Walking Dead fans feeling let down by the meandering second season of AMC’s television adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s hit comic book are in for a real treat… n fact anyone who is a fan of The Walking Dead in any medium is in for a real treat with Telltale Games episodic adventure adaptation.
I have mixed feelings about Telltale Games – Back to the Future had a great story, and amazing voice work, but the graphics and controls left A LOT to be desired, but Telltale have rectified this with The Walking Dead. By using stylised cell shaded graphics to give it a comic book feel, you don’t notice the games graphical limitations, in fact the game really does look beautiful most of the time because of it, and characters expressions are conveyed amazingly well. The controls have too been tightened, although there are still a few issues here with one or two dodgy camera angles not helping, but nothing major of game breaking in my experience.
The game is essentially a point and click adventure, in the same vein as PC classics
Grim Fandango and
Monkey Island, however there are tense and exciting quicktime style zombie survival moments which are reminiscent of Heavy Rains action segments. These quick time style battles work well enough, however they are not the focus of the game, the down time between zombie attacks are, and this is where the game excels.
Telltale have managed to get some amazing writers on board and they really make you feel for the protagonist Lee and his new lil sidekick Clementine. The game could easily grow boring with its lack of action, but the writing is so good that you will dread zombie attacks and want to interact with other survivors learning their stories and building relationships with them, which in turn help to define your character through your dialogue choices. Choice is a huge part of this game, you have mere seconds to decide whether to save one survivor or another, or how to intervene in situations, and there is a definite desire to return to chapter one and play it differently to see what could have happened. The promise that these choices will affect later episodes is also intriguing, and I wonder if it even might have affected the ‘Next time on
The Walking Dead’ preview that is shown at the end (which looks equally fantastic I might add).
It may only last for around 2 hours but because it plays more like a movie than a traditional game at $5 you are definitely getting bang for your buck.
The Walking Dead’s strength is the writing and the characters, the game does a great job of building tension and creating emotional investment with the characters. It is less of a game and more of an interactive story at times, but that works incredibly well with
The Walking Dead property which has never simply been about zombie killing. Set in the same universe as the comics you are quick to see some familiar faces which is a nice little nod for fans. All in all I can’t wait for episode two of this. If you are a fan of
The Walking Dead in any medium then this is definitely worth your time and money. Simply put, it's fantastic!