The third game I completed this year was Telltale Game's The Walking Dead. This is one of those games where I tried the demo when it first came out, and it seemed okay, but it didn't really grab me. However, when the game started winning Game of the Year awards like a doped up Lance Armstrong, I figured I should give it another look, and I am glad I did.
What I played:
- Platform: Xbox 360
- What I played: All 5 episodes
- Play time: ~12 hours
- Rating: 10/10
What I liked:
Any really good zombie-based entertainment is actually more about how the living interact with each other than about the undead. From the original Night of the Living Dead to The Walking Dead, excellent stories of the zombie apocalypse explore how people react when there suddenly is no army or police force to protect them. How they work together to survive not just the undead, but other survivors. How personalities clash. Who takes charge. Who gives up. Who holds out a helping hand, and who points a gun.
In this regard, The Walking Dead excels. Your band of survivors all have unique personalities, and different ideas of what is best for the group. But the danger of the situation forces them to stick together. As you play, and as your group faces different situations, you'll learn new things about your companions and your opinions of them can change dramatically. You'll see the good and bad in people.
The other thing that all good zombie stories involve is an ongoing struggle between hope and hopelessness in which hope is hanging on by a thread. In the real world, we all have a sort of ingrained belief that we're immortal. We don't go about our day thinking "I might die in a crash on my way to work." We just assume it'll be just like any other day. In The Walking Dead, you'll feel that sense of immortality being stripped away as people around you start dying. When someone in the game that you've grown fond of is gone in the blink of an eye, the expectation that that person was going to be around forever is violated. It feels unjust, but there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to go on.
Finally, Clementine. It is rare to have a game in which you care more about someone else's life than your own. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that as a parent, several things in the game regarding Clementine hit home with me, though I imagine you don't need to be a parent to really appreciate it.
If you're reading this and thinking "man, this doesn't sound like fun... it sounds depressing", you aren't completely wrong. But pretty much everyone has entertained the question "what would I do in a zombie outbreak?" Well, The Walking Dead let's you answer that question, but the reality is that (as far as zombie outbreaks can be real) you probably wouldn't last long. And it would be ugly.
What I didn't like
Occasionally, it is not immediately clear what you're supposed to do to escape death, and you'll die just because you weren't quick enough.Also, there is often a timer during conversations that only gives you a few seconds to pick what you want to say. At the same time, the options can often be pretty long, and/or can be read different ways. For example, I was speaking to a guy who was sad that some other people had died. I selected the "you couldn't save X and Y" dialogue option as to say "Hey, don't beat yourself up. You couldn't have saved them." But it actually came out as "Man, you couldn't even save X and Y!!" So a few times I selected an option that I didn't actually want to pick, and had to reload my game.
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