#nerdynews

Yesterday, movie and television giant Lionsgate made an announcement that would have hardcore Telltale fans jumping for joy. 

Lionsgate, the studio behind hits like Mad Men have chosen to make 'a significant investment in leading game developer and publisher Telltale Games.' Telltale, as we all know, are the gaming company responsible for episodic storytelling wonders such as the Walking Dead series and the Wolf Among Us. They are currently undertaking the world of Westeros in the Game of Thrones Game, the first episode of which you can read our opinion on here. 

On Lionsgates' end of the announcement they said:

'The investment will continue the extension of Lionsgate's film and television brands into the game space and will bring Lionsgate's expertise in creating and marketing premium content to Telltale's unique narrative-driven, storytelling approach to gaming.  The collaboration will also enable the two companies to explore opportunities to co-develop existing and original IP into episodic games and television.'

And on the Telltale side of things they were very excited to announce a 'Super Show' as part of the collaboration, and CEO Kevin Bruner was all too eager to tell EW exactly what a Super Show is all about:

'A “Super Show” episode combines one part of interactive playable content with one part of scripted television style content. Both pieces, when combined together, are what make an actual Super Show “episode.” As we’ve been developing the series, we’re using both mediums in concert to deliver our story... Both parts are first class citizens during the writing and design process. It’s not an interactive series with a show, or a TV show with a game, but a story integrated in a way that only Telltale can do. For us it’s a very natural evolution of the interactive story telling expertise we’ve pioneered.'

'Our first Super Show is an original IP we’ve developed in collaboration with a world-class creative partner who’s just as excited about the format as we are. Together we’ve created a world where we can really demonstrate the power of this new format and leverage the toolkit it brings to us as storytellers, much like we’ve done in the [game-only] space.'

Crota may have been defeated by many a Guardian since The Dark Below Expansion was released to Destiny fans last December, but the supposedly mighty god was finally taken down by a six squad team on hard mode less than half an hour.

Bungie bumped up the difficulty on Crota’s End yesterday, promising fans that this mode would require ‘expert Guardians’ to ‘dig a little deeper’ in order to get that sweet loot (and of course, ultimate bragging rights). However, the appropriately named ‘One and Done Clan’ did just that, in just 27 minutes! Bungie praised the team on Twitter who managed to defeat the Raid with only three deaths to account for, also shouting out the first team to complete it live on Twitch, WRECKnation.

There was however some disappointment amongst fans not yet ready to take on the challenge as they eagerly awaited to find out who would best it first, only to find out that the One and Done’s had ‘cheesed’ their way through some sections of the Raid. ‘Cheesing’ for those in the dark refers to players taking shortcuts and utilising bugs in order to get that quicker win, which apparently the One and Done clan just couldn’t resist taking advantage of. Destiny players will remember the oh so unfortunate bug in the last section of The Vault of Glass, the first Raid released with Destiny, in which they could trick the final boss Atheon off the edge of the level for an insta-kill. Or an insta-win, depending on your viewpoint.

Crota may not have been so easily fooled, but several parts of his Raid were, however clan WRECKnation didn’t see fit to cheese their way through and completed the Raid in a respectable 37 minutes, putting them in the top 3 teams to take on the most difficult Raid in the game and win. One of the members of WRECKnation (after throwing some shade at the One and Done clan on Twitter, ouch.) recorded their attempt and uploaded it to YouTube for other fans to enjoy. His other clan, Clan Lucky Strike, commemorated the win also, adding on some tips and tricks for other Guardians who want to take on the challenge. You can find the advice they gave and the video of the cheese-free victory here, and it’s definitely worth a read if you and your friends want a cheat-free advantage on the Raid.

Following the rampant success of The Walking Dead Season Two, and the smash hit The Wolf Among Us, Telltale couldn’t of picked a better franchise to recreate with their own brand of storytelling. Rumours ran high of what Telltale would bring to fans when the announcement was first made back in late 2013, and the biggest surprise to come was the playability of five characters. Five characters, in a Telltale game? Surely that wouldn’t work. But as people began to ponder the world of Westeros and the structural integrity of each namesake house, the Starks, the Lannisters, and now the house you must try to keep afloat through its different family members, the Forresters, they began to think that this just might work. And work it did.

Although in the first episode you only get to take the reins of three characters, the formula of jumping between family members works perfectly. Where I worried it may be confusing and difficult to keep up with, the transitions were easy to follow, and the game offered you small insight into the character before you get into the hard choices you must make in their shoes. The first character you play as isn’t even a blood relative of the house, but a fiercely loyal Squire called Gared Tuttle. Then you’re handed over to the lady Mira Forrester, handmaiden to Margery Tyrell and therefore as far away from everyone else in her family as possible in Kings Landing. The first trio of characters is rounded off by Ethan Forrester, the third oldest son of the house, who over the course of the episode is faced with increasingly impossible decisions.

Saying much more about your starting three would give too much of the story away, but each of the characters are put into situations where a split second decision will all in House Forrester. I hope the rest of the season plays out this way also, as when making these decisions you truly find yourself contemplating the effect on the rest of the house. When you say something as Mira in Kings Landing, you worry that it might affect your mother back in Ironrath (the home of the Forrester’s in the North). Equally when you play as the Squire Tuttle, you feel you must hold your tongue lest you give your house a bad name.

There really isn’t much else I can say story wise, except that it lives up to the world of Game of Thrones and makes you feel like you’re in an episode. Characters that you already know and love/loath interact with the Forresters seamlessly, their reactions to things you say and do aren’t amiss, and my only critique of them would be a small one concerning their animation. It took me aback to see Cersei and yet not see her. This isn’t Lena Heady sat next to Peter Dinklage in costume and only shown from certain angles so as to hide boom mics and camera crews. They are undoubtedly Cersei and Tyrion Lannister, and it’s jarring to see their faces as characters and not as formidable actors. Of course there’s no way to rectify this, especially as a Telltale fan who’s still trying to get over the lack of harsh lines on their faces, but it’s something that took me out of the game for brief moments at a time. I suppose if anything it’s a bit of a backwards compliment; the animation of the well-known characters is so dead on that you have to take a step back and really look at them.

When I finished the game, horrified and feeling like I had made every wrong decision (but apparently, so did everyone else I knew who had played) I was very excited to see my choices up against other players, only to be told that having played on my Xbox One, I had to go online to see them. Begrudgingly, online I went, and at first was told that my results couldn’t be shown. A few weeks and a friend’s save data later, I found my results up there, but lamented at the fact that they appeared to be my friend’s choices, and not my own. I wondered if, a) this was the cause of creating a Telltale account when prompted to do so by the game and then immediately playing before verifying it, or/and b) creating a save file on my profile for my friend instead of making them play as a guest.

Ultimately I decided it must have been the lack of verification I did before jumping right in. Seemingly the only way to get my results would’ve been to boot up the game after waiting 15 or so minutes for it to install, create an account, verify that account most likely on my phone or some other portable device, and then play the game. That’s a lot of pretence that isn’t made very clear before beginning. This may seem like a small complaint to some people, but one of the most interesting parts of Telltales games is the comparisons between yours and other players decisions, the shock when you think to yourself ‘wow, only 30% of players did that thing? I thought that was the right thing to do!’ especially in a game like Game of Thrones, where morals and strategy are thrown into question all the time. I don’t dislike the online form of results, and if you play on PC regardless of a Telltale account you get them there and then, I just wish the process had been better to understand and easy to rectify (going through the last part of my own save did nothing to reboot and receive my own results.)

Overall I'm excited for episode two as well as the rest of the season, and thoroughly impressed that Telltale managed to add new characters whilst recreating the high stakes feel of Westeros. If you make the same choices I did, you’ll come away from the first episode feeling as foolish as Ned Stark in his final moments, but eager to get your revenge in the five episodes to follow.

Episode 2, The Lost Lords, is confirmed for some time before the end of January.

If you’ve played the game, what did you think?  And which decisions do you regret the most?

SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 1 UNDER THE CUT.

Telltales second comic book inspired storytelling game comes to a cinematic close, as Bigby Wolf confronts the Crooked Man for the last time in a last ditch effort to save the corrupt streets of Fabletown.

There’s a lot to be expected from the finale of a game series like The Wolf Among Us, so wrapped in noire tainted mystery and intrigue that going into the game you not only expect answers to your questions, but you crave them in a fiery and explosive way, which is one area where Cry Wolf hits the mark undoubtedly. Despite most of the game mechanics just being point-and-click, Telltale, as they always do, manage to make just hitting a few buttons and clicking in the right places feel epic, and fans can definitely get excited about being able to kick-ass in a couple of really grabbing fight sequences.

Without divulging in spoilers a lot of loose ends are very neatly tied up in this episode. From the investigation at hand to lore concerning the not so glamorous world of Fabletown, everything you need to know is revealed when you need to know it and in some cases just moment too late, which makes for palpable drama leaving you wondering if you made the right choices concerning certain characters. This episode is where the decisions you make really count, as persuading characters has never been a more stressful task. You’ll find yourself on the edge of your seat whilst trying to make sure you’re making the right decisions, and you’ll love every second of it.

Cry Wolf does unfortunately feel like the shortest episode in the game series so far, which did slightly overshadow the crescendo feeling of the experience as a whole. Despite this, I imagine playing The Wolf Among Us now that every episode has been released won’t give a player the same effect, but as someone who had waited a whole month for the penultimate episode it was a very straightforward play-through, not going slowly from one scene to the next as previous episodes had so cleverly executed.

Also there are a plethora of characters in Fabletown who you interact with, and one of the major contrasts that could be drawn between this game, and Telltales other comic book inspired triumph The Walking Dead is that the pop-ups that tell you how a character reacts to what you say or do in terms of emotion, just aren't as up to scratch in this game than The Walking Dead. Characters constantly appreciate your actions but you never get a gauge on how they’re actually feeling, whereas the Walking Dead lets you know when a character was reassured, felt better, or was upset based off of what you chose to say to them. I suppose this can be chalked up to the investigation side of the game, as there are a couple of scenes in episodes one and two where these pop-ups let you know when you've managed to connect the evidence or catch a character out in a lie. This is an understandable mechanic, but in The Wolf Among Us: Season 2, I would like to see both how I have affected a characters emotions, and how I am doing in my investigation.

Overall, The Wolf Among Us Season One holds a lot of promise and is a simply outstanding piece of work. The style is gorgeous, the drama intriguing, and the characters engaging. A must buy for Telltale, comic book, and noire fans everywhere. 

RTX, the annual Austin convention run by popular comedy gaming website Rooster Teeth, officially kicked off today, and has already begun to tease the fans of one of its popular animated shows, RWBY.

Shortly after an informative panel on the anime web series, the trailer for the highly anticipated second volume hit Rooster Teeths YouTube channel in a blaze of glory.

The trailer teases the return of many fan favourite characters, and introduces a plethora of new ones, the voices of whom were not confirmed by the show’s writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross, or the show’s creator Monty Oum at the sold out convention.

It would seem all is not well following the explosive finale of Volume One, and the Kingdom of Vale harbours more evil than Ruby Rose and the gang seem to think they are capable of dealing with. The trailer teases details of an all-out war, leaving certain characters wondering; are our young plucky heroes able to take on those who would see the once peaceful Kingdom of Vale burn to the ground?

Fans may be biased, but they won’t have to wait for long to find their answer, as RWBY: Volume Two has its online premiere in just less than 3 weeks’ time, on July 24th.