Telltale Games Catch-All--Clem will remember that

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So we have several light threads with TWD, Batman, Tales of the Borderlands, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc., and it seems like the same people are in those threads. So I figured we could combine them into one catch all.

BTW, I finished Guardians of the Galaxy Ep. 3 last night and I chose to

Spoiler:

Destroy the Forge

Did anyone not? How does the story go if you don't?

Dunno, I made the same decision you did!

I just finished Walking Dead S3 and I'm now on the last episode of GoT. Both quite a bit better than I expected.

Is Borderlands Episode 2 out yet? No? Then forget it!

The GoTG game is actually starting to grow on me after that third episode. Up until that point (apart from the rocket flashback last episode) it's been rather Underwhelming in my opinion, but it's starting to pick up nicely now.

maverickz wrote:

Is Borderlands Episode 2 out yet? No? Then forget it!

It's not likely to happen anytime soon. The Devs have said that if they do another one it'll have to be after the next proper borderlands game.

Batman Season 2 Episode 2 is out..next week? I think? Probably Tuesday?

If you've not given Telltale's Batman games a glance, they're worth a look...unless you don't like things that mess with established lore because HOLY sh*t do they mess with established lore!

I think that's probably why I like them so much!

pyxistyx wrote:

Batman Season 2 Episode 2 is out..next week? I think? Probably Tuesday?

I snagged the complete Season 1 just after Christmas--based on this, I'll have to wait a little longer for a complete Season 2, yeah?

Story-based choice-heavy games are very, very relevant to my current work position. More than once I've had to convey to a project collaborator that a "game" encompasses a lot more than shooting things for a score. It seems like citing TT games will help me with that--the idea that I can say "There is a Batman game where you barely have to be Batman" seems like a potent way to shift thinking.

Short story long, Tales from the Borderlands is next on the docket after Life is Strange. I don't expect the former to effect me in quite the same way the latter has, though.

Oh, even if it's not as affecting as Life is Strange is, you're in for a treat with TftB though!

For my money, TftB is the best Telltale style game in the series, and I would put it above LiS. They are doing radically different things, but I really picked up what TftB was putting down.

Spoiler:

I'm old.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Story-based choice-heavy games are very, very relevant to my current work position. More than once I've had to convey to a project collaborator that a "game" encompasses a lot more than shooting things for a score. It seems like citing TT games will help me with that--the idea that I can say "There is a Batman game where you barely have to be Batman" seems like a potent way to shift thinking.

In my experience, the usual response to that is along the lines of "those aren't games, those are just choose-your-own-adventures; to be a game, you have to be able to win, you probably need to have a score, and I'm not going to say that you have to kill things, but you really do".

I played through all of Batman Season 1 a few months ago; I thought it had some great moments (the planning-then-executing-an-action-sequence sections were a great way to use Telltale's engine in a way that fit the character), but it face-planted in the last episode. Up 'til then, though, there was some great character writing and a really interesting spin on Gotham's culture of Wayne Privilege®. Rob Zacny actually went into that quite a bit on an episode of Idle Weekend.

Inspired by that, I finally got around to finishing Tales from the Borderlands - I had played about 1-1/2 episodes a while ago, then got distracted by the latest shiny thing. While I enjoyed that, I didn't enjoy it as much as most people did. I guess I'm more interested in character, and characters in the Batman game had a more interesting arc. That also, I thought, went off the rails at the end, becoming an almost completely different game in what seemed like an attempt to have a big actiony ending, rather than letting the story threads come to a climax on their own.

Both of those, however, I'd rate lower on my own personal scale than my absolute fave Telltale game, Wolf Among Us. I'm a sucker for neon-lit noir, and Wolf delivers that in spades, with the feel and soundtrack of a Michael Mann film like Thief or Heat. I thought the world of Wolf was fascinating, as were the characters, and the writing was spot-on hard-boiled detective sleaze. I actually wound up watching a YouTube Let's Play of Wolf after playing Tales from the Borderlands, and enjoyed seeing new sections I had missed, along with seeing how involved the player got in the story's twists and turns.

Even then, though, I thought the big showdown ending of Wolf was somewhat at odds with the story leading up to it; even the previous action sequences, like the opening fight or the Tweedledee chase, felt more integrated into the story's momentum. I didn't feel like it was as much of an issue as the final episode of Borderlands or Batman, but from my experience of Telltale games (I've only played the first episode of Walking Dead - didn't really grab me), that does seem to be a Telltale pattern.

Unless it gets terrible reviews, I'll definitely be buying Wolf 2, but I'll probably wait until all episodes are out before I start it. I played the first season episode-by-episode because I found it so compelling, but I seem to get more out of Telltale's games if I can play them as a block, so I don't lose story threads over a month-plus hiatus.

Evan E wrote:

In my experience, the usual response to that is along the lines of "those aren't games, those are just choose-your-own-adventures; to be a game, you have to be able to win, you probably need to have a score, and I'm not going to say that you have to kill things, but you really do".

I'm dealing with a slightly different cohort, though--older and not very familiar with games at all, so their preconceived notions are more Space Invaders. Blew a collaborators mind when I told her all the ways to resolve some Witcher quests.

I've heard TftB is great, but I am kinda curious, because while I really enjoyed both Borderlands 1 and 2, I though Handsome Jack was a really not great addition, and the resolution of "The Angel" disappointing. I'm excited to see what I think.

Edit: Huh. I somehow thought Tales was also a prequel, but it's pretty clearly not...

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Edit: Huh. I somehow thought Tales was also a prequel, but it's pretty clearly not...

Yeah, it's its own thing, set in the Borderlands world. Lots of people think it's the best thing Telltale's done since the first Walking Dead (although with a completely different tone).

Ok, yeah I'm definitely a big fan of the Telltale Batman version of Harley Quinn. She's pretty darn badass...in a dangerously unstable sort of a way.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/20171004224333_1.jpg)

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/20171004224434_1.jpg)

And probably my favourite costume for her, too.

Spoiler:

AND, as I had hoped, they've kind of done a role reversal between her and joker.... "John" is the besotted lovelorn fool (or, at least, that's how he's portraying himself right now) and Harley is the one who's got him wrapped around her little finger. THIS IS GREAT! I hope they don't balls it up in later episodes...

I'm a little worried that they are maybe going a bit overboard with the villains (they went from having just the one 'classic' villain in the first season to SIX in this season, all within the first two episodes. So far it's all holding together though.

A fully clothed Harley in a video game!? Now that's a change to the canon.

Evan E wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Edit: Huh. I somehow thought Tales was also a prequel, but it's pretty clearly not...

Yeah, it's its own thing, set in the Borderlands world. Lots of people think it's the best thing Telltale's done since the first Walking Dead (although with a completely different tone).

I'd confused it with the Pre-Sequel, in that I thought it was an origin for Jack, and I'm pretty relieved it's not. I'm also relieved they toned Jack's "Hey, Ya Guyz Seen This Show 'Archer'?" tone significantly.

The game's a riot, and I'm impressed how of a piece it is with the Borderlands style, thematically and aesthetically. However, jumping back into this glibly and gleefully violent nihilistic universe after spending last week in the earnest gentleness of Life is Strange was pretty discombobulating.

I've heard TftB is great, but I am kinda curious, because while I really enjoyed both Borderlands 1 and 2, I though Handsome Jack was a really not great addition, and the resolution of "The Angel" disappointing. I'm excited to see what I think.

I was only loosely familiar with Borderlands, having bounced hard off the grind in B1; I knew it was a loot-and-shootfest, that the humor was kind of crude, and that Claptrap was super annoying. That was about it.

I absolutely loved Tales. IMO, it's the best of the Telltale games. I'd call it equivalent to Life is Strange in terms of story quality, but it's a very different experience. Ranking the two is pretty difficult. It just gets everything exactly right. It's still less of a game than LiS, still a standard Telltale formula game, but man, it's outstanding.

(My second favorite would be The Wolf Among Us; I haven't played Batman yet.)

Well, as for Episode 4 of TftB, I'd read previously it started off with a real gut punch:

Spoiler:

BWAHAHA, A for effort game! But do you have any idea where I was last week? I've seen things you wouldn't dream! Blade Runner, man! "Do this for me, Max." I mean, mad credit for injecting some humanity into this setting, good hustle, champ, but I still got the view out that window fresh on my mind.

Just kidding, But not really. But just kidding. As I said in the spoiler, though, I am impressed they've injected some humanity and sincerity into the setting--the previous emotional lynch-pin of the series was the relationship between a man and a bird--I quite like Fiona and Rhys, and I'd definitely be a Fiona in the hoped for next Borderlands.

Evan E wrote:

In my experience, the usual response to that is along the lines of "those aren't games, those are just choose-your-own-adventures.

I've played TWD series, but I won't do the other visual novels. I got too much of a linear with little substantiation for choice vibe. Often I was all "OMG what option should I pick??" only to find out it ends up about the same. Someone going to be pissed with any choice you make and story will progress to next stage anyways. You just decide who you want to drama with only to find out they have some heartbreaking backstory that made them who they are. Then you feel bad. Then a zombie eats them.

Good grief Telltale. What the heck was your artist thinking :O

Batman: The Enemy Within removes photo resembling real murder victim

Telltale Games have hastily updated the latest episode of Batman: The Enemy Within [official site] to remove an in-game photograph of a murder victim which bore a striking resemblance to a real-world photo of murdered Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov following his assassination. Telltale avoid addressing how this happened, but do say they “regret this incident occurred” are “taking appropriate internal action”.

There's a link on the story to a comparison photo (I'll not embed it here for the same reason Alice doesn't in the RPS article, being a photo of a literal dead ambassador 'n all. but it pretty damning evidence, tbh.

Repeat after me, lazy artists in videogames: Google image search is NOT YOUR FRIEND.

Finished the (surprise) episode 4 of Guardians of the Galaxy...i had no idea it was due today, but there we go.

Still probably my least favourite of the telltale stuff so far, but it has a few emotional moments. I'm super curious to know how certain things play out on different choices though...

Spoiler:

Since it looks like you can save/lose a whole bunch of characters depending on your decisions. I ended up with Nebula and Drax dead by the end of the episode. And Gamora, Groot and Mantis all went their separate ways. From the final summary screen it looks like these are all malleable decisions, too.

Of course, my worry is...

Spoiler:

...because we're basically dealing with a power that can resurrect the dead from any time/location, then it's basically going to hit a huge reset button at the end of episode 5 and we end up right back at the start again....but hopefully it'll surprise me and NOT do that

I forgot to check in for the finale of Tales from the Borderlands, but not much of my opinion had changed -- the game's a riot, it's a great story in a setting that I'm pretty sure a lot of people didn't think could have a good story, and also feels of a piece with that setting in particulars of plot, tone, and theme. Highly recommended.

I'm also up to the finale of TT's Game of Thrones, which is also impressive for how it feels of a piece with both the novels and show. Part of that is how they rather cleverly took a story from the novels the show didn't have time for, and gave it to the Forresters (the situation at Ironrath is pretty similar to a situation Bran was dealing with for much of Book 2), but also how they selected a pretty rich period in the series to feature. Some character appearances are a bit more forced than others, but all around, it's another great showing.

Among the many things both of these games and my recently played Life is Strange is use quality music, and do it well. Admittedly, much of the incidental music in GoT is about 30% too Skyrim for the Song of Ice and Fire setting, but the song that closes out episode 2 is powerful and effective stuff. "Cinematic" is often a dirty word in our circles, but I wish more games would use music to build proper sequences or connect ideas or set a more complex tone, or just because it's cool.

EDIT: Hrmm... Did not care for the ending I got...

pyxistyx wrote:

Finished the (surprise) episode 4 of Guardians of the Galaxy...i had no idea it was due today, but there we go.

Still probably my least favourite of the telltale stuff so far, but it has a few emotional moments. I'm super curious to know how certain things play out on different choices though...

Spoiler:

Since it looks like you can save/lose a whole bunch of characters depending on your decisions. I ended up with Nebula and Drax dead by the end of the episode. And Gamora, Groot and Mantis all went their separate ways. From the final summary screen it looks like these are all malleable decisions, too.

Of course, my worry is...

Spoiler:

...because we're basically dealing with a power that can resurrect the dead from any time/location, then it's basically going to hit a huge reset button at the end of episode 5 and we end up right back at the start again....but hopefully it'll surprise me and NOT do that

Mine ended the same way, so I wonder if there was some funny business with fake choices. It felt like they really wanted the episode to end with...

Spoiler:

The Guardians split up.

Finished the final episode of Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a strange one (the whole thing, not just the last episode). The over-arching plot is completely forgettable and barely worth mentioning and there's often even less 'game' here than in other Telltale games, but it has a lot of really quite emotional character building stuff, delving into the tragic back stories of every character (really highlighting that they are a disparate group of survivors barely hanging on most of the time). Quill and his relationship with his mother is as heartbreaking as you'd expect but the stuff with Rocket is devastating D: .

THAT stuff is what's kept me coming back to it I think.

It also seems to have probably the most flexibility in reactions to your actions than I've seen in a Telltale game - at least, going by what the final 'your choices' screen was hinting at. I'll be super curious to watch some other playthroughs on youtube to see what different variations are available.

I stopped playing Telltale games a little while ago. I really dug the early ones like Tales of Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Puzzle Agent and the first Walking Dead game. I think what made me stop was the lack of gameplay. They moved away from puzzle and point&click adventure gaming to essentially interactive fiction, just telling a linear story through conversation and a few quick-time-events. I was frustrated by the 2nd Walking Dead game and the Game of Thrones game, and I haven't gotten a Telltale title since.

Are they still pretty much completely down that cash hole? Its certainly easier to design the game this way and some people surely like it.

Are there series' I've missed that play more like the early ones?

no they are pretty much all just interactive choose your own adventures so if you didn't like the walking dead or GoT then you probably wont like the more modern ones (although if I were to suggest one to try, it would be Tales from the Borderlands) .

They've gotten a little better with their most recent games at adding some decent branches to their stories but the basic 'gameplay' is much the same.

...aaand well. This just happened.

Telltale lay off 90 staff.

The ol' "restructuring to make the company more competative" thing.

Honestly, I haven't bought a Telltale game since Tales from the Borderlands, and that was in late 2015. They haven't made anything I'm really interested in(maybe Batman), and their complete lack of a set release schedule has basically led me to ignore initial releases, thinking I'll look at it whenever they finish the season, and then forget about it completely until a massive sale hits.

I didn't even know that Batman had a second season until just now.

I'm not surprised by this, I always thought it was odd how many games they were releasing, they've basically flooded their own market. If they could've really managed to plug that storytelling gap that's missing in gaming, then I could've understood churning out the games, but that'd probably be a landmark moment in gaming. For the record, I loved the original Walking Dead game, but I don't think it had THAT sort of amazing story that would pretty much change the way every other game tells stories.

Going to a new engine is probably needed, like they've hinted, they just saw their big chance and went for it while they could.

pyxistyx wrote:

(although if I were to suggest one to try, it would be Tales from the Borderlands)

I haven't played any of their post-Jurassic Park output but I believe Tales from the Borderlands is considered one of their strongest works of late.

As far as the older stuff goes, the Homestar Runner series I think is considered the high point?

pyxistyx wrote:

The ol' "restructuring to make the company more competative" thing.

There's probably some truth to that. The write-up at GI.biz mentions they had around 400 employees before the layoff. That's a lot for a non-AAA studio.

They've also become incredibly dependent on large license contracts over the years (Sam & Max was ostensibly their IP as Steve Purcell was working for them until he went to Pixar). Walking Dead gets its final season next year and that's been a major gravy train for them, and they probably don't have anything really lined up to replace that hole yet (hence "fewer, better games"). Less work coming in means they're going to need fewer people to do the work.

Also, it sounds like they're looking to replace their internal engine (which is long overdue given the litany of complaints about it) with something based on existing technology so they probably need fewer developers to work on the engine itself.

How had I not posted in this thread? Big Telltale fan here!

shoptroll wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

(although if I were to suggest one to try, it would be Tales from the Borderlands)

I haven't played any of their post-Jurassic Park output but I believe Tales from the Borderlands is considered one of their strongest works of late.

Definitely, Tales from the Borderlands is still the best in my book!! Wolf Among Us was also really good.

I played BATMAN - the Telltale game this weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised. It sure was a nice change of pace from the other Batman games (rack up the combos, punch all the guyz). I really enjoyed playing as Bruce as often as I could, it was great change of pace and perspective.

polypusher wrote:

I...They moved away from puzzle and point&click adventure gaming to essentially interactive fiction, just telling a linear story through conversation and a few quick-time-events...Are they still pretty much completely down that cash hole? Its certainly easier to design the game this way and some people surely like it...

Well, for the flip side - I played the Telltale Monkey Island, Sam & Max, & Homestar Runner games, and I very much prefer Walking Dead (1st season; haven't played the rest), Wolf Among Us (my favorite), Batman, and Tales From The Borderlands. While they may not be a style of game you like, the ones I've mentioned actually tell really interesting stories, with fascinating characters. Batman, in particular, takes a really hard look at Wayne Privilege® in a way that genuinely made me think about Batman in a new light.

I would say the cash grab is more that they have switched to only making games based on licensed properties, but pretty much every game they've made since that choice (which started with Walking Dead) has been a real attempt to tell a good story with those properties.

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