Cross-posted from a similar topic on the PC board, because I'd like to talk about this with folks, having just finished the game. :)
This was a narrative experience like none I've ever experienced, although Heavy Rain came close. The fact that people are frustrated there wasn't a "perfect" ending where Lee doesn't/you don't die is kind of disappointing - that's not the point of the game and not the narrative point that the game designers were trying to make.
Someone mentioned on this (http://kotaku.com/5964667/yes-your-choices-in-the-walking-dead-mattered) Kotaku piece about a similar topic that the choices matter because they change who Lee is to you, and if there were branching paths like in Heavy Rain people would just go for the "perfect" ending. Don't get me wrong, Heavy Rain was great and I enjoyed going back for different endings, but that was more like watching something happen and people develop rather than developing with Lee.
I tried to make Lee decide things the way I would, and it really made some of the things in the story hurt, and some of them feel really good. The feeling of helplessness I had when Lee got bitten really got to me, and not in a "this isn't fair, I want to change how this turns out" kind of way. It changed how I made decisions, and was a really good part of the story. This is a story about hopelessness and how you react to it, and the choices I made because of the bite were some of the hardest ones. I got emotionally wrapped up in the story way more than I did Heavy Rain, and that's saying something because I enjoyed the hell out of that one.
Really, the folks who said above that people's cries for having a "big bad" is video game logic are, in my opinion, correct. I think this story was absolutely fantastic, and making small choices changed my experience of the game if not the ending. It's a zombie apocalypse. People are going to die. It's how you get there that matters.
If you want to think more about it (which is probably the most rewarding part of this game, the thinking it makes you do) I'd encourage you to also read this piece by gaming critic Sparky Clarkson:
Sparky Clarkson wrote (http://ludo.mwclarkson.com/2012/11/your-choices-dont-matter/):Lee’s choices don’t change the world, or alter the fundamental flow of the story. He can do nothing to keep the drugstore safe, preserve the motel stronghold, or prevent the treacheries in Savannah. If those are the kinds of choices that “matter”, then Lee’s decisions don’t. But decisions that mattered in that way wouldn’t really fit the themes of The Walking Dead. It’s not a world where a man ultimately has any real power to save anyone.
But the choices in The Walking Dead aren’t really about changing the world, they’re about changing Lee. The player’s choices define who Lee is, whose company he values, what principles he chooses to uphold. The world reacts to those decisions, in subtle ways that either reinforce those decisions (for instance, in the developing friendship with Kenny) or play off them (as in the case of Duck’s fate). The player’s choices matter because they establish a context for his emotional connection, through Lee, to the game world.
This connection reaches its highest point in the final moments of “No Time Left”. As he sits dying in a jewelry shop, Lee talks Clementine through the process of retrieving keys and a weapon from a trapped zombie. He tells her to grab certain tools, to interact with certain objects. What Lee is doing with Clementine is what we, as players, have been doing with Lee. In this moment, he is us.
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Ever thus the deadbeats, Lebowski. -Woo
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