The Walking Dead Games

[Force_of_Nature]

*Snip*

This is a fair perspective and I was definitely taken aback after the incident, but it also was the best example of showing what the Walking Dead is all about; living in the moment and showing the fragility of life.

TWD won't get GOTY awards because it's a "game" per se, it'll get GOTY awards because of how it transcends video games (just like Journey) and contributes to the medium of what a video game is capable of. TWD is something special and deserves recognition.

 

[LP]

I, personally, like it when games like Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, and TWD do things like that...but I don't look for escapism. I think and write a lot, so if I want to "make my own adventure" I'll make it up. I feel that now, with games being able to make you apart of their world and as they tell a story that's not some 'Gotta defeat the evil power and only YOU can!' they're actually getting pretty good.

 

[JetSetDizzy]

REDACTED

Spoiler that post please.

 

[Ghengis_John]

This is a fair perspective and I was definitely taken aback after the incident, but it also was the best example of showing what the Walking Dead is all about; living in the moment and showing the fragility of life.

TWD won't get GOTY awards because it's a "game" per se, it'll get GOTY awards because of how it transcends video games (just like Journey) and contributes to the medium of what a video game is capable of. TWD is something special and deserves recognition.

I, personally, like it when games like Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, and TWD do things like that...but I don't look for escapism. I think and write a lot, so if I want to "make my own adventure" I'll make it up. I feel that now, with games being able to make you apart of their world and as they tell a story that's not some 'Gotta defeat the evil power and only YOU can!' they're actually getting pretty good.

Oddly enough I was also thinking about how journey is just one long pretentious fetch quest and people are going gaga over it as I was making my last post. Then you brought up how great you thought it was. I started it up, found out it would take real life days to walk to a mountain and summarily quit never to play it again. With only one button and no way to advance beyond endless key hunting I found the actual mechanics monotonous and the opposite of mentally engaging. It seems to me like there is a certain subset of the gaming population that are so eager to feel anything that they'll stand up and clap thier flippers the second anyone throws them a moody soundtrack or a ham handed tear jerker. Its funny that LP brings up escapism because it seems to me some people on the opposite side of the token are looking to feel any negative emotion they can from being vulnerable to being lost to outright depression. And as long as you give them that they're happy. Shaky gaming mechanics, sloppy shortcuts, crappy contradictory character inconsistency, lack of plot/huge plot holes/vague undefined plot or undelivered promises from developers be damned.

There seems to have been a big push in the video games industry to be ever more like other art forms, for the most part films, but there are others. I don't know that this is necessarily "transcending" however. Trying to ape other forms seems more like a desperate search for legitimacy in my opinion, and one that is open to derision and erodes the legitimacy of games on their own merits. The more we make a game like a film the more fuel we add to the furnace that powers the argument that games are not art. Considering the ways that games are different from other art forms might belie what has given them such prominence in recent years that they can even dwarf film revenues. Granted there is always cross pollination in art. But when I play a game the last metric of quality I think of is "did it make me cry"? People are excusing a lot these days in exchange for a "yes".

I didn't find the deaths sad btw, I found them frustrating.

 

[Force_of_Nature]

*Snip*

Just out of curiosity, what would you consider as 2012's Game of the Year in your opinion?

For games that cost me $60, I'd say either Mass Effect 3 or Assassin's Creed 3. For overall experience and lasting impression, I'd probably go with the Walking Dead.

Based off of your synopsis of Journey or TWD, I'd say that you're the type of person that doesn't "feel" something when playing a game or an interactive experience. You reduced Journey to its core elements and thus showed how simplistic it really is from a mechanical perspective. However, do you know why people value and praise Journey? Because it's different, it takes a risk (based on your description of it, I'd say a pretty big risk); it shows what happens when you actually put some creativity behind your game development, it directly communicates the developers passion for their product; it sends the players to a realm that they don't and probably won't experience much if ever in their life, it stimulates the senses, and most importantly, it makes you feel a sense of cathartis for a character that is completely and absolutely different to one self. When the little dude freezes its ass off, you sure as hell feel its pain. If that isn't art, I don't know what is. Yet you call it "pretentious".

Same with the TWD, when Lee has to chop off a leg, you can practically feel the agonizing stress that he's going through. I could completely empathize with Lee when he was searching for Clementine. This is some seriously powerful shit.

If I had to choose between Call of Duty: Blacks Op 2 ($60) and The Walking Dead: Series & Journey: Collector's edition ($30 x2), which game(s) would leave a better lasting impression on me and thus give me a better experience for my $60?