The Walking Dead: The Game - Season 1

When I first heard a game was being made with the title 'The Walking Dead' I jumped for joy. I love the show and was hyped as hell for the game. But when I learned that it wasn't based around the characters from the show, I started to lose interest. I mean, no characters from the show? This game is gonna fail badly. But around it was released, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and bought it. And let me just say, I was completely wrong to judge it before release. This game blew my expectations away. It's full of decisions and choices you struggle to pick and packed with so much emotion it toyed with my own. Anyone considering to buy this game; buy it. It is worth every single cent.

The Walking Dead is one of the best games of all time. It's possibly the best Telltale game, alongside the Walking Dead season 2. It's emotional, poignant and most importantly, incredibly human. The story follows Lee in his struggle to care and nuture for Clementine, in a new world that's cruel, depraved and twisted. Lee, at face value, is a jealous murderer, and someone who would be regarded as scum and looked down upon in the normal world. However, past the surface, Lee is actually a good man, a man guided by principle.

The theme, Alive Inside, is nothing short of a masterpiece. It's genuinely comparable to some phenomenal violin scores, such as Schindler's list. It captivates everything the game is about: Loss, adversity, faith and hope.

The main downside to the Walking Dead is that it's not really a game. It's an interactive film, the game elements are lacking. Nevertheless, the story is tells makes it's more enjoyable than playing most video games.

To conclude there's several aspects which make the Walking Dead a masterpiece. There is hundreds and hundreds of video games out there, each with a plot that's easily consumble, and quickly forgetton. The Walking Dead seems to leave a permanent impact, a story buried into the mind of the player.

The Walking Dead - The Game goes back to the zombie genre's roots, and turns the zombies into sources of horror instead of gun targets - that is what I think might be the most important aspect of this game, since there are no hordes a la Left 4 Dead to gun down.

And that is important I think to know. The story that plays out is very character driven, and it is more important to interact the right way with the right person than finding a Big F_cking Gun to mow down zombies with.

The protagonist: As in many other games, it is not possible to make your own character - you play as the former university teacher Lee Everett, starting out on his way to prison. This is in some ways a weak point - the game doesn't become so much of an RPG as an interactive film, but luckily, Lee is interesting enough so you don't loose interest in him.

Gameplay: Playing the game on a PC is a breeze - a lot of effort has gone into making sure you only need the movement keys and the mouse to play the game - the inventory is only accessed when needed and everything is lined up in a very straightforward way, from responses to actions.

Here I should also mention that people listens to what you say (or not say in some cases) and remembers it. This is a quite simple way of getting the player involved, especially when people starts referring to what you have said earlier.

Script: Since each episode provides about 2 hours of gameplay, here is the really great strength of the game: in a very short time, you get to know the people around you, and when something happens you CARE. Some very intelligent writing has gone into the game to make sure you will get a very real, and very genuine feeling out of it.

Rating: The game is rated M, and in such a game, it would be almost mandatory to include a couple of steaming sex scenes, but they are very absent. This is actually part of the game's appeal - there is no forced love scene with someone you don't really want to get involved in - but there IS blood. And a lot of it.

Graphics: Since the game is based on the comics, it has taken on graphics that resembles that. This is kind of cool, but sometimes, this is taken a little too far, when you see drawn lines as shadows where there shouldn't be any.

Sound and voice acting: Pretty standard. The voice acting could be a little better, but it works.

All in all, this is a great game and the big shame is that the first season is only five chapters long. But there is hope - apparently, there's already a season 2 in the making.

Hardly a game. This point and click 'game' is essentially an interactive film where the player chooses from speech opinions which have moderately significant impact upon the narrative. Some of these decisions include things such as choosing which character to save out of two which need help, and breaking a promise made to another character in order to do what you think is right (you can also choose not to promise anything initially, resulting in the character you asking for the promise disliking you, but saving you from greater dislike later), etc. The player's choice of speech and actions for the protagonist changes the way in which non-player characters will behave around and towards the protagonist. The ending will likely stick with you for your the rest of your life.

First off i would like to put some context into what i'm about to say; that is that I very rarely get emotional at any kind of game or movie (only ones i will openly cry at are the first 20 mins of UP and the last 30 mins of Schindler's list), i don't say this to be macho, i don't care about that, I say it so that when I say the ending to this game made me bawl my eyes out you understand the severity of the situation.

Through the first four episodes I was drawn to Clementine, not because she was a child (a particular hate of mine is using a child as a plot device without adding any character; see the walking dead t.v series for how not to write a child) but because she was a brilliantly written character, i wanted to save her. The bond was even stronger because my character (Lee) was able to mimic rather accurately what i was feeling about the girl, making them and by proxy us feel even more connected.

Throughout the final episode the stakes are raised, and they are raised high; the writers have done a brilliant job of adding a sense of impending finality to the story, things move very neatly and rapidly forward and there isn't any of the standing around looking for really annoying little things that happened in the previous episodes episodes. (not that they were bad, just something i picked up on)

When i finally discovered who your ipso facto nemesis is i was rather shocked, I mean I had my suspicions but i didn't really think it could have been who it was. The "antagonist" fits in very well with the entire theme of the game, it actually made me regret a lot of the decisions i made, and not because of what was happening but because i felt genuinely guilty.

Now the finale, and what i am certain is the best ending to a game ever (and ending is something or an art-form in my opinion, something only a few writers can do convincingly) Hell even my favorite books and t.v series could learn a thing or two from this. The writers use a brilliant blend of tension and fore-site that created emotions i have never felt so strongly from any interactive medium (I'm fairly sure i was less effected by any funeral I've ever been to combined). I don't want to spoil the end but if it doesn't reduce you to tears you have a heart of stone.

All in all this game is the best character driven game I have played and I would trade every shooter, rts and whatever other game-play driven game to get one of it's calibre again.