Walking Dead 400 Days review

[jim g]

Downloaded this from the USA PSN Store ($5)

When you go play it is an extra mission in the Walking Dead, so when you start the game, use R1 until you find the 400 Days episode. You have to have at least Episode 1 of Walking Dead to be able to play this. Believe it was not obvious!

If you played Walking Dead (WD) any decisions you made affect how this game plays. I don't the full details of what and how this works but am I sure a google search will tell you.

Anyway onto the game. At first you chose the characters' episode you want to play and off you go. I am playing one of the guys (forgot, his name). Anyway the story telling and choose where you action, walk etc. continue as is the first game. The episode I am playing is moving nicely good dialogue and many choices to make to from the get go and the game is moving at a good pace. I do not want to mention the story yet as that would be a spoiler. If you loved WD, you must get this. After completing Last of Us, this is a must play so far.

[Paddy]

Any idea if the EU PSN download of this will work with a US copy of TWD? Would have got a PAL copy if the retailer had have originally sent the correct region version to me instead of being **** with their service.

[fuse]

Not sure if this helps, but with the 360 original I did the first episode on an XBLA download version, and then moved my save across to a US console and played the rest via a US disc (which was region-locked) without any issues.

[jim g]

I have a USA copy of WD and 400, both play firm on my UK account if theat helps.

Played two of the five stories and will,complete the rest tomorrow, already reading looking forwar dot next installment. Loving he story and choices you have to make.

[Paddy]

Just downloaded 400 Days from EU PSN and it doesn't seem to be compatible with US version of the game. At least I can download Ep. 01 free from PSN.

Wish saves were cross-region compatible but anyway. Will just have to switch my US copy for a UK one st some point.

[Dogg Thang]

Given the narrative content of the Walking Dead game, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion on these. Especially with season 2 which I'm going to start soon. Having replayed the amazing season 1, I got this 400 Days episode yesterday and played it through for the first time. And it was the very first episode I have played through in one sitting so felt a good bit shorter than the season 1 episodes.

This one would always have its work cut out for it given how attached we had become to the other characters but, generally, I felt it did very well. My main criticism would be that each episode was just a little too short to tell us enough about the characters. I especially felt that with Shel's chapter, which I was just getting into when it ended. Some episodes also were a little too contained, particularly Vince's time on the bus which I didn't feel was interesting enough. But countering that, this episode had new ideas and new atmospheres as it tried different things that we hadn't yet seen in the main episodes and I really appreciated that. The car chase was short but I found it really tense and creepy.

One thing I felt worked really well in this one was the choices we needed to make. At least half of them I regretted instantly and I take that as a good sign for these tough decisions.

And they tied the short chapters together very well, usually going for subtlety. So overall, I really enjoyed 400 Days but found it very short for the same price as much meatier chapters.

Oh, did anyone else notice how so many characters were created from bits of older characters? The kid had Omid's eyes. A prisoner on the bus had Lee's forehead. Someone had Lilly's eyes, someone had Hershel's eyes and I kept spotting more as I played through. Making the most of their assets, I guess.

[Deuteros]

I played 400 Days immediately after finishing Season 1. It's a very tidy amuse-bouche but, on its own, it doesn't amount to much. Its worse sin, however, is that contrary to the way it was promoted, it's pretty much inconsequential in regards to the events of Season 2 which is a shame.

I haven't played Season 2 so I hope you can correct me once you do.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, it does feel like an intro to the characters and threads of season 2. And yet I played ep1 pf S2 today and not a mention of any 400 Days characters in it. Just one corpse that I think may have been a guy from 400 Days implying the failure of one of the groups.

[k0pp0]

Played this myself yesterday. Hugely frustrated that my walking dead save file died though so had to generate the decisions (2nd time that has happened).

All in all a short but enjoyable story will the usual gruesome bits. Looking forward to starting Season 2

[Brad]

This thread prompted me to go back to season 1 as I only got to play 2 episodes before it all went tits up. It didn't detect my previous saves but happily saved right over the top of them in the same folder when I started a new game. So I copied back over my old save after that and it seems to have picked it up. I'd forgotten how good it feels to actually play this. Hopefully it won't crap out on me this time.

I am sorely tempted to do another run through, making opposite choices at every opportunity because I strongly suspect that my actions will have no influence at all on the outcome.

[Dogg Thang]

The story all heads to the same places regardless of choices but there are differences. It's not a game that leads to whole different places or endings at all but how different characters relate to each other, details and sometimes even the characters around you change. And then those choices are often referred to in other places. Having played through season 1 twice and getting a good idea of how this works, I have no problems with how it plays out. They could have gone for a genuine choose your own adventure type with many branching paths but that could have been unwieldy a few chapters in and would make a season 2 next to impossible unless it ended in the same place, making those routes redundant in the process. It also would mean that they would have many stories to try to tell to this same standard and many players would never see those stories.

As it is, they told one great story and allowed players to influence the details and feel a part of that and, given the strength of narrative here, I can't fault them for that.

What version are you playing that has so many technical problems?

[Brad]

I guess my expectations are too high lol. The Witcher games have very impactful decisions that do result in you missing out on huge amounts of gameplay. I guess most publishers aren't so happy doing that.

I'm on PC. Not the Steam version. The 2 biggest issues are the DRM (online connection needed for a single player offline game, that constantly tells you that you aren't licensed to play an episode), and it not recognising game saves. The latter is a huge issue because the game will let you play any episode at anytime and given that you know that the game save system is broken, when you go to play any episode other than 1 you have no idea if it has loaded your decisions from the previous episode or has just started that episode with some stock ones. Given the big deal made about your decisions affecting the game this was terrible IMO. The worst thing though really was that telltale didn't care. See their forums to understand. They never fixed these issues, just kept releasing on more and more platforms. Shame as it's very enjoyable to play! Apologies for bringing the fun level down. It's only because the core game is such a breath of fresh air that I got so upset at the technical failings.

[Dogg Thang]

No, I totally understand the frustrations and a broken save system is a major problem. Not tackling it is pretty unforgivable. And bizarre given the bad feeling it would create. I'm on iOS and the problem there was an Apple design problem - delete the app and it delete your save and there is no separate save management. The app is huge so of course I was going to delete it but then 400 Days came out and, like you because of the decisions affecting things, I only wanted to play it from my season 1 save. So that's why it took me so long to get to it as I had to build to replaying season 1.

Now that's Apple's fault for the most part but it seems like it could have been easy for Telltale to create a very small save reader app that could retain the save while allowing us to delete the big apps.

In terms of the decisions versus The Witcher (which I haven't played), I think a large amount of the point of the decisions in this game are to present you with hard often no-win scenarios and make you feel responsible for them. There's one early on in season 2 that really got to me. Even making the decision you know it's going to end the exact same way regardless but it still made me feel responsible.

And I felt they got that spot-on in 400 Days actually. Maybe more than the main game. Because I felt regret after almost every decision. For me, in this context, that's stronger than the usual game right or wrong choices.