Lucas
Versantvoort / February 10, 2015
You know, once
you've played quite a few recent Telltale titles and review one of them, you
realize you've basically reviewed the other titles too. In a sense, reviews of
Telltale games are somewhat interchangeable. Think about it. Let's say I
reviewed a Telltale title and talked about how emotional and dramatic the
storyline is, how many characters are quite likeable and how your decisions
occasionally make a real narrative difference, am I then talking about their
Game of Thrones series or The Walking Dead or both? It makes reviewing all
their titles feel a bit superfluous when you realize you're basically repeating
yourself.
Now, this all sounds like I'm bashing these games which is not my
intention at all. Despite how you might feel about Telltale's use of the Choice
& Consequence system, the fact is these games' popularity derives from
their emotionally engaging stories. Especially these days, when a lot of AAA
titles feature emotionally inert stories and lazily developed, uninteresting
characters, I'm particularly inclined to cut Telltale some slack whenever I
feel their Choice & Consequence system feels contrived.
 |
| Clementine has had enough of your shit |
Anyway, the story. If you've played Season 1, then you already know that
you get to control Clementine as she struggles to survive not just the zombie
horde, but some of mankind's less shinier examples of human decency. Like every
great zombie story, it's not about the zombies; they're simply set-dressing.
Instead, it's all about group dynamics and human behavior. Season 2 embraces
this theme even more fervently than the first. Honestly, I'm not inclined to
reveal anything more about the story, because everything I say would just spoil
the experience. Suffice to say, familiar faces return as well as new ones.
Like the first season, season two succeeds in presenting stories that are
dramatic, emotional and incredibly tense. Even if the first season’s
Lee/Clementine relationship is superior to anything on display here, there’s a
lot to like: Clementine’s relationship with a certain returning character from
season 1; the new characters, some of them more likable than others; the game’s
focus on how group dynamics are enough to cause a group to implode. Indeed,
there were a few points in the story where I could connect an event with a
previous one. It lends the story some cohesion instead of making it feel like a
disjointed bundle of melodramatic scenes.
There are some things fundamentally wrong with the game, however. When it was
announced you would play as Clementine, I immediately began to worry about the
possible implications. While it would present an interesting opportunity to
play as a kid in a group of adults, it could also mean that your ‘parental’
decisions as Lee regarding Clementine would be rendered irrelevant. The great
thing about season 1 was that everything you did and said had an impact on
Clementine (“Clementine will remember that”). Your decisions affected how she
would grow up and come to understand the world around her. You could either
give it to her straight or try to be gentle and sympathetic, etc. But playing
as Clementine negates the psychological impact of those decisions. Now,
Clementine is no longer an autonomous person, but at the mercy of the player
who gets to decide her behavior completely. The game tries desperately to link
back to events of season 1 for the sake of continuity, but the fact is that
you, the player, get to decide if Clementine will be colder towards those
around her or friendlier. It’s up to you to either remain sympathetic to the
plights of others or accelerate her maturation process by maintaining a cynical
view on things and so on. In other words, you are responsible for psychological
continuity which feels wrong with player-controlled characters. For instance,
if you have Clementine say things that reveal a more hardened nature, then you
are deciding for yourself that Clementine is somewhat abandoning Lee’s
philanthropic teachings (if you behaved that way in season 1). Also, early in
the game you can have Clementine burn the photo of Lee. The same problem
applies here. Clementine isn't deciding this herself based on Lee's actions,
but you are. You either burn the photo or don't, so you basically
enforce your idea of Clementine's character development, thus negating your
actions as Lee. If you controlled someone else, it would be great to see Lee’s
decisions from season 1 affect Clementine’s behavior (can you imagine how
awesome that would feel, to see Clem ‘doing the right thing’ because Lee taught
her right?), but deciding for yourself how Clem acts just doesn’t work. On the
other hand, I understand why Telltale did it, as season 2 would just feel like
a rehash if you would play the surrogate father again, aka Lee 2.0.
My other complaint is more obvious and centers on the Choice &
Consequence system. Telltale of course tells us that the game will adapt to
your choices, but this is a half-truth. Just look at the endings of which there
are five. Which one you’re rewarded with isn’t established by decisions made
throughout the story, but only by a few decisions at the end. And if you’ve
played season one several times or read about the impact of your choices,
you’ll quickly realize that your choices mostly decide two things: who lives or
dies and how others behave towards you and each other.
What always cracks me up are the synopses available on wikis, etc. Read
a few and count how often you encounter lines like “regardless of your choice”
and “regardless of what you do,” etc. Most people stumble across these lines
when going online to figure out whether a certain event can be avoided, only to
be confronted with something like, “regardless of your actions, character X
will die.” Those are the times gamers silently condemn Telltale: “the story
adapts to my choices, my ass! That’s some false advertising right there!”
The fact is that you have to temper your expectations on how much ‘the
story is tailored by how you play.’ The reason why isn’t because of laziness on
Telltale’s part (not necessarily anyway), it’s because too much freedom can
cause stories to become unfocused and lose dramatic impact. Season 2’s main
theme is obviously how human beings are compelled to stay together on the one
hand and the danger of group dynamics on the other. You and others try
desperately to keep the group together and yet it feels like it will inevitably
go downhill no matter what. This means that most parts of the story are
inevitable, since the story has to make its point and it can’t do that
when you’re given too much control. This problem also affected Mass Effect 3.
That story deliberately made a big deal about how ‘you can’t save everyone’ and
the only way it can convey that point is to limit the impact of your choices
and have some characters die. Choice has to take a backseat for the sake of
Drama. As for this game, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: while it’s
undeniably disappointing to find out how much your choices really matter (or
don’t), the game is incredibly tense when it needs to be and it’s thrilling to
engage in conversations with what are overall well-written characters. So,
you’ll have to decide for yourself whether a flawed Choice & Consequence system will prohibit from experiencing a dramatic story and
well-written characters.
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| Clem telling it like it is |
I am glad I played it, although I doubt I’ll do so again soon. I’ve
never thought it worth it to go through all that emotional torment again for a
few minor story variations. Either way, Telltale definitely didn’t screw up the
sequel and I can’t wait for Season 3. For various spoiler-ridden comments on
the game, see below.
Warning:
spoilers
-I mentioned
earlier I noticed certain parts of the story that felt connected to each other
and that they lent cohesion to the proceedings. I'm referring to the notion of
slapping. Take William Carver, the antagonist who forces Carlos to slap his
daughter, Sarah, to teach her a lesson. While a nasty scene, Carver’s intention
is to instill in Sarah the idea that it’s all about the group, the underlying
assumption being that any weakness could mean the eventual dissolution of the
group. Naturally, Sarah not being a mentally tough cookie can’t deal with this
and quickly retreats into her own private world. And we especially condemn the
action now that parenting that includes violence is being regarded more and
more as incredibly to a child’s emotional development. But then something else
happens, the game proves Carver’s point. After Carver’s killed and lots of shit
has gone down, you team up with Jane to rescue Luke and Sarah, who are trapped
inside a house. Naturally, they can’t leave because zombies are busy bashing
their door down. You distract the zombies and quickly enter the house. You all
try to leave, but Sarah has gone into a catatonic state. She doesn’t move no
matter what you say to her. At the very last second, you’re given a choice to
either leave her or slap her. Slapping her snaps her out of her catatonic state
and she survives. The fact that she dies later no matter what you do is
something we’ll leave out of this for the moment. The fact remains that
Carver’s method symbolically ensures her survival for the moment.
Another mention of slapping occurs near the end, when the group has gotten hold
of a working car and the group starts angrily arguing about the best course of
action: Kenny wants to leave right away for Wellington, while others think the
better option is to return to Carver’s warehouse which must now be abandoned.
They decide to do nothing for the moment. Kenny angrily gets in the car. You
also get in to talk with him. The following is a part of their conversation
about Rebecca and Alvin’s infant son:
Kenny: We’ve
got maybe a day’s worth of food for that kid left. That’s it. Clem, think about
Rebecca and Alvin. I mean, what if Lee hadn’t gone tearin’ across half of
Georgia lookin’ for you? A lotta folks died to make that happen. A lotta folks
died to get us this far. We owe it to them to see this done.
Clementine:
Maybe they shouldn’t have.
Kenny: Don’t
say that. I oughta slap you.
Now remember
that Kenny is overall a 'good guy' and this last line only occurs if you say
‘maybe they shouldn’t have.’ What’s interesting is that Kenny’s response is in
line with Carver’s way of thinking, where a kid gets slapped if they’re out of
line. Though only a short line, it fits in with the notion that Kenny’s
becoming more and more like Carver. Carver’s the type of antagonist who proves
his point beyond death. If you agreed with some of Carver’s points despite not
wanting to, you know what I’m talking about. Despite his methods, he sees
through everyone, sees Kenny for what he is and mocks everyone for thinking
they know better. So, when Kenny kills Carver, he symbolically starts
transforming into Carver which makes his use of the word ‘slap’ more telling.
It also fits with what is a large part of the game: the question whether or not
Kenny’s losing it and will become an unwilling danger to the group and thus to
Clem. His use of the word ‘slap’ is thus a nice way of tying his character
development back to Carver. It’s little things like this that makes the story
feel 'tighter.'
-There’s also
the case of some of the more dreadful examples of the writing in season 2. The
examples I could name off the top of my head are Arvo and Luke’s death. What I
think ruins the Arvo character is that he hates Clementine, because she shot
his sister and doesn’t realize she had already ‘turned.’ Okay, this is a simple
misunderstanding that can be resolved with a conversation or two, right…right?
Not really. Telltale doesn’t allow you to really engage in conversation with
Arvo. If they did, it might’ve impacted his decision to leave with Mike and
Bonnie. You’re forced into this mode where you think it’s best to keep him safe
solely because you assume it’ll pay off eventually. But it doesn’t. He just
shoots you, thus enforcing the theme of how groups will eventually fall apart.
Maybe he’ll return in season3, but as it stands, the way his character was
handled was quite weak.
As for Luke, that’s just a pointless death. The most effective deaths are
centered around having to leave someone behind so you can save someone else or
something and group dynamics and all that, but this just feels random. Seems
strange for someone who’s been there since episode 1 to die so randomly.
-I also wanted
to discuss Jane, as I noticed by glancing through YouTube’s ever so tasteful
and well-articulated comment sections that she gets a lot of flak, many of them
ending with a hashtag like #TeamKenny4Life. These comments tend to focus on how
Kenny is badass, all about family and would never hurt the baby and Clementine,
and since the final conflict centers on Kenny vs Jane, people automatically
choose between the two and are quick to condemn Jane for being a 'crazed
sociopath' who tricked Kenny into losing his mind. This is missing the point
however.
Consider her backstory. She had to carry around a sister, Jaime, who had
no desire to live anymore, just like Clementine and the others are carrying
Sarah around. Jane realized there was no possible way she’d survive with
someone like that, so she left her and saved herself. This is the origin of her
pragmatic, cynical loner outlook on life. When she starts interacting with
Clementine, however, she quickly bonds with her. For all her talk about how
it’s best to survive on your own, people are social creatures by nature and
will eventually seek out human contact. (Just look at Cast Away for an
extreme example.) Jane bonds with Clementine and starts to see her like another
sister. By this time, it’s already too late for Jane. She’s gone into full-on
surrogate sister mode. She subconsciously realizes this and tries to leave, but
it’s only a matter of time before she returns. Many detractors like to refer to
the fact that Jane left the group in episode 4, seeing it as a surefire sign
that Jane will undoubtedly leave Clementine when the shit hits the fan. But
guess what? She returns precisely when the shit hits the fan and plays a
crucial role in the ambush by the Russians, saving Kenny’s and everyone’s lives
in the process. She tells Clementine that she’s 90% of the reason why she came
back. By this time, she’s completely attached to Clementine and would do
anything to prevent losing her ‘sister’ a second time.
This is why she starts seeing anyone who could harm Clem as dangerous, including
Kenny. The story does a good job of suggesting his mental and moral breakdown,
leaving you to doubt whether it’s just a phase (“I’ve seen that look before”)
and that he’d never screw up too bad or that he’s simply losing it. About
halfway through season 2, he’ll have lost two wives and a son. Once he has to
take a leading role in nursing the baby, he sees the baby (and to a slightly
lesser extent Clementine) as the one good thing worth living for, a chance to
start over. All you have to remember is he accidentally called Clementine by
his dead son’s name (‘Duck’) to know why he symbolically sees the baby as his
resurrected son, a chance to do what he couldn’t do for Duck. But despite these
good intentions, Kenny keeps suffering more and more and the group starts to
distrust him and his volatile temper. In fact, he’s most likely the reason Mike
and Bonnie tried to leave with Arvo. Combine his increasing temper with Jane’s
cynical view on humanity and she assumes that sooner or later, Kenny will
unwittingly cause Clem to get hurt. This is why she stages the scene at the rest
area the way she does. She wants to show Clem what Kenny really is/has become
and what he’s capable of. After Jane tells them in so many words that the
baby’s dead, Kenny flips, naturally. Though from a rational standpoint it’s
stupid he talks to Jane as if she outright killed the baby, he cannot help but
see her as solely responsible for his death and attacks her. If (depending on
your decision) he kills Jane, he’ll come to regret it, claiming he’s lost it, and ask Clem to shoot him (which you can refuse, of course). Like Carver in
death proved his point about Kenny, so does Jane’s death prove her point about him.
In her mind, Kenny is a ticking time bomb who, when he explodes, will
indirectly bring harm to Clem in the process and now that she sees Clem as a
sister, she will do anything to prevent this from happening.
Others also speculate that, provided you have the ending where you stay at
Howe’s with Jane, Jane will eventually leave Clem when things go sour and her
own life is at stake. While I’m not denying this is possible, I feel that she
had her chance to leave in episode 4. She knew she was getting too emotionally
attached and tried to leave, staying true to her ethos, but in the end couldn’t
bring herself to stay away. She’d gotten too attached to Clem. Now, she’s fully
committed to seeing her as a sister, so I highly doubt she’ll leave in season
3, as the anguish of losing her ‘sister’ a second time would be too much, I
think.
In fact, when you think about it, the entire ending involving Kenny and Jane
seems very much inspired by The Last of Us! That story revolves around a
father, Joel, who symbolically resurrects his dead daughter through a teenage
girl, Ellie. As he lost a daughter once, losing his ‘daughter’ (Ellie) again would
be unimaginable. So, he kills the doctors and rebels at the end who regard her
immunity as the key to saving what’s left of humanity. For Joel, that’s too
high a price to pay for losing his ‘daughter’ a second time. In the same way,
Kenny regards the baby as his dead son Duck, while Jane sees Clem as a second
Jaime. And both are prepared to take drastic measures to prevent them from
dying.
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