has been. The problem is Season One had a very consistent theme and plot direction. Lee is protecting Clem. And Clem wants to find her parents.

There is no consistent and cohesive plot theme that ties together Season 2 thematically like that. Season 2 is basically the adventures of Clementine. And the character is still good. And the voice acting is still good. But the writing hasn't been consistent enough to do her service. And the build to the finale hasn't been very strong.

[chronovore]

"Cash-in" is one way of looking at it, but you know they had to be under intense pressure to produce something, to strike while the iron was still hot. It may not have been the team's desire as much as management or even the license holder's. It's sad and frustrating, but pretty common.

[Stoney Mason]

I don't think the second season is awful. It's just not as fresh or as good as the first season. It's always a bit easier to do the first thing. The second thing is a lot tougher and has increased expectations. This goes for most art forms.

[toku]

I prefer this season to the first so far. It's not as fresh, especially after Wolf Among US I'm used to TT's formula but I like the tone they're hitting.

[Stoney Mason]

I prefer this season to the first so far. It's not as fresh, especially after Wolf Among US I'm used to TT's formula but I like the tone they're hitting.

Any opinion is always valid. And its interesting to hear from someone who likes the second season more as I think that is probably a less common opinion.

The first season certainly wasn't perfect. But for me the second season has fallen into some of reasons why I've never been quite as much a fan of the show. Its feel like it needs to be depressing to fit a tone or extract emotion versus being in service of an overall good plot structure. But again just an opinion thing.

[Stoney Mason]

yeah, i mean, i'm not going to tell anyone their opinion is wrong.  for me, though, it's just not working at all.  i've written about 7000 words about it over at the site i work for that explains my episode-to-episode thoughts so i won't bother going into it more here.  i'm glad someone's enjoying, it though.

link? I wouldn't mind reading that.

[Stoney Mason]

Sure, have at 'er.

http://toucharcade.com/2014/07/24/the-walking-dead-season-two-review/

I write up a new section with each episode released and try to avoid current spoilers, so it's not quite as... to the point as some of the stuff I've said here.

Good write up. I agreed with pretty much all of it and you specifically nailed a few of the things that have bothered me that haven't been brought up in this thread.

The lack of character development, The use of clementine as a weird tool by the adults, the lack of disguising how some of your choices don't matter in relation to how well season 1 hid some of those aspects, etc.

[toku]

One thing I like more is playing as Clementine. In the first season I felt like I had to base so many of my decisions around what was best for Clem and him. It's kind of more interesting to play as a more vulnerable and....isolated character like Clem. The poverty of her childhood reminds me of the children in  Ender ' s Shadow, one of my favorite books as a boy.

Definitely a part of it for me. In the first one I was constantly compromising to these incompetent people because I was trying to figure the best situation to raise Clem. Trying to keep this weird family unit and her innocence alive as realistically possible. Now I don't hesitate to bury the axe and fire the gun fuck whatever these characters think.

[toku]

Pretty funny how, even if you pick the no bs I'll do it quick response to those moments Clem still has that "wow, you're just gonna have the child do everything huh?" face.

[Stoney Mason]

Finished the final episode.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was a good final episode although fairly contrived to set up that choice at the end. The problem is the same problem with the rest of the season in that it isn't as strong as the first season in most respects. After I finished the last episode of season 1, I felt emotionally wrecked. After finishing this episode I was like okay I finished that videogame storyline. Which is fine and all but the first season emotionally was able to give me a lot of catharsis. Even the wolf among us finale made me feel complete in a way. This season of the Walking Dead felt more like a bridge season for whatever is coming in the next season. They should also skip ahead a number of years for the next season ideally.

[close]

[demi]

I clicked that hoping to read actual spoilers and there are zero spoilers at all

[Stoney Mason]

I clicked that hoping to read actual spoilers and there are zero spoilers at all

spoiler (click to show/hide)

You either kill Kenny or a new character from this season at the end of the game. That is the big choice. Clementine is also shot in this episode but its not a big deal.

[close]

There ya go.

 

[helios]

Fuck Jane.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Imagine a baby left alone in a car. Now imagine that there is a big ass blizzard going on. Now imagine that this big ass blizzard is taking place in the middle of the goddamn zombie apocalypse. This is what Jane does. She's stashes a baby away in this zombie-blizzard-apocalypse to prove a point. The fuck is wrong with you?

By the end, I hated all of these idiots and didn't want to be with anybody except the baby, so I let Kenny kill Jane and then I shot Kenny. I expected him to shout at Clem for pointing the gun at him, but he just says "Do it." Totally caught me off guard. Then I got the Alone ending where Clem smears herself and the baby with zombie guts and waltz through a herd. I didn't like that, so I rewound and still let Kenny kill Jane because fuck Jane. Kenny, Clem, and AJ stroll off and actually find Wellington and Kenny desperately pleads with the guard to only let the kids in. That was the best ending, I thought.

[close]

Fuck Bonnie, Mike, and Arvo, too. Fuck them all.

[helios]

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[close]

[Stoney Mason]

Fuck Jane.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Imagine a baby left alone in a car. Now imagine that there is a big ass blizzard going on. Now imagine that this big ass blizzard is taking place in the middle of the goddamn zombie apocalypse. This is what Jane does. She's stashes a baby away in this zombie-blizzard-apocalypse to prove a point. The fuck is wrong with you?

By the end, I hated all of these idiots and didn't want to be with anybody except the baby, so I let Kenny kill Jane and then I shot Kenny. I expected him to shout at Clem for pointing the gun at him, but he just says "Do it." Totally caught me off guard. Then I got the Alone ending where Clem smears herself and the baby with zombie guts and waltz through a herd. I didn't like that, so I rewound and still let Kenny kill Jane because fuck Jane. Kenny, Clem, and AJ stroll off and actually find Wellington and Kenny desperately pleads with the guard to only let the kids in. That was the best ending, I thought.

[close]

Fuck Bonnie, Mike, and Arvo, too. Fuck them all.

The problem is the writing and the structure rather than the characters per se all though they go hand in hand.

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Jane is wrong for doing the whole baby is dead bit but the way things are structured, I feel like this was the fault of writer contrivance. I've never been as enamored with Kenny as some people and ultimately imo the correct solution is to ditch kenny but without killing him. But you are not presented with any viable solution or alternative to do it without that final combat resolution. Or maybe if there is, I never perceived it as such. I also don't buy that Kenny and Jane would be in that fight to the death over that situation. Jane would probably leave first.

So ultimately with the path presented I killed Kenny and forgive Jane because A.) It was obvious Jane had not killed the baby which is a problem with the writing imo if they were going to go down that road. B.) Kenny basically was going to kill her at that point. C.) There was no way clementine could take care of a baby herself. That is absurd so the people who went with the lone survivor option are in my mind condemning the baby to death.

In my mind the perfect solution would have been to have bonnie, jane, mike, and clementine tell Kenny he could either split and take the vehicle but not the baby or get along with the group. That would have been the best solution and still create dramatic stakes and even potentially conflict rather than the way they handled it which was more goofy and unrealistic.

Also I'm not sure why suddenly everybody was arvo's buddy. That made no sense either. I get that Kenny was going overboard with the violence. But I don't think suddenly they would have just rallied around Arvo.

Basically I thought everything was handled not as well as it could have been from the moment Mike and Bonnie decide to steal the supplies and the car. And the big ending here isn't big enough stand on its own with shooting Clementine in a meaningless story bit just to play on the stronger emotional ties of the first season in a flashback. Think about how impactful that moment was in Season 1 compared to this moment and that wasn't even the biggest moment of Season 1. Just a big one in a season of big ones and emotional moments.   

[close]

I don't hate Season 2. I just don't think its as well structured and thematically strong as the first and that drags it down to just "okay"/"good" if I'm being generous. In a vacuum without Season 1 as the context I would probably enjoy it more even with the flaws. But in context it pales a lot in comparison and feels like a weaker season of Lost compared to its best season to use an example. 

There are truly moments I enjoyed in Season 2. And they tend to be the smaller moments. Which I actually thought this last episode had a good number of. Like the campfire scene. But overall it never really found its feet to have a significant payoff. Which would be fine if the theme was almost simpler and quieter. I wouldn't mind almost a "boring" season of the walking dead where less big stuff happened but the stuff that happened mattered more.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also noticed a lot of hate towards Bonnie which I don't understand from reading other people's comments on the endings. I thought she was one of the most decent characters. But again she suffers from bad writing in specific situations. If you don't go out to try to save Luke she turns into a complete bitch and blames Clementine.  (I saw this in a different playthrough. In my playthrough I did go out and try to save Luke) I don't believe she would have done that at all based on her character arc. Walking Dead has always offered false choices like this where characters do a 180 in emotions even though you don't have any effect on the resolution, but its annoying when the character doesn't behave in a way they have been set up and characterized as. Even if Bonnie, Mike, and Arvo were leaving, I don't believe they would have taken all the supplies. I think they would have split them.

[close]

[The Sceneman]

Finale was so shithouse.  Never buying a Telltale game ever again

[El Babua]

Sounds like it's season 2 of the show all over again.

[Stoney Mason]

And Season 2 of TWD TV was better written and more interesting than this, tbh.

The rest I would say maybe. But I still found this more enjoyable than watching the second season of the show which I found painful, and boring.

The second season of the show was so bad, its made me stop watching. At some point I will finish up the series but NOTHING is worse than spending episode after episode on a farm.

I still like the characters more in the game than the show. Even in this weakened edition.

[Stoney Mason]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

As is so often the case in The Walking Dead, I tried very hard to save a character who was unsaveable. Because of this, Kenny becomes increasingly furious at Arvo, who he blames for every miserable circumstance that’s befallen the group. And suddenly, Bonnie now hates me, because I wouldn’t run up to use my tiny frame to try to hoist him out of the ice. Bonnie, who had been so kind and friendly throughout the season, had reversed course purely because she felt I hadn’t “done enough” to save her unrequited crush. I had wanted to like Bonnie, but by this point, I was pretty much done with her.

Everything that takes place over the course of the next chapter is just a mess. Kenny flies off the handle and starts beating Arvo, which I tried to stop, only to get smacked in the face for my trouble. Eventually he skulks off to try to repair a pick-up truck parked behind the house we’d taken up in, which leaves everyone else to grouse about his behavior. This is especially true of Mike, who couldn’t telegraph his sudden sympathy for Arvo’s plight any harder outside of just walking up to Clementine and saying, “I like Arvo now.” Jane keeps reminding Clem that Kenny’s one’s step closer to the edge, about to break, etc. Bonnie won’t even talk to me. Then Kenny miraculously gets the truck working, and yet another argument about where to go erupts. Kenny wants to go find Wellington, the rumored settlement that’s supposed to be completely safe. Jane and Mike want to go south where it’s warm. Everybody yells a lot, then somehow ends up agreeing to sleep on it.

While doing so, Clem wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers Bonnie, Mike, and Arvo trying to steal the truck. Because Kenny has so thoroughly alienated these people who claimed to be my friend, they are actually willing to rescue a kid who helped set us up for an ambush, steal our only mode of transportation, and abscond to wherever the hell while leaving the rest of us (the baby included) to fend for ourselves. Look, I get that Kenny is a nightmare at this point, but this is the very definition of an unearned heel turn. Nothing in Bonnie or Mike’s character up to this point justifies this kind of reaction. Maybe they were pieces of shit all along and i just never realized it. I don’t know. But by this point I was done putting in any work to keep them in our group. I called out to Jane and Kenny that we were being robbed, and what do I get for my trouble? A bullet in the shoulder, courtesy of Arvo.

Fuck Arvo.


Here is where “No Going Back” takes a turn. As I said up top, this season’s biggest issue has been its lack of a meaningful character relationship. And as if to further prove that point, the episode plops Clem into a dream sequence featuring none other than Lee himself. I’ll happily admit I was glad to both see Lee’s face, and hear Dave Fennoy’s voice once again. The scene itself takes place on the RV, after Duck’s been bit and Carly had been killed. The conversation itself is a bit of a nothing. Clem expresses some fear at Duck’s inevitable death, they talk a bit about Lily (who I had allowed to come with us following Carly’s death) and at one point, I tell Lee I never want him to leave me. Even knowing what would eventually come to pass, I couldn’t help it. Nothing that happens in this scene is significant to the plot, yet it turned out to be the scene I savored the most, even as it served to highlight the utter dearth of worthwhile relationships this season has managed to build.

[close]

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/previously-on-the-walking-dead-no-going-back/1100-5008/

Decent summation of the problems of Season 2.

edit: Oscar also has a good summation on touch arcade.

http://toucharcade.com/2014/08/29/the-walking-dead-season-two-review/