[GAME SPOILERS] The Walking Dead Episode 4 - Around Every Corner Discussion

IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU PLAY THROUGH EPISODE 4 BEFORE YOU READ THIS THREAD

NOTICE: This thread will be very spoiler heavy and discuss the game's story up to the end of Episode 4. Please don't read ahead if you haven't finished or don't want to be spoiled.

I have wicked bad ADD, so this might be a little all over the place.

I have really enjoyed what Telltale has given us, though.... My reception of episode 4: It's So-so

After coming off quite a memorable episode 3; I still think about seeing Clem in the zombie dream and how much it disturbed me, yet this episode didn't really give me that moment.

Episode 3 had the death of a character that we all had made a choice to save. We ditched Lilly, Duck got bitten+killed, Katjaa shot herself, and we met an overly friendly guy and his bitchy girlfriend, which by the way, let's just get it off the table, and say that she's no doubt pregnant. They never straight out say it, but it's very much implied since we met them.

Episode 3 really put us all on an emotional roller coaster, and now we were headed into this town we heard of since the beginning of the game.

Into Episode 4: My first thoughts within the first few episode were exactly this:

How the hell does Kenny not understand that they are in a zombie apocalypse, and that walkers are attracted to SOUND?! Seriously, whoever the voice actor that plays him must be completely oblivious to that, because 90% of his dialogue is communicated in a shouting format, which kinda took me out of it at times, because everyone else's voices seemed quieter.

Second off: Why did the group decide that the best place for them to discuss their next move would be in the middle of the street, RIGHT NEXT to the church with a gigantic ass bell going off. They've been in a zombie apocalypse going on 4-6 months now, they got to have established some kind of basic knowledge on not how to make incredibly bad decisions like that.

Third: The episode had some interesting moments, but most of them lacked the specific type of tension the first few episodes had. I recall plenty of moments where the game was very quiet in its ambience, building more of an uneasy, unsafe feeling for us. In this episode, there's always some zombie sounds being made in the background, which at times seem to get louder, building a sense of urgency, but after finding out that it really doesnt matter that much with how long you take (I stood there a LONG time to see if there actually was, there wasn't) Once I realized that the sounds were really nothing more than just some wavs playing in the background, it really took the tension that made this game great away.

Fourth: The BIG moment. We should know the general format of these episodes now: introduce us to setting, figure out what the survivors want to do next, and eventually build up to the climax where a very deep and difficult decision must be made.

THE BIG SPOILER IS HERE! DONT FUCKING LOOK BELOW THIS LINE IF YOU DONT WANT TO KNOW IT (apoligise for caps, but you can't say i didn't warn you)

There are some smaller decisions you make that determine some things with Clementine, which I won't spoil, because the Clementine bits are my favorite part of the game, and if you are a cheater trying to get an early scoop, it'd be a sin to destroy that part of the game for you. That being said... Ever since Ben revealed himself about being the one cutting the deal with the bandits, and just overall revealing himself to be quite useless, and not really doing anything positive for the group, I've really disliked his character. When the final big decision (some can argue that the last convo with Clem is the most important, which in ways it is, but I digress) is to leave Ben to live or die, my reaction was "really? I never even liked him to begin with." I really thought they would have given us a harder decision to make. I really feel like he's a widely disliked character, and that a lot of other people will feel as uncaring about deciding his fate. There wasn't really that much reason to keep him alive, other than Clem saying that she was his friend, which felt kinda tacked on for the sake of making the decision quitely harder.

I don't know, some of the reveals were kind of weak, and I feel like all the scares the game provided were just cheap jump scares. The only thing that really sort of startled me was what happened when I buried the kid with his dog. I will admit though, having that moment drawn out with repetition really made you expect something was coming anyways.

I don't know, me and my girlfriend have been going through this since the beginning and we both felt that this one was the weakest.

Thoughts?

End of Episode Spoiler Discussion Bonus Topic:

How do you think Lee's fate will unravel in the next episode, and ultimately what'll happen to him?