The Walking Dead is not a good game, great story but horrible gameplay

[Unsilenced]

"It doesn't have elements that I like in a game therefore it is objectively terrible."

Ok.

...

I mean, it's not like you've really opened up any discussion. You've just basically stuck a big banner in the ground proclaiming your opinion as fact. I'd disagree with you, but there's nothing really to go on or argue with. You've just kinda stated an opinion. You prefer games with more intensive gameplay.

Which is... nice I guess?

 

[JediMB]

The Walking Dead, as a game, is primarily about choices.

Not puzzle-solving, nor combat. Choices.

Neither puzzle-solving nor combat is brought into the game unless the story demands it, unlike most games where you're forced to fight waves upon waves of enemies simply so there'll be some sort of content to keep you busy. In TWD they're there solely for the sake of drama, to put the player inside Lee's head, and to force/drive the player to make decisions.

 

[Mordekaien]

That's a theory based on one scene from one game and Gabriel Knight 3 isn't even one of the classics.

Believe it or not, adventure gamers loved the zany puzzles in games like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle.

I don't disagree, it's just that I doubt such puzzles would work in a game about people coping with zombie outbreak/apocalypse.

 

[psychguy57]

I admit that the gameplay is not that great, and the story is pretty incredible. The ending left me in tears and the characters endeared themselves to me. The characters were great, the story fantastic, but the thing is that it is a puzzle game. The puzzles are as complex as grab-item-put-on-thing. The walking felt stiff and awkward (insert joke her), and the camera started a war against me. The i dont see how it could be a GOTY, but i could see how it could be a 9 star games, which to me is much better

 

[COMaestro]

The only downside to some of the tension that is created in WD is that there is no fear of failing. This really only applies to when Lee is in danger, but if you fail the QTE, you die then reload usually right at the time that you died. You can try again and again and eventually you will succeed. It is instances like this where it almost feels like a waste that they even engage the player to do anything, rather than just have Lee push past the zombie, knock the gun away, etc.

I haven't played the game yet, but I watched my wife go through the whole thing. I found it to be very enjoyable and definitely a game. The tension built when having to choose between two characters is done really well. And admittedly, it is hard to fail many of the QTE's that Lee finds himself having to deal with, so it does add tension with the likelyhood that the player will not see the game over screen. I just wish there was a more definite punishment when you fail. Hard to do in the case of a P&C game, but there should be something.

 

[Unsilenced]

The only downside to some of the tension that is created in WD is that there is no fear of failing. This really only applies to when Lee is in danger, but if you fail the QTE, you die then reload usually right at the time that you died. You can try again and again and eventually you will succeed. It is instances like this where it almost feels like a waste that they even engage the player to do anything, rather than just have Lee push past the zombie, knock the gun away, etc.

I haven't played the game yet, but I watched my wife go through the whole thing. I found it to be very enjoyable and definitely a game. The tension built when having to choose between two characters is done really well. And admittedly, it is hard to fail many of the QTE's that Lee finds himself having to deal with, so it does add tension with the likelyhood that the player will not see the game over screen. I just wish there was a more definite punishment when you fail. Hard to do in the case of a P&C game, but there should be something.

I think the real fear of failing comes in saying the wrong thing. There's a sinking feeling when you say something and the other characters just scowl at you. You can rewind and take those things back, but that actually does require some reversing of progress. The button mash things are just to break up the pace a bit, not make the game challenging.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

The problem with point and click games is that they were never much fun, you just played them for the story. The underlying gameplay was bad which means they aren't technically good games, just good stories.

Never much fun to you. I love point 'n' click gameplay; solving puzzles is very satisfying.

I haven't gotten very far in TWD though, because it won't read my saves (none of the fixes I've tried work, either). It also only runs in Windows 98 compatibility and is VERY jittery and buggy when I do that.

It's quite broken, to be honest.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Snip

The thing is, the QTEs in Heavy Rain aren't just to the benefit of the story elements. Quantic Dream did their damnedest to make the QTEs relevant to the gameplay situation, with the full intent on still achieving immersion. Besides that, what would the fight scenes or escapes be like with a traditional engine? Punch, punch, kick, block, etc. With the QTEs all kinds of amazing, cinematic stuff is possible, and it's much improved over the "simon says" style of Fahrenheit.

I apologize if this is off-topic, but I suppose it is relevant to the "sacrifice traditional gameplay to enhance story" discussion. I hope moving forward that more processing power is put towards making animations and engines more powerful in the interest of merging the two sides so there's no sacrifice. Games look bloody amazing right now, we need advancements elsewhere that the horsepower can open up.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Firstly I love the story of the game, don't get me wrong, but it really grinds my gears when people say it's the game of the year. The gameplay in it is almost none existent and what little there is consists of clicking on things and then a few quicktime events.

This is not good gameplay. I think the game would have been much better off as a straight up third person RPG style game rather than a point and click. I constantly found myself bored with the times where you just walked around and did extremely simple puzzles which is bad for a game.

Again I do like the story and characters were great, especially Clementine, but I just found the actual gameplay part sub standard.

Achievement Unlocked: Not Liking Old School Adventure Games

I think it deserves the accolades it's gotten precisely because of what it does with the story. With so many games offering complex gameplay but a story that's worthy of the laziest fanfics, I really don't think that a series that heads in the opposite direction hurts anybody. Plus, it's Telltale standard, by now.

They have stories to tell - not scores to keep or achievements to unlock. They succeeded in doing just that. That is what earns them all the heaps of praise they've received.

 

[Xanadu84]

It's still a great game. It's just a great game that utilizes aesthetics that you aren't recognizing as the world of games. Isn't it equally valid to say that perhaps you need a broader definition of what constitutes gameplay?

If you were to take the game and make it a shot for shot, line by line, angle by angle port from game directly to movie, it would not be very good. Those slow and simple puzzles add to the pacing. The choices that you make carry weight because of the player agency that is involved, even if the challenge of those elements in minimal or even unrewarding. Its all in service to a sense of world building and consequence that is derived directly from the play that you dismiss.

 

[unstabLized]

To me, the Walking Dead IS a game, It's just a game that relies heavily on Story, and somewhat on Gameplay, which still classifies it as a game. Sure,the gameplay might be weak to you, but it's still Gameplay. I do agree that the gameplay is weak as well, but the story makes up for it, and yes, I do enjoy my Battlefield 3 a lot, thank you very much.

Regardless, the Walking Dead was a great game because it had decent gameplay and a fantastic story, but my GOTY still goes to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, because it gave back the feeling that I've missed from video games for a long time, since the PS2 era, and that's the feeling of fuck ups and actual achievements, and for that, it's now one of my favourite games of all time.

 

[Nihlus2]

Please insert valid statement to support your claim. Or else we will be forced to qualify this entire thread as an online opinion based billboard.

 

[Reven]

So basically what I'm getting from ALOT (i stress this point to make sure i don't offend people that shouldnt be grouped up in this category) people that agree with the OP is as follows:

"i don't like point and click therefore it sucks"
"Point and click is not real gameplay"
*sigh*
Point and click games were huge a few decades ago, and they were considered games, if you don't like that style of gameplay, that's honestly fine, but claiming that a game that has it is objectively bad because of its inclusion, or worse yet claiming said game has no gameplay as a result and saying that's their opinion is the same as going : (( the sky is orange, gravity doesnt exist the real reason stuff goes down is because they are afraid of the aforementioned orange sky, and nokia phones are made from gingerbread and cheese ) opinions that try to claim certain things as facts can be wrong.

If you want to claim that point and click games aren't games, either prove it through facts, because I'm pretty sure there are alot of people that can rattle off a list of point and click games from the last few decades that are considered GAMES.

(personal favorites to refer to: The monkey island games)

 

[veloper]

Firstly I love the story of the game, don't get me wrong, but it really grinds my gears when people say it's the game of the year. The gameplay in it is almost none existent and what little there is consists of clicking on things and then a few quicktime events.

This is not good gameplay. I think the game would have been much better off as a straight up third person RPG style game rather than a point and click. I constantly found myself bored with the times where you just walked around and did extremely simple puzzles which is bad for a game.

Again I do like the story and characters were great, especially Clementine, but I just found the actual gameplay part sub standard.

Achievement Unlocked: Not Liking Old School Adventure Games

I think it deserves the accolades it's gotten precisely because of what it does with the story. With so many games offering complex gameplay but a story that's worthy of the laziest fanfics, I really don't think that a series that heads in the opposite direction hurts anybody. Plus, it's Telltale standard, by now.

They have stories to tell - not scores to keep or achievements to unlock. They succeeded in doing just that. That is what earns them all the heaps of praise they've received.

Worst offender sofar. TWD is in no way an old school adventure game.

That would be a text adventure with a parser. This game doesn't even fit in with the classics of the 90s.