 |
|
Feb 25th, 2015 at 00:08:17 - The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC) |
Tuesday 24th January 2015
At the start of my second playthrough Luke and Pete rescued Clementine. It was entertaining to see them argue about the decision about taking in clementine. I found myself inserting my decisions on the characters depending on the situation. As much as I tried to keep an emotionally removed mindset towards the characters, I found myself roleplaying and thinking of my own reaction in those situations. In that regards, the game succeeded in making me care.
I figured out that the story of the game was going to place a lot of emphasis on group dynamics. Also, I was trying hard to figure out the nuances between the dialogue options this time more than ever because in a lot of the conversations, I couldn’t make out the tone of the dialogue and what emotion that would show. English, being a second language, for me a lot of times the dialogue options seemed similar to each other with no difference between them.
I also feel the game could’ve benefitted from adventure game style puzzles because right now it feels like they are trying to do that but the puzzles are so trivial that there is no challenge here. It makes sense for a cinematic game like this but I cant help think they could have made it better by including harder puzzles. I actually hated when there was a supposed stealth section where Clementine sneaks through the house that was turned into an interactive cutscene. I love stealth games in general so this seemed like a mindless drag in comparison.
Further in the story, the difference between Sarah who has been sheltered throughout most of this apocalypse and clementine was striking and fun to watch. It was fun to see similar characters that were separated by a world of experiences. I have a feeling that the scene is foreshadowing some really hard to make decision somewhere ahead in the game.
The scene where Rebecca talks to herself while looking in the mirror, wondering who is the father of her child, reminds us that regular cultural norms still matter and haven’t broken down completely in the wake of an apocalypse. The choice of stealing and taking a watch was also interesting. I don’t know yet how it will play out but an action like that made a lot of sense in a post apocalyptic world and I wish the game has more of these kind of interactions as I play ahead.
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Feb 25th, 2015 at 00:07:34 - The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC) |
Monday 23rd January 2015
The Walking Dead series of video games is and episodic interactive drama graphic adventure video game series by Telltale Games - a developer that popularized and mastered this genre of games. They have lots of similar other games but this one was no doubt the most popular and well received owing to the impressive story and popularity of the tv series and comic books. Having never played this kind of game before, I’m buckling myself in for a unique experience.
In the beginning, the game showed me a flashback of the previous season. From that, I understood that this is the story of the girl Clementine, who was under the care of a man named Lee. At the end of the first season, she ends up shooting the man, because he had been bitten by a zombie and that last moment of the recap set the mood for the first play-through.
The game began with a playful conversation between two people. Clementine is asked to choose a name and I had to come up with a response before a bar that keeps shrinking disappeared entirely. That mechanic took some time to figure out and I got the right choice as I wanted to make on the second or third such question. That scene did well to set up the relationship between the characters. On important dialogue choices, the game told me that "X will remember that". This made me think that these dialogue choices will have some sort of impact later in the story.
Clicking through scenes I was preparing myself for a jump scare of two as the game does a good job of creating tension. I also found the image of a young girl carrying around a gun to be very unsettling.
The first death was a very tragic experience. Christa's expression upon discovering Omid’s body was horrifying. I didn’t know whether any of my choices had led to that scenario or that it was inevitable in the story. Was I guilty for having the gun on me?
I found the QTE based gameplay very boring and restrictive, it is my first time playing the game. I also didn’t have enough time to read and think about the options but I feel it does it to simulate, real life split second decisions. During my play through, I always tried to discern the emotion behind the dialogue options given their tone. I made assertive choices, being rude, even when a gun was pointed at me. I chose a lot of dialogue options that reminded Christa of her late husband just to see the response it would elicit from that NPC. I wish I could go back and play every possible combination of decisions but that would take too much time.
In a few situations I felt the choices were just padding. For example, when I threw a stone at a bunch of zombies approaching me, it didn’t feel like the choice had any consequence. I feel these interactions were added just to add some level of interactivity for it to be called a game.
Sometime later, the moment when you play catch with the dog was really impactful in bonding the dog’s character to the player. It added some joy to the bleak landscape. Some moments later, I liked it how the game went full 180 and made me hate the dog for biting me when I fed it the food. It was a bad move but it didn’t stop me from being merciful and killing the dog and ending its suffering.
At this point I had a thought whether I would do the same if I was bitten in real life. I feel being hungry and bitten I would have left the dog to die. In real life I would have been exacting revenge. Since I’m just playing a game and not in that actual situation I put the dog out of its misery, trying to be forgiving and moving on.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 25th, 2015 at 00:08:49.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 28th, 2015 at 09:08:24 - This war of mine (PC) |
Day 5 Started with me getting a knock at the door and two shady characters showing up asking to talk. Knowing the situation and the nature of the game till now, I ignored the knocking in fear of it being a trap. Having no weapons to defend myself I did the thing that I would do in such a situation myself.
I had decided not to risk it. I let go of a potential dialogue option i.e. content for the fear of the wellbeing of my characters. I feel this says a lot about the brilliant way that the game was able to make me care about my character for me to make that choice. The thought also crossed my mind that maybe they were looking for help but again, I felt in no charitable mood when my own house was barely making ends meet. I contemplated for a while whether that made me a bad person. I decided not to dwell on it for long and spent the day doing chores.
As night came, I picked Katia for scavenging since today she was the only one who wasn’t injured or tired. I went against my original plan and used the female character. I decided to scavenge an area I had been to before, knowing that it would be safe. Opening new cabinets in this area, I found coffee. I saw that Katia liked coffee and was asking for it in the in-game dialogue. Though coffee was an item that was going to bring comfort to only one character in particular, I decided to go for it. Even though it occupied one whole inventory slot when it could have been used for something useful for the whole group. Here I was letting my bias and my need for overcompensation get in the way of the needs of the many. I wasn’t proud of it but I just felt it was necessary when I did it.
I came back to find out that the night had not been calm and Bruno had been attacked. His status showed “Sad” in his emotions. That made me stop and take notice as the first thought that came to my mind was to think how far this was going to be taken? Does he go from “Sad” to “Very Sad”? Does that go somewhere beyond just sadness? Does this game lets the characters kill themselves to simulate human emotion in war? Would I experiment with the people I’ve grown attached with just to find out if that happens? I researched the game and found out that the game does let characters commit suicide if they are pushed beyond a point.
My thoughts now went back to the moonshine and the implied benefits of having supplies and machinery to make moonshine. Alcohol is a sure stress reliever and now I felt as if it would have helped in elevating the emotions of my characters and keeping future suicidal thoughts away. Suddenly the purpose of the games objects made a lot of sense beyond tradable item or luxury. I now started looking at each item’s descriptions carefully trying to find the hidden gameplay significance of the items. The cigarettes, coffee beans and moonshine ingredients now all fit into the scheme of the game. It was a sudden moment of clarity.
I feel the suicide mechanic is a very bold addition to the game as I can’t think of any games with playable characters that commit suicide. It is not even dwelt on in the Sims games. I reckon it would be a punch to the gut to experience it first-hand while playing the game but my life as a graduate student is hard enough. I have grown rather weary of the heavy themes in the game and would like to play a game of Quake 3 as soon as possible to alleviate the depression.
read comments (1)  - add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 28th, 2015 at 01:15:16 - This war of mine (PC) |
Since I was raided the previous night (Night 2) in the game, on Day 3 I decided to concentrate on healing the wounded and prepare for the night. Finding out that I had no food, I ended the day prematurely so that I could go out scavenging and hope to find some food to eat. Today when I got to the night I noticed that the game had arranged the three people in my house in an order that was different from the last night I went scavenging. I realized that the game here was making its own suggestions about who should go out scavenging based on its own calculations. It picked the person that was the least tired and hungry to scavenge. I considered the given option and it was Katia.
I examined it and decided that though the option made complete sense in the context of the game, it was something that I would never allow and would never happen in real life. Call me sexist, but I would never send out a woman in a war zone unless the men were absolutely wounded and unable to move. This suggested choice and its repercussions made me think about the role of gender in games and how my own biases and beliefs in life affect my choices. I admire the game’s attempts to paint all the characters as capable in their own right giving them varied abilities but when it comes down to it, I decided to impose my own values on to the game.
I would like to say here that I felt the game gave the female characters sexist special abilities. Even though I had not played as the characters I did a wiki search and noted their special abilities as “Bargaining Skills”, “Bolsters Spirits”, “Loves Children” and “Talented Lawyer”. Males were given abilities such as “Good Scavenger”, “Trained in Combat”, “Handyman”, and “Good Mathematician” etc. I was not bothered by the clear demarcation of gender roles in a video game but it was clear to me that in a situation like war, gender roles generally get eschewed reminding me of the images of Kurdish women bearing arms and fighting alongside men in the northern swaths of Iraq.
Moving on, I felt as if the game should have given us the option of having more than one scavenger (that may happen later in the game). It would also make sense because nobody would like to out in a warzone all alone. Eventually I used Pavle to scavenge. I noticed that the change in music while scavenging does a good job to convey the tension I felt while sneaking through unknown territory. Again I felt the need for more bag space and decided to make that a priority.
Day 4 rolled in and the first interesting event happened in the game where a lone civilian walked up to the door of our shelter asking to trade items. I looked at the options and was forced to think about the perceived importance of ordinary items in an extraordinary situation. I thought about the use of all the items I had and tried to think of the things that had fit within my logic and moral code. I consider alcohol a recreational item and would waste no resources making it in such dire times. So I decided to get rid of the items to make moonshine ad concentrated on just getting all the food, clean water and supplies I could get. This was another example of me making a choice based on my own moral code in the game.
The game so far had more apprehension and tension than a youtube jumpscare lets play. With my skills I felt like I was watching a slow train wreck. It was clear that people were going to die. It also bothered me as to what were the character’s motivations to stay in a city that was amidst war. Couldn’t they be refugees and migrate to outside the warzone? The limited backstory of the characters did not make sense to me as I felt the reason they were living like this could be solved by escape as I don’t think it would be worth living everyday fearing for your life especially when your greatest threat is not the enemy but your own countryman. I’ll find out more about the story soon.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 28th, 2015 at 01:17:13.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
|
 |
| omeysalvi's GameLogs |
|
omeysalvi has been with GameLog for 9 years, 2 months, and 26 days |
view feed xml
|
| Entries written to date: 9 |
|
