I have to say, their style of game play does nothing for me. The whole contrived funneling of the player via frustrating roadblocks is just terrible game design. An example is the new Walking Dead game. I tried to leave the yard, and my PC refused saying "I better look around the yard some more". What is that?! Why would he want to walk around the yard some more? Did the developers never play Metroid or Zelda?

The way to enforce strict linear game play with the perception of freedom is by making "leaving the yard" an objective. If the gate had been locked, and I needed to find the key, or I was told that I needed my cell phone before I left even, it would not feel so contrived and gamey. Telltale's style is to simply force the player to click on every selectable object in the areas currently accessible, without any way of knowing you are on the right path until you stumble onto it. How is this even gameplay?

It reminds me of so-called mystery stories where the reader is incapable of solving the mystery before it is revealed by the author. What's the point? It is the recognition of the detectives deduction and wit, and the readers ability to at least partially walk that same road with him or her that provides satisfaction.

Telltale "Games" products come off more like slightly interactive slide shows or passive entertainment to me, and I think of late in particular, they have been relying on exploiting licensed game sales to existing fanbases. Now, perhaps the "Adventure" genre as you guys refer to it isn't for me, I accept that, but I do not find anything adventurous about following the pre-laid path of another ad nauseum.

I can't imagine how, in this era of Bethesda Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto, etc, how anyone would want a linear game where their input is solely to trigger the next script page. It's regressive, and reminds me of the tragedy of the failing RIM, whose obsolete Blackberry devices completely failed to keep up with innovations in the medium.

I rather enjoyed Tales of Monkey Island so um.... whatever.

A few of older point and click adventure used similar approach like this. For examples Broken Sword 1 & 2.

You just more or less described all narratively driven games who do not have any form of emergent narrative, so... (shrug)

So which Telltale Games products did you try except for The Walking Dead? You're talking about them as if you knew their whole catalogue ... As far as some of their more recent games are concerned I have to agree though. The Walking Dead has pretty lame gameplay, from what I've seen, and I expect Jurassic Park to be similar. Law & Order: Legacies is not really a game in my book either. That's three, so far. And they have little in common with other titles such as Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Strong Bad, Puzzle Agent, Hector etc.

Then again, most Point-and-Click adventures, even the good ones, are nothing like Metroid and Zelda. They only give you a limited range of locations to visit at certain times, although they usually are better to conceal the restriction than The Walking Dead seems to be. Anyway, you have to discern between conventions of the genre and bad game design, but it's possible that the whole genre is not for you.

I think everyone who plays their games is aware of their numerous short comings. However when they get the humor right (I'm talking about Sam 'n Max) then they can be a lot of fun.

I don't think they are the champions of modern adventure gaming though (I'll give that honour to Wadjet eye!) but you shouldn't completely write them off.

You're referring to the games of this era like they are something for other developers to look up too. I think that Telltale is doing good, sure they did drop the ball big time on Jurassic Park and BttF, but they've also got amazing stuff like Sam & Max and Tales of the Monkey Island.

I haven't played much of the Walking Dead, but I liked it - I don't want every game to be built on the same principle, just because it's something of a trend these days. They want to do it linearly? Let them do it. I personally don't have the need to always make myself the character and even if I'm controlling the guy, I have no problem with him throwing his opinion out sometimes - like the whole yard thing. Sure, it's not something everyone will like, but it's not really a fault of the game as it is your unintentional fault of not being able to tolerate it. I like it, you don't - just the way it has always been with opinions.

As I said, I don't mind them taking the wheel. From what I've seen on my short playtrough, you still make some decision that change what happens later on slightly and from what I've seen on the forums, you can end the game on different points. Of course, this doesn't make it any more free, they just drew two or three separate lines at the end or wherever the choices matter, but it's still amusing.

I don't get the whole mentality of bashing the game, because it's not the type of sub-genre you enjoy. You enjoyed one type of adventure games and you don't like this one - neither one is inferior or superior outside your own mind.

blarhaghag