The Walking Dead: Season One

similarly to danganronpa 1 I wish I liked this a little more than I do. It's still good as hell obviously but whenever I look back at it I always feel like a piece is missing. Kenny is the GOAT though and don't you forget it

The Walking Dead is based on Robert Kirkman's award-winning zombie apocalypse comic series (which also has a TV show). Developer Telltale Games specialise in episodic adventure games. Previous titles like Tales of Monkey Island stayed faithful to the point-and-click adventure style of game. Back To the Future had a larger emphasis on the story in comparison to Monkey Island, and Walking Dead lies further in that extreme.

Due to the emphasis on story, those looking for a challenging game should avoid because they won't find it here. You need to view the software as an interactive story, rather than a game to fully enjoy it. The good news is that the emphasis on story really pays off, because its nothing short of fantastic. Obviously, it becomes hard to review since you can't delve into the story too much, since that would be spoiling what the piece of software is all about.

The game opens up with Lee, a convicted murderer who is in the back-seat of a police car, engaged in conversation with the driver. They collide with a zombie and crash the car, killing the police officer in the process. Lee escapes and runs into the neighbourhood, where he meets 8 year old Clementine whose parents are away in a town called Savannah. Lee assumes the role of her guardian and so begins their journey of survival. Although you play as Lee, Clementine plays a huge part in the story.

All of the characters are well written and voice acting is brilliant which makes you feel more attached to them. This really works well since the decisions the game presents to you feel like they have a significant impact on the individuals and on the group.

The choices you have are really just an illusion of choice. If the choices did make an impact on the game, the entire story would be different which isn't really feasible for developers to achieve. It's mainly “you're damned if you do, damned if you don't” sort of choices. For example, you may be presented with a scenario where two characters are in danger. It's your choice who to save, but someone has to die. Later on in the game certain events will happen to the survivor, no matter who you save.

Your choices do affect the dialogue since characters will respond better to you if you have done them favours. The dynamic within the group of survivors is in such a way that your choice will please one individual but upset another. The group is together because they want to survive but not necessarily due to strong relationships. There's plenty of friction which leads to some drama, and it really feels like your decisions are really fuelling the arguments within.

For me, this is where the narrative really shines. You have to make decisions for the benefit of the group, for yourself, and for Clementine but you can't please anyone, so this triggers the arguments. The game is constantly trying to guilt trip you for your actions and really hammers home the consequences, really tugging on your heartstrings. Even when the arguments have died down, Clementine will come to you to talk about the events and ask you why they occurred. You could be open and honest about your decision, choose to lie, or explain that sometimes you have to do bad things in order to survive. Whatever you choose, you are gonna feel bad for either lying to a child, or exposing her to the horrors of life.

Along the course of the game, there are places where you must find an item or learn something about your surroundings in order for the game to progress. You can control Lee using the WASD keys, and use a combination of the mouse wheel and mouse clicks to make your selection (look, talk, pick-up, use etc.). It's also compatible with a controller, using the control stick to move and face buttons for interaction.

The conversations usually have limited time to respond, which partially helps the conversation to have a more realistic flow, but also forces you make a quick decision under pressure. Saying nothing at all can also be an option.
Quick-time action sequences are used to deal with zombie attacks. Here you will hammer the Q key, and sometimes press E to finalise the scene. If you die, you can reload the last check-point which are saved at regular, logical intervals.

Throughout the episodes, you will be dealing with all sorts of dilemmas. There's plenty of mystery and conspiracy and you can draw comparisons with TV series like Lost. There's definitely some disturbing and unsettling scenes in the game (many big characters will die), alongside some very emotional scenes, particularly the ending. It's all testament to how well written the game is; that it can really play with your emotions.

The only criticism you could say with the story, is that it didn't really need an overarching plot. Just documenting the daily struggles of the group would be enough, so the 'evil' character in the final episode almost feels a bit shoehorned in. Looking at the overall story though, he is only really a minor part and just another person for Lee to deal with.

The game is split over 5 episodes, and after each one, your choices are summarised and you are shown statistics of everyone else's choices which makes for an interesting reading.

If you are looking for a great story/experience, Telltales' The Walking Dead is highly recommended as long as you can tolerate the themes within of course (it's rated 18 for a reason). It's not for those that want a traditional game, since the action is more visual, rather than involving; but it's a shame if you overlook it and miss out on the experience.

Walking Dead Season One really deserves credit for revatlizing the point and click adventure games, which were sort of big in the 90s with games like Adventure Island and Grim Fandango but then sort of died out by the PS2/XBOX era of gaming. Walking Dead was a huge game when it released selling many copies and every Youtuber had to upload a playthrough of this. I remember when it came out my friends were interested in us playing this for our game nights on Friday, so we ended up buying this and getting through the first 4 chapters in a single night. Everyone was just so hooked on this, making the different choices, seeing what would happen, seeing the story progress and the twists and turns everything took. Walking Dead is easily the best and strongest Telltale game and even today, it still stands pretty well, despite having some huge flaws.

The greatest thing Walking Dead has going for it is its story and characters. It has a good atmosphere, where every character has their own motives and no character feels generic or like they are one dimensional. It has a strong main cast, and Lee is one of the most likable characters in gaming. Its a story of friendship, parenting, survival, loss and pain, and betrayal. Just seeing these characters interact is fun, even if most of them are hardly likable and many of them are selfish jerks who could care less about anyone but themselves and their families. On top of that the game does bring some twists throughout, and episode 2 in particular was fun to see all the odd twists and crazy scenarios. Episode 1 basically just sets up the cast and introduces all the characters and lets you pick one character to live or die to come with you for the next episodes, but for the most part episode 1 is just the introduction to the characters and story to come. Episode 2 is about survival and bonding, as the characters have been together for several months and this is the episode that deals with how the characters interact and work as a team. Episode 3 is the weakest and the slowest pace, but it deals more with character development and characters coming to terms with loss. 3 just really acts a transition between episode 2 and 4. Episode 4 builds up the conflict and sets up the stage for the conclusion, along with creating distress between the group. And Episode 5 is the big conclusion that deals with sacrifice and coming to terms with everything. The story is just structured well and it works, even if some episodes do have more filler.

Now there are some really bad elements as well. The biggest complaint is the illusion of choice. Most choices you make don't matter because the game will always end the same no matter what choices you make. Whoever you let survive in episode 1 will always die in episode 3 no matter what decision you make, Lilly will always escape in the RV and you won't be able to go with her, Ben will always get screwed over, Kenny will always disappear, and Lee will always meet the same fate. This game has even less important choices than Heavy Rain, which at least had multiple endings. This is more or less the definition of an interactive movie, where the outcome will always be the same, but you get to control the events as they happen and choose the dialog. This isn't a bad thing always, but it does take away replay value. This game is hardly worth playing once you've already beaten it and to be honest, if you don't own the game and you just watched someone on Youtube play it, you will get the same impact than if you play the game yourself. Unless you have a group of friends to play this with, I almost recommend experiencing the game that way unless you can find it really cheap or can rent it for free. Its a good game I'd at least recommend experiencing once for the story and characters, but its a game that will just sit and collect dust once you've beaten it.

I had a lot of fun playing this game with my friends and seeing everyone react to the events in this game, but its not a game I really feel the need to play at all anymore. And unfortunately now, Telltale is becoming too formulaic and releasing way too many games that follow the same generic/linear formula of your choices not making a difference and people are starting to get burned out. But at least we'll always have this to look back at when Telltale finally goes under due to it refusing to evolve.

The Walking Dead is one of the single most damaging game releases to the medium in the past decade, influencing many other games that simply failed to understand what gave this its hook and bite, chief among them Life Is Strange. But despite some gimmickry in the karma system and clearly being lightning in a bottle never to be replicated again, Walking Dead Season 1 is an enticing adventure riding on two of the best leads in recent times, that actually uses the episodic set-up effectively and understands the classical film pace of tension and release to give more than enough surprises, all leading up to a classically tragic ending. Throw in some of the best voice acting in gaming and you have a winner.

Probably the saddest game I've played. It's been a while since I've played To the Moon so maybe they're about equal.

Like a fair few other games in the past five or so years, Telltale's The Walking Dead is more about driving you through a story as opposed to providing fun and varied gameplay. It's not the kind of game that you play for five minutes on the bus, you kind of have to sit down and go through an episode at a time, which are each about the length of quite a long film. So straight off the bat, people should at least be aware of what they're getting themselves into before they buy this game.

Now, if the game is primarily about story, how does it hold up? Of course, a lot of us are a little sick and tired of the zombie narrative being used recently, but The Walking Dead (haven't seen the tv series or read the comics, so this is more of a guess) seems to be more about the human drama while the world is falling apart, and the moral dilemma that characters face in order to survive. Some people could argue that the game script could have just been adapted into a season of television, but I feel as though playing as Lee and being the one to control his actions, good or bad as they may be, is the prime reason why the narrative holds such emotional weight. The choices you make may be slightly limited and roundabout seeing as the game doesn't let you branch off in a hundred different ways depending on what you want, but it does a good job of making you feel responsible for Lee's actions.

I'd really love to go in-depth in regards to the emotional toll of certain moments, but that's just something to experience on your own.

Telltale's Walking Dead is a point and click adventure game that tries to distance itself as much as possible from other point and click games of the genre. One of the major differences is the higher focus on cutscenes and quick time moments, and much less puzzle solving and moments where the player is given freedom. This may upset purists of the genre, but actually it makes this game one of the most accessible entry ways for the genre.

The Walkind Dead is a game about the illusion of choice rather than actual choice, and this is all the more evident in the second playthrough, but unfortunatly it is also very evident from the first few choices that you make. It just seems that in the end the choices you make dont have that much of an impact. Nevertheless, the choices do feel very important while you are presented with them. Thats really the main flaw of the game.

The writing of the game is its strongest asset, offering very believable characters and intense drama. The best moments for me have always come out of the quiter moments, when you can explore what each character is thinking of, and trying to develop some kind of relationship out of it, and hoping they dont die in the next episode.

I like its cell shaded visual style a lot, though the animations are a bit janky during the more action driven moments.

It has some tecnical issues here and there, and at times it devolves into a quick time fest. Which i guess comes off as a limitation because of the simplistic gameplay.

Also for some reason i found that it reached a peak on episode 3, and then lost a lot of quality from episode 4 to just right the end.

Its a great drama, though i feel that its strongest components dont came from its game parts.