The Walking Dead: Season 2
Hey what's Clementine up to? I mean besides living in a world that somehow hasn't managed to reform into a reasonable society after three goddamn years of zombies (no seriously, how is shit still so bad in Walking Dead land?)
So Clementine has fled with the kindly uncle guy, and it's become clear that he is a dead man walking, so that sucks. Eventually uncle guy gets left behind in a crowd of zombies in a last ditch effort to save Clementine. There is one point where they consider cutting off the limb, but it doesn't happen. Whatever.
Clementine makes it back to the house, and everyone just...kinda leaves. Apparently when people are missing, it is smarter to go search for them instead of hunkering down and waiting. So you are left alone with the other little girl (who it is kinda implied to be autistic?) and teach her how to shoot a gun and take photos and it's cute. But then a guy you don't know shows up and just starts stomping around the house like he owns the place, despite my repeated attempts to get him to go away. It turns out this is Carver, who the group are afraid of and constantly running from. He eventually leaves after getting confirmation he's found the group, so the group decides its time to pick up sticks. Boy, they are really scared of this guy. Why is he after them anyway? The answer eventually comes and it's kinda dumb.
So you pack up and start moving north, visiting the spot where the uncle died to give him a proper burial (I guess?) but you all flee in a panic when it turns out he was shot in the head SOMEHOW. Again, why are they treating this Carver guy like a supervillain? It's ridiculous. The group comes to a river with a bridge across it and a ski lodge (A ski lodge that is at the TOP of a mountain? The chairs lead up to it, for some reason. Also, do the skiers ski TOWARDS the quarter-mile wide river? That seems like a bad idea.) So you decide to hide in the ski lodge for the night, but first you scout the bridge. There's a zombie fight (three whole zombies!) and then you meet a friendly guy, only for the idiot of the group to show up and shoot him in the face. I...I thought we were scouting. Why are you guys here? What part of "wait until we give the all clear" didn't you assholes get? Well, whatever, we just killed an innocent dude, that surely won't come back and bite us in the ass later.
After a bit of dicking around, the party makes it to the lodge, where they run into the people who were obviously staying there. There's a bit of a standoff, but then Clementine pushes into the crowd and sees that one of the people staying at the lodge is Kenny! You remember Kenny! He was the guy who was a constant pain in Lee's ass and eventually sacrificed himself to save Christa from a horde of zombies. Turns out he got lucky, and managed to get out of there and found himself a girlfriend! She seems nice. There's also this really obtuse but friendly guy named Walter, who constantly brings up how his partner is going to be back any minute now. Sure he is.
So everyone decides to get along and you spend some time catching up with Kenny, and decorating a Christmas tree, and dealing with baby drama, and a lot of things start clicking into place. It turns out that Kenny definitely wants Clementine to stick around, but her new party doesn't want to leave her behind, and there's a bit of tension. Walter pulls Clementine aside and tells her it's all going to work out, because he is an obtuse guy! You also see some redhead lady who you just give a box full of peaches, because, again, Walter is way too kind for this jackshit world. This world is going to chew him up.
Because, guess what, Walter's partner was the guy you accidentally killed on the bridge! And you stole his knife! Which Walter found! So he knows you killed him! But you manage to defuse the situation by basically saying it was an accident, and Walter just cares too much about humanity to get revenge. And there's also a storm to worry about, which managed to overclock the wind turbine (somehow?!) so you need to shut it down before it attracts zombies. You do, but the zombies still show up and apparently almost kill everyone. But you are saved! By Carver... Who takes everyone prisoner...
The reason why Carver is tracking the party is made quite clear now; he believes that the pregnant woman is carrying his child. (Yeah, I figured this out like two hours ago, thanks). He's willing to kill literally anybody to get his child back. He almost kills the doctor, in fact, until you give up the pregnant woman. However, Kenny and another dude are still outside the lodge and are a potential threat, so Carver does what Carver does; kill people to show he is in charge. For example, he kills Walter just because! Sorry Walter, you were a pointless casualty to the shitty storyline. Carver also threatens to kill pregnant lady's husband, but because Clementine intervenes by running into his knees, he...doesn't? Anyway, eventually Kenny just gives up, and everyone is marched back to Carver's camp. Apparently in the middle of that giant thunderstorm that was happening like a minute ago.
This was fine. It's still...bleak for no reason, but it's fine. I am a little concerned that it just laid all the chips they could have possibly kept from me on the table at the end of Episode 2, but the first Walking Dead did pretty much the same thing, so...fine. I just feel really bad for Walter. This game gives us a genuinely good if naive character, with an interesting motive and charming personality (plus, he is just gay, not for any reason, just happens to be), and he finds his partner is murdered, his kindness betrayed, and is unceremoniously killed all in one night. I imagine if the game was allowed to have jokes, a bird would have pooped on his head at one point. There are also a huge amount of just poor storytelling, a lot of little things that don't make sense once you think about them. Like, the setting doesn't make sense. The setpieces don't mesh with each other. And all my decisions are starting to feel pretty pointless. At one point I was allowed to choose what kind of Christmas decoration I could put on the tree. Why was this even a choice? Give me a decision that goddamn matters.
Hey what's Clementine up to? I mean besides living in a world that somehow hasn't managed to reform into a reasonable society after three goddamn years of zombies (no seriously, how is shit still so bad in Walking Dead land?)
So Clementine has fled with the kindly uncle guy, and it's become clear that he is a dead man walking, so that sucks. Eventually uncle guy gets left behind in a crowd of zombies in a last ditch effort to save Clementine. There is one point where they consider cutting off the limb, but it doesn't happen. Whatever.
Clementine makes it back to the house, and everyone just...kinda leaves. Apparently when people are missing, it is smarter to go search for them instead of hunkering down and waiting. So you are left alone with the other little girl (who it is kinda implied to be autistic?) and teach her how to shoot a gun and take photos and it's cute. But then a guy you don't know shows up and just starts stomping around the house like he owns the place, despite my repeated attempts to get him to go away. It turns out this is Carver, who the group are afraid of and constantly running from. He eventually leaves after getting confirmation he's found the group, so the group decides its time to pick up sticks. Boy, they are really scared of this guy. Why is he after them anyway? The answer eventually comes and it's kinda dumb.
So you pack up and start moving north, visiting the spot where the uncle died to give him a proper burial (I guess?) but you all flee in a panic when it turns out he was shot in the head SOMEHOW. Again, why are they treating this Carver guy like a supervillain? It's ridiculous. The group comes to a river with a bridge across it and a ski lodge (A ski lodge that is at the TOP of a mountain? The chairs lead up to it, for some reason. Also, do the skiers ski TOWARDS the quarter-mile wide river? That seems like a bad idea.) So you decide to hide in the ski lodge for the night, but first you scout the bridge. There's a zombie fight (three whole zombies!) and then you meet a friendly guy, only for the idiot of the group to show up and shoot him in the face. I...I thought we were scouting. Why are you guys here? What part of "wait until we give the all clear" didn't you assholes get? Well, whatever, we just killed an innocent dude, that surely won't come back and bite us in the ass later.
After a bit of dicking around, the party makes it to the lodge, where they run into the people who were obviously staying there. There's a bit of a standoff, but then Clementine pushes into the crowd and sees that one of the people staying at the lodge is Kenny! You remember Kenny! He was the guy who was a constant pain in Lee's ass and eventually sacrificed himself to save Christa from a horde of zombies. Turns out he got lucky, and managed to get out of there and found himself a girlfriend! She seems nice. There's also this really obtuse but friendly guy named Walter, who constantly brings up how his partner is going to be back any minute now. Sure he is.
So everyone decides to get along and you spend some time catching up with Kenny, and decorating a Christmas tree, and dealing with baby drama, and a lot of things start clicking into place. It turns out that Kenny definitely wants Clementine to stick around, but her new party doesn't want to leave her behind, and there's a bit of tension. Walter pulls Clementine aside and tells her it's all going to work out, because he is an obtuse guy! You also see some redhead lady who you just give a box full of peaches, because, again, Walter is way too kind for this jackshit world. This world is going to chew him up.
Because, guess what, Walter's partner was the guy you accidentally killed on the bridge! And you stole his knife! Which Walter found! So he knows you killed him! But you manage to defuse the situation by basically saying it was an accident, and Walter just cares too much about humanity to get revenge. And there's also a storm to worry about, which managed to overclock the wind turbine (somehow?!) so you need to shut it down before it attracts zombies. You do, but the zombies still show up and apparently almost kill everyone. But you are saved! By Carver... Who takes everyone prisoner...
The reason why Carver is tracking the party is made quite clear now; he believes that the pregnant woman is carrying his child. (Yeah, I figured this out like two hours ago, thanks). He's willing to kill literally anybody to get his child back. He almost kills the doctor, in fact, until you give up the pregnant woman. However, Kenny and another dude are still outside the lodge and are a potential threat, so Carver does what Carver does; kill people to show he is in charge. For example, he kills Walter just because! Sorry Walter, you were a pointless casualty to the shitty storyline. Carver also threatens to kill pregnant lady's husband, but because Clementine intervenes by running into his knees, he...doesn't? Anyway, eventually Kenny just gives up, and everyone is marched back to Carver's camp. Apparently in the middle of that giant thunderstorm that was happening like a minute ago.
This was fine. It's still...bleak for no reason, but it's fine. I am a little concerned that it just laid all the chips they could have possibly kept from me on the table at the end of Episode 2, but the first Walking Dead did pretty much the same thing, so...fine. I just feel really bad for Walter. This game gives us a genuinely good if naive character, with an interesting motive and charming personality (plus, he is just gay, not for any reason, just happens to be), and he finds his partner is murdered, his kindness betrayed, and is unceremoniously killed all in one night. I imagine if the game was allowed to have jokes, a bird would have pooped on his head at one point. There are also a huge amount of just poor storytelling, a lot of little things that don't make sense once you think about them. Like, the setting doesn't make sense. The setpieces don't mesh with each other. And all my decisions are starting to feel pretty pointless. At one point I was allowed to choose what kind of Christmas decoration I could put on the tree. Why was this even a choice? Give me a decision that goddamn matters.
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