iPad

Like many people who played Telltale's episodic game, The Walking Dead, I had read and enjoyed many of the comics beforehand. I appreciated that they took the subject seriously. I don't mean that in the sense of a John Romero film, where the zombies themselves are rather silly but serve to illustrate serious social questions. Rather, like World War Z, The Walking Dead decides on a set of rules about zombies and a premise about people, and unflinchingly follows those principles into the abyss.

Battling Epically Slowly

HIGH Taking out an enemy's crystal in a single turn.

LOW Waiting for an opponent to submit their turn.

WTF Still waiting… two months later.

Recently, European courts ruled that digital property is the same as physical property. Extra Credits does a brief breakdown of what that could mean for games should such a ruling be held up on appeal and duplicated here in the United States.

The guys at Extra Credits look into incorporating imbalance in a game. Ironically, imbalance is just the thing that when worked into character classes, weapons, tools and gameplay rules can wind up giving both the wet-behind-the-ears newbie and grizzled veteran new strategies as each plays and progresses through a game.

Extra Credits has an interesting two-part discussion about the hero's journey, a concept explored by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Thatgamecompany's Journey is the game example featured here (along with The Legend of Zelda) but this seems to be a concept exploited in all entertainment genres.

This week, we discuss our favorite scary games, and then have a mega discussion of The Walking Dead: Episode 4! With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Richard "Defender Against The Robot Uprising" Naik, Dylan Collins and special guest Jeffrey Matulef.

Download: Right click here and select "Save Target As..."
Subscribe: iTunes | Zune | RSS

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

Although it's exciting to see so many great games start popping up in the fourth quarter... there are too many great games popping up in the fourth quarter.

Have you ever bought a system for one game? That's the question we discuss this episode. We also hear about Brad's trip to the Retro Games Expo, and talk about Torchlight 2, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Tokyo Jungle and more. Also, Richard contemplates putting on water skiis. With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, Richard "Shark Man" Naik, and Dylan Collins

Download: Right click here and select "Save Target As..."
Subscribe: iTunes | Zune | RSS

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

How Did You Not See That There???

HIGH Seeing Clem's training from Episode Three pay off.

LOW Doing the wrong actions and dying because of the goofy controls.

WTF You really think you can carry that in a backpack?!?

Welcome back to a semi-regular feature here at GameCritics.com: TouchTalk. While this series was inspired by one of my old features, the Bargain Basement, I've got an all-new focus for an all-new phase in gaming. Instead of highlighting discounted gems in the used section of a retail shop, I'll be reviewing downloadable mobile games and apps that you might want to check out… and maybe some that you'll want to avoid.