Are there any standout titles when it comes to Zombies?

If you are like me you might have noticed that over the last five or more years there has been an increase in the amount of content across all forms of media when it comes to Zombies. This is fine with me even though I am not a massive fan of the genre but there has been one stand out piece that everyone has been talking about for the last three years and that is The Walking Dead.

Today I will be looking at the point and click adventure of The Walking Dead the video game that was released last year by Telltale Games but before we get into the game itself let me mention that The Walking Dead started off as a graphic novel that was created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard back in 2003. Then in 2010 AMC then released a television adoption of the comic book which from what I have read and hear has been met with very high praises.

With all this praise it was only going to be a matter of time before someone decided to make a video game out of it and nine times out of ten that video game is going to be nothing like the show that it was created from but lucky for us Telltale Games decided that they would make a game based on The Walking Dead but as a point and click adventure.

Now I have never seen or read anything to do with The Walking Dead but from all the praise that the show and the game have received I knew that I would have to have a look at it at some point, lucky for me all five chapters went on sale back in March so I decide then that I would pick it up but have only just finished playing the game.

I should point out that from this point onwards there could be a chance of spoilers, so you have been warned.

Now as I said moments ago I went into the game completely blind and I had no knowledge of what I was getting myself into but that didn’t really matter because the game starts just as the Zombie outbreak happens. This to me was a good way to start the story because it allows for those that are new to the series to understand what is going on and enables you to experience what the characters are experiences as they learn something new about their surroundings.

Now without giving too much away for those that haven’t played the game yet, this is a story about a group of characters trying to survive the aftermath of the Zombie apocalypse, at the same time you will be playing as Lee Everett and making choice that will effect the group and Clementine who you find at the start of the game and have taken it upon yourself to protect.

As I have just mentioned this game allows you to make choice that can be carried over from one episode of the game to the next. Now if you have read any of my Mass Effect blogs that I released back in March you will know that I enjoy playing games and watching Television shows that show you the consequences of your actions. In this game these choice you make may not appear till later in the game which is good because you will never know on your first play through when these choice will come back to haunt you.

The way in which the game plays also is very good for a game that is based on a point and click adventure, what I mean by this is the fact the game makes you feel like you are in the games world looks for items that will enable you to survive.

The last part of the game that I enjoy was the way in which the characters develop throughout the game, as the game goes fewer on it throws in events were you have to make hard decision and because of these decision you as a character and those around you change as the story goes on.

So with a game that has been praised so much what were the problems that I had with this game, well one of biggest problems that I encountered was with the conversation options. The reason for the problem was the fact that it would give you up to four options when you are having a conversation with someone along with a time limit in which to give one of the four responses to them. Now I will admit that I am not one of the fastest readers and because of this I sometimes didn’t get the time to read all the options that where present to me and because of this sometimes I didn’t chose anything which just left my character saying nothing.

The next two problems I had with the game was to do with the story itself, I am not saying that the story was bad because to me it was very good but there were parts were I knew what was going to happen before it happened and that wasn’t because I had read up what was going to happen. Examples of this would be when you leave the motel in episode 3 and arrive at the train that is blocking the road, another one for me was also at the end of the fourth episode where you see Clementine’s hat next to a dumpster.

This also leads me into the final problem with the story, you are given the choice to go it alone to save Clementine which was what I decided but before I could go I had to have a chat with everyone were they would tell me if they are coming with me or not and even then when the final chapter gets started you end up coming back to the group that you left in chapter four to find Clementine.

Apart from very long conversation sections of the game and the small grips with the story the game as a whole was brilliant and because of that I now have an interested in The Walking Dead. If you are a fan of the show and haven’t played the game yet I would recommend you do so and if you are a gamer that likes a good story or a good game in general then I would recommend that you go and play this game right now.

Until Next Time.

The Good Old Day of Sonic the Hedgehog

First of all before we start, I should point out that this week blog will go over two weeks due to the fact that there is so much to cover on this topic. Now if you have been reading my blog from the beginning you would already know that Sonic the Hedgehog has been linked to pervious blogs, so today I will be taking you on a trip down memory lane again to talk about how I came into contact with each of the Sonic games and what I liked or disliked about the games. 

Now my first experience with any kind of Sonic game was Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 for the Sega Master System, Now from what I do remember of this two games is that I really enjoyed them but I do remember that Sonic 2 was a lot hard than the first. The reason that I say it was hardest of the two games is because if you lost all you lives you would then lose a Chaos Emerald at random that you have collected and in turn would make it impossible to get to the final level Crystal Egg Zone. To me one of the hardest parts of this game was trying to get the third Chaos Emerald from act 2 in the Aqua Lake Zone because this level takes places underwater and for you to collect the Chaos Emerald, you need to come off the main path of the level where there are no air bubble sections to collect the Emerald and come back on the main path to get air. Don’t get me wrong these two games where great for their time but once you have played Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive or any of the later games on that system you realise that there are better sonic games out there.

As I said before, this two games where what interjected me into the Sonic series but it wasn’t until Christmas of 1995 in which I was then able to play another game and this one was Sonic and Knuckles. I still remember the first time I playing this game and not knowing what I was supposed to do and in turn not liking it as much as I do now (I will explain why in a minute). I played as both Sonic and Knuckles and finished the game without collecting all the Chaos Emeralds for each character, so at the time in my life I was unaware that the two characters had super forms until a few years later, mainly because that Christmas I got another game that I have made sure that I play each and every year in one shape or another but that’s is for another time.

I could be wrong about the date but I think it wasn’t until Summer of 1996 that are household got are hands on are very first Sega Mega Drive at which point the first sonic games that we picked up where Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2. Now I will be completely honest with in saying that in my opinion the original Sonic the Hedgehog was a master piece and to this day and age it still holds up to the test of time. The game play hands like that dream car you always wanted and the graphics where beautiful to look at. The game did everything that it needed too and to a point is the basis for the rest of the 2D era of games.

Sonic 2 on the other hand did everything that Sonic the Hedgehog did but added some small details to mix like the iconic Spin dash and Super Sonic. The games graphics were almost the same as Sonic the Hedgehog with minor changes make to it, while the game play was again almost the same apart from when you collected all seven Chaos Emeralds and fifty rings because within a seconds of jumping you would then change automatically into Super Sonic. Now because of this small detail I didn’t really enjoy Sonic 2 as must and this to a point explains why out of the four games on the Sega Mega Drive I would always rate last, I just feel that if they gave the option to change into Super Sonic when you wanted to I might have enjoyed this game more.

Now it wasn’t until later in 1997 in which I was able to get my hands on both Sonic 3 and Knuckles because by this point I had heard that you needed to play both games together to get the best experience out of them. Once I had both of them I just couldn’t stop playing them until I had discovered everything that there was about this games and it was at this point that I learned that in order to complete the game one hundred percent you need to collect all seven Chaos Emeralds to unlock Sonics final level. To me Sonic 3 and Knuckles are the best 2D Sonic games you will find around and with game play that was made perfect from Sonic 2 in the sense of allowing you to turn into your super form when you wanted (minus Knuckles) and graphics that where only slightly improved upon from Sonic 2.

Now after completing this game a few time I was then challenged by my older brother to complete Sonic 3 and Knuckles without losing a life and to collect all fourteen Chaos Emeralds on both Sonic on his own and Knuckles by the end of the day. In short I was able to complete this challenged without any problem but if you were to ask me to do that same challenged again I don’t think I would be able to but I would at least give it a short.

It wasn’t until autumn 2003 in which I was able to get my hands on the next Sonic game and too me this was the best 3D Sonic game that was created and some would say it was also the last great Sonic game before the “Dark Times” and that game is Sonic Adventure 2. The one thing that I have had trouble trying to understand for years is why Sonic Team hasn’t used the best parts of this game to create and even better game but I think that would be a blog for another time.

Back to Sonic Adventure 2, I should point out I have not been able to play this game on its original system but I was able to play in on the Nintendo GameCube and as I said before this is my favourite 3D Sonic game that was created. You don’t have to play the first Sonic Adventure game to understand the story but some of the story elements surround the Chaos Emeralds have been taken over into the second game but aren’t in as much detail as the first. There are two reasons that I like this game one of them being the story because no Sonic game before hand had a story like this and second being the introduction of new characters and the ability to us mech’s.

I know that there were some problems with this game like the camera and small bug’s but after a while of playing you learn to work around them. The only other problem that I did have with this game was that it made it almost impossible for me to play the first Sonic Adventure due to the fact that a lot of the problems that were in the first game where corrected by the second and that the game play and graphics had been completely overhauled for the second game. Don’t get me wrong the first game is good but if you were like me who played the second one first it does make playing the first game a lot harder and as you can tell the next game I play was Sonic Adventure.

Now out of all the Sonic games, the first Sonic Adventure is the only game that I have not fully played and because of that I don’t really have much to say about it which in turns makes it hard to give this game the justice it deserves. I can only hope that when I do get some free time that I do take the time to replay this game again fully.

It was a almost a year later that I then played the next sonic game in the series and that is Sonic Heroes, Now I know that a lot of people say that this game was the start of the “Dark Time” for Sonic because it left behind a lot of what made the previous games so great but to me I will admit that it wasn’t as good as Sonic Adventure 2 but overall it is still a great game and the Team based system of the game worked out very well.

Yes my biggest problem with the game was the fact that you had to play all the levels four times in which to complete the game and that the easiest way to get all the Chaos Emeralds were to use Team Rose. As a whole this game had more good than bad going for it and no I don’t believe that this game started the “Dark times” for the franchise but I believe if the game spent a bit more time in development it could have been a lot better. Overall the story was okay but I do believe that it could have been a lot better because it felt like all the characters had completely change from the way there where in Sonic Adventure 2 to Sonic Heroes. Sonic sounded too cocky, Shadow was nothing like he was by the end of Sonic Adventure 2, Rouge and Knuckles relationship from the last game wasn't there and lastly Metal Sonic was nothing like what I was lead to believe he was. If this things could have been changed the game in my opinion could have been a lot better.

As you can see by this point in my life I found Sonic games to be at their best and that after playing Sonic Heroes I then noticed a change in the games themselves. Sonic Heroes in my opinion was the last great Sonic game for some time and that the next game to be released was the start of the Dark Time for Sonic due to how bad this next game was and the realisation that I had also discovered older Sonic games that where bad as well.

With that in mind come back next week when I complete my look back at Sonic the Hedgehog in “The Dark Times and Beyond.”

Until next time.