Sometimes a steaming, hot scoop justs fall onto your lap – or, to be specific as all good journalists are, sticks to the sole of your gumshoe as you hover next to the bins behind Gamescom. I’d been looking for a way into the show besides the throng of the public entrance, and begun scanning the walls for the ventilation shaft Joel had been so excited about earlier.
Want to be told a nice story? Try one of these excellent RPGs.
Once I’d peeled the document from my heel, however, I hot-footed it back to the hotel. I knew what I had: comprehensive TV listings for 11 as-yet unreleased Telltale episodes. They’re reprinted verbatim here, edited only for length and clarity.
Batman: Series 2
Conservative wet dream. The Riddler presents Batman with an arbitrarily binary choice. Alfred struggles with a particularly tricky blancmange. Harvey has to put politics aside when a choreographed action sequence demands brute physical force.
The Wolf Among Us: Series 2
Fiscal fairytale drama. Bigby is embarrassed when his textures fail to load in time for a close-up, and flies into a rage. Everybody goes to the Farm, because everyone’s always talking about the Farm and surely we’ll have to go there at some point.
Jessica Jones
NY squalor tourism. Jessica has a bad day, Luke smolders angrily, and the two fall into a brood-off. The camera repeatedly frames the doorway of Alias Investigations. An unknown voice-actor gamely ignores how disappointed we all are that David Tennant hasn’t signed up.
House of Cards
Real-time political strategy. Claire cuts everyone else’s dialogue short to deliver thinly-veiled blackmail. Stamper and Rachel go back and forth. Will they or won’t they kill each other in an ending-critical decision? Only Kevin Spacey’s face is performance-captured. It’s jarring, but he insists.
Orange is the New Black
Brightly-coloured prison comedy. There’s a new inmate on the block. She walks slowly around the dorm, picking up any objects that aren’t screwed down and storing them in her pockets. Sophia gets into a fight with an ageing QTE system. Piper does very little to justify her status as protagonist in what we all know to be an ensemble show.
Narcos
Facial hair competition. Washington is on the phone as the Cartel successfully smuggles coke into Miami under thick, extravagant moustaches. Connie threatens to fly home to the US if Steve doesn’t shave off his moustache. Pedro Pascal’s moustache makes a break in the case to incarcerate Pablo Escobar.
The Walking Dead: Season 3
Post-apocalyptic documentary. Clementine and friends find themselves in a tight spot when iOS memory restrictions reduce level design to a single room. In a surprising development, somebody trips over backwards and is forced to reach for a nearby tool to dispatch the zombie clawing at them. Surprising. Development.
Dwarf Fortress
Disaster biopic. A catastrophic flood fills the tunnels. A catastrophic fire consumes the kitchen. A catastrophic illness decimates the fortress guard. A catastrophic beer shortage destroys morale. A catastrophic blind cave ogre attack wipes out the miners. The camp’s sole remaining dwarf remembers all this, and succumbs to madness.
Need for Speed: Story Mode
High-octane drama. A wobble on the third corner turns Jeff into a bag of nerves. Fender tussles between Andy and Suzie ruin both their chances. Romance blossoms in the pit lane. Off the track, a police unit chases a criminal escaping in a stolen car, but nobody ever steps out of either vehicle. Which is weird, when you think about it.
Myst
Glacial adaptation. A man dials numbers into ancient machines which whirr and click but otherwise offer nothing in return. A dialogue system iterated and perfected over a series of acclaimed games goes completely unused. Guest starring Absolutely No-One, are you kidding, there’s nobody but you in this game.
Mr Robot
Heartwarming adventure. An adorable droid in a bow tie is satisfied by work at the plant, but lonely. It takes a lost gekko and a defective teddy bear to replace the part he’s missing: a heart. Belatedly, Telltale admit that nobody at the company has seen Mr Robot, though an associate producer played Watch Dogs if that helps.