My New RPG - The Walking Dead by Telltale Games (Spoiler Free)

Posted by movieman52 on October 19, 2012 01:40 pm 4

My many hours of Fallout, Skyrim, and Mass Effect are misleadingly low. If I began to count my time on their respective forums and wikis then my total hours equal the number of weapons in Borderlands 2. When I am not playing Skyrim, I am looking up the thousands of ways to do the quest. In Mass Effect I spent hours in wikis figuring out the way I want to finish the certain quest or story. I always feel RPGs punish me when I am not making the "right" decision. Fallout and ME allow you to take a middle ground, but if you went full paragon/renegade, the experience becomes much richer than the grey middle. Fallout gives tough decisions, but if you mix bad karma with good karma, you may not receive the special named weapon. I only know this style of RPG gameplay, but then all of that changed with a new game - a game based off of one of my all time favorite comics. My new expectations for RPGs are now being paved by the corpses and momentous decisions of The Walking Dead by Telltale Games.

The Walking Dead easily takes my Game of the Year Award. This game came and forced me to chose which kid to feed. A decision I never want to make, but a decision that looks comparatively easy to some of the other scenarios in TWD. The game has no right answer and a rewarding outcome regardless of my decision (and my emotional state at the end). Even though decisions lead to different outcomes, all of them maintain the same rewarding experience and have an equally high payoff. This style has not only kept me deeply entertained, but also off the internet. I am finally letting my true decisions come to fruition, and it is adding a huge personal stake in my story. Every choice comes as naturally as the walker roaming around the corner, and the characters in TWD are more "me" than any facial combination I could possible make in other RPGs.

I will get the next Elder Scrolls and will jump for joy for the next Fallout. I will continue to put ME in again and play all the way through. Nothing can take me away from these amazing universes - except the ME wikia, and the Skyrim guide. Next time I start TWD over, I will make some of the same decisions, and the change some radically - and I know I will have a new adventure and amazing experience - regardless of which child I feed.

Cheers!​

I am an obvious (biased) Walking Dead fan. I met Tony Moore (left) and Kirky (right) at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle this year.