There is a company in the game industry that they form a whole genre with one appearance and become its synonymous. Once upon a time, with a word RTS, they immediately remembered the studio Westwood And Dune 2, and with the MMORPG genre is firmly associated Blizzard And World of Warcraft.
One of these companies can be considered the studio Telltale Games , creating surprisingly interesting and at the same time incredibly boring games. In many ways, these are not even games, but interactive stories, where a player can sometimes influence something. And sometimes he just thinks what affects. That is why the attitude to the studio has developed ambiguous. We decided to figure out what you can love and hate games from Telltale and why they deserve it.
Walking death by torment
The first game Telltale Games , gaining a fair amount of popularity in the episodic genre, became SAM & Max Save the World. The game told the history of the police Sam and Max, investigating original crimes in an unusual form. The fact is that Sam and Max are a dog and a rabbit, respectively.
By the moment when Telltale Games They turned their eyes to Sam and Max, the heroes were already retired and missed the old days, because their first business began in 1987 in the comic book department, and in 1993 the children were transferred to the computer games, where they carried out the service.
The department shone only the first years. At the beginning of the zero, financing was unstable, and then it completely stopped. As a result, Sam and Max retired exactly until the moment they called the office employees Telltale Games.
Sam again saw the goal in his work.
They offered Sam and Max to work in episodes mode. Investigate a crime, and then relax for several months. The result was a system that, on the one hand, did not tire the player with a long passage, but on the other hand, kept him in tone and constantly maintained interest in the game.
It turned out six episodes, during which Sam and Max saved the world from a mysterious threat and investigated its occurrence.
However, Telltale Games was still a quiet and mysterious studio with twenty projects (if we consider the episodes of all games released at that time) in its portfolio. At first glance, solid – Blizzard in its entire story had fewer projects. But if you take a closer look for a second time, and even insert a monocle, you can see that all Telltale Games projects are so niche that episodality is good for them. It is like a certain style in art, nothing more.
But in 2012, something has changed in the Telltale Games office. Yes, so much so that in April of the same year the developers released The Walking Dead : The Game, game based on the comic book of the same name and television series. Interactive Advenchura, where the player needs to make decisions at key points and monitor what these solutions will lead to the future. The graphics in the game are stylized to the comic, the drama went through the way, and the story is so rich and exciting that the game encouraged the series and read the comic book. Few people can forget Clementine even now.
From some screenshots it is quite possible to write pictures.
As a result of the franchise, she closed and began to bring stable profit on all platforms. Including Telltale Games, which released the game even on the Ouya console. But the same financial success has become the reason for the stagnation of the company.
The game of treacherous repetitions
After "Walking dead" They left an indelible Libra Spins sister sites trace in the souls of the players and prompted them with a wallet to wait for new episodes, Telltale Games employees spun their heads. Well, then self -digging began.
By and large, Tales from The Borderlands Different from Game of Thrones only decorations, but not by mechanics. Moreover, these two games were released later than the first season The Walking Dead , But in drama were significantly worse and easier. It seemed that the developers have no ideas and they simply adjust their engine Telltale Tool For current franchises.
To understand where the screenshot came from, you need to play at least in Borderlands, And the maximum is also in The Walking Dead.
In fairness, there were exceptions: for example, Minecraft : Story Mode. The game was good (for Telltale Games for games) History and your unusual style. The same can be said about Batman: The Telltale Series. The game was all that Telltale's games love: an alluring story, familiar characters, dramatic situations and pretty graphics. That is, everything that makes some of the players wait for new episodes.
But there was another project Telltale Games , which deserves special attention and is rightfully considered one of the best in the history of the studio.
Wolf and not seven goats
WITH The Wolf Among Us An unusual situation has developed. This game is also based on comics, also with episodes and interactive history at the heart of the gameplay. But everything is perceived in a completely different way than in other studio projects. The Wolf Among US had a perfect visual style saturated with all fabulous stamps.
The wolf here is not an antihero, but a detective investigating crimes. The frog is not a princess and not even a king, but something aging in the Alcoholic T-shirt. Noir, gloom, music and impeccable style – these are the features that highlight The Wolf Among us from a series of the same type of games.
Instead of a red hat – red fingal.
It is not surprising that the players were looking forward to the announcement of the continuation. And on July 19, the studio announced that it would release the second season The Wolf Among US, as well as Batman: The ENEMY Within And The Walking Dead: The Final Season. Moreover, the new Batman story will be released in August, and the other two games will appear in 2018.
This announcement tells us that the genre of interactive stories is still interesting and relevant – despite the skepticism, which is constantly hovering over Telltale projects.
Example The Walking Dead He showed that interactive plots can be popular and in demand by players who want to relax in front of the TV and get acquainted with an exciting story with a minimum of the gameplay. And there will be more such players.
There are many games every day, and there is still no way to go through them, but I want to play something, and even with the plot. After all, no matter how much you say that uncharted is “soap cinema”, but you still need to play Drake for Nathan Drake, and in the last part there is also a small plot choice, and not every player wants it.
The result is an ambiguous situation. On the one hand, interactive stories from Telltale Games are monotonous, do not always contain new ideas that can surprise, and they are not quite pulling on the title of full -fledged games. But with all this, TELLTALE Games is already a speaking name, a kind of trademark, when mentioning which it is immediately clear what it is about.
And given that there is very little free time for games, but I still want to watch a good interactive story, Telltale games will be in demand for more than one year or even two. They will always be in demand, even if there is something to play on the hard drive. Just because after the construction of bases, colonization of alien worlds and other important things (what we do in most games) I want something simple, but also fascinating.
It is such projects that Telltale Games gives us.