The Walking Dead – Telltale Games – Video Game Review

The Story: The Walking Dead story that the TV show is jealous of.

Review (no SPOILERS): Back in April, Telltale Games released a video game called The Walking Dead.  It was made available as episodic downloads on the PS3 and XBox and eventually came to other platforms like PC and iOS.  It got a minor amount of hype due to the popularity of the TV program and I wanted to check it out because I expose myself to just about everything TWD-related.  Flash-back to this time with me…..  The TV program had just ended a Season 2 that was mostly mired on Hershel’s farm, the comics were spinning their wheels a little bit as the current Negan-story hadn’t quite started yet and Kirkman had co-authored a crappy novel of how a simple redneck named Philip became The Governor.  Based on that, it looked like the TWD brand was being spread pretty thin and I didn’t have huge hopes for this video game.  But I tried it anyway–and was rewarded with a great gaming experience.

Story: The set-up is quite simple.  You play the game through the eyes of a man named Lee.  Lee is on his way to prison when the zombie outbreak occurs, the car he is traveling in crashes and suddenly he is “free” in zombieland.  Pretty quickly he meets a little girl named Clementine who has lost her parents.  The story of how Lee and Clem make their way in the increasingly horrible post-apocalyptic setting is very rich.  They meet new characters, fight zombies, deal with bandits and deal with the general challenges of survival.  The story allows for a great deal of interaction, but is very linear.  An open world, it is not.

Characters: The true selling point for this game are the characters.  I found myself caring about these video game characters way more than I’ve ever cared about Rick & Co from the TV show.  The wonderful thing about these characters is that none of them are pure (except for Clem).  The “bad guys” have understandable motives and the “good guys” often do pretty despicable things.  Trust me, you’ll shed a tear (or come close) during a few of the death scenes.

Dialog: The bulk of the gameplay happens via dialog choices.  The situations you are thrust into are so morally ambiguous that there is rarely a dialog option that makes everyone happy.  The intro to the game beats you over the head with statements that “the game changes based on the choices you make”, so you are always worried about every choice you make.  Have you irrevocably pissed off a certain character?  Should you make all the characters like you a little bit?  Should you try to form a strong alliance with one character and piss of the others?  How do you weigh making the tough decisions without upsetting little Clem?  It really isn’t easy, and the game doesn’t give you unlimited time to make your choices.  You usually have 4-5 seconds, so there is no time to Google the impact of the various options–just just have to go for it.  After most choices, a little text appears in the corner: “Kenny will remember that you didn’t support him.” and you have to wonder what long-term impact this will have on your relationships.  Trust me, all the choices come home to roost in the end.

Puzzles: In between story segments, you’ll often be faced with puzzle solving interludes.  These are a nice break from the intensity of dialog choices and none of the puzzles are hard.  I don’t think I ever got stuck to the point where I had to go online to figure out how to get past a level.  And none of the puzzling is pointless crap either.  There are no silly quests to deliver mystical gems to the gnome, who will then give you the wand which can be delivered to the dragon who will agree to light the torches for you.

Fighting!: There is very little fighting in this game.  If you want a Resident Evil or a CoD zombie level, look elsewhere.  There are moments in the game where you have to execute a series of button smashes or quicktime events to kill a zombie or something, but they aren’t too hard and the penalty for failure is reverting to the checkpoint right before the event in question.  I think I had one challenge that I failed 4-5 times before getting it right, so they’re pretty easy.  Honestly, the only thing making these challenges difficult is that the aiming mechanic was clumsy.  Most events require you to put the crosshairs on the zombies head (right stick) and then hit the X button (right thumb).  That’s a lot of right hand action…. and when the zombie’s head is moving, it is pretty hard to get right.  Eventually, I transitioned to manipulating the right stick with my left thumb.  I almost wonder if this was intentionally awkward to make the game more intense without turning it into a FPS?

Big decisions (with a MINOR SPOILER): Several times per episode, you will be confronted with a major decision.  They are all moral choices and none of them are easy.  Early in the game you are faced with a few “do you save Character A or Character B” decisions.  Those are actually pretty painless: Cute girl who flirted with you vs. dopey loser guy….hmmmmmm.  But later on you get some gut wrenching ones.  For example, toward the end of the story, one of the characters consistently screws up and puts the group in danger.  Eventually you are put in a position of saving this guy’s life or letting him fall to the zombies.  Making matters worse, he tells you that he knows he’s a screw up and asks you to let him fall so the zombies will eat him and allow the group to escape.  And making it even worse, Clementine really likes this character.  If you save him, you worry he’ll screw the group up even more.  If you let him die, you’ll upset Clementine and possibly the rest of the group.  What do you do?  Finally, at the end of each episode, a graphic comes up that compares your choices to those of other players, which is kinda neat.

Graphics: The look of the game is slightly cartoony.  It’s a good choice.  Because the characters aren’t 100% photorealistic, you don’t expect the graphics to be perfect all the time.  The game also has a bug or two, choppy video and that sort of thing, but for a game that was likely assembled “on the fly”, it was pretty good.  I only crashed the game once.  It isn’t a “cinematic experience” but the graphics work perfectly fine for the story they’re telling.

Audio: The voice acting is to notch and the ambient sounds (flies, zombie moans, etc.) are appropriate and well done (i.e. you never can’t hear dialog over the sound of buzzing flies).

Conclusion: This is a great video gaming experience.  I wish I could force the creators/actors of the TV show to play this game because THIS is what we want the TV show to be.

Grade: A

– Dean Stell