REVIEW -- The Walking Dead: The Game (Episodes 1-5)

The Walking Dead: The Game spans five "episodes" - with a narrative that is not canon to neither the comic books nor the television series, but manages to take place in the same universe.

I picked up the first episode free as part of Xbox Live Arcade's Spring Cleaning Sale earlier this year and following episodes for 200MS points each. This is yet another title that I'm slowly completing on my never-ending gaming backlog for this current generation of video games.

This review isn't catered to you guys who are already fans of this universe ( whether it be the comic book, the TV show, etc.), but geared towards the people who haven't been exposed to this universe in the slightest. I know fans of The Walking Dead TV series will play this in a heartbeat, but for everyone else, is this worth your time? Read on to find out.

The Plot: (SOME Spoilers)

The following summary is a broad overview of the work, describing the major events that occur regardless of player choice. Some specific elements not listed here will change based on the impact of player choices.

The game opens with Lee Everett on his way to prison after his conviction in Atlanta, Georgia. En route, the sheriff's car in which he is travelling strikes a walker and careens off-road. Lee is knocked unconscious, awakening hours later to find the sheriff lying outside the vehicle. Fleeing the car, Lee is attacked by the officer, who has turned into a walker, and Lee is forced to kill him. He takes shelter in a nearby home, discovering a little girl named Clementine hiding in her tree house. After learning that her parents had previously left for Savannah, Lee offers to protect and care for Clementine, and help her find them.

They then travel to a nearby farmstead, owned by Hershel Greene, where Lee is introduced to Kenny, his wife Katjaa and their son Duck. When Shawn, Hershel's son, is lost to a walker attack, Hershel banishes the group from his home. Lee and Clementine join Kenny and head towards Macon. There, they find shelter with several other survivors in a drugstore that had been owned by Lee's family, a fact he keeps to himself. While trying to recover medicine from the pharmacy, they set off the alarm and are forced to abandon the store, finding safety in a motel with a defensible perimeter.

Though protected from walkers, Lee and the survivors struggle to find food, and after three months, are at the last of their supplies. However, they are then approached by the St. Johns, a family who own a nearby dairy. The group exchange gasoline to power the St. Johns' electric fence for food and shelter. However, while on the dairy, Lee and Kenny discover the St. Johns have engaged in cannibalism, and the group flee, leaving the St. Johns to their fate as the farm is overrun by walkers. As they return to the motel, they find a seemingly abandoned car full of provisions, which they share out among themselves.

The group soon learns that the St. Johns had a deal with local bandits; they would give the bandits food and in exchange the bandits would not attack the dairy. Upon the death of the St. Johns, however, the bandits now turn their attention to the motel. They launch an attack that attracts walkers, and the group is forced to abandon their base and supplies. During the attack, Duck is bitten. After driving for a time, the group come upon a freight train, and meet Chuck, a homeless man who lives on it. Lee and Kenny manage to get the train working, and the group head towards Savannah, with the intention of finding a boat and getting out onto the ocean, away from the walkers. During the trip, Duck's condition worsens, and the group stop to deal with him before he turns. Katjaa commits suicide over the loss, and Kenny and Lee are forced to either euthanize Duck or leave him behind. After the train's way is blocked by a truck, the group encounter Christa and Omid, two other survivors who join them.

Nearing Savannah, Clementine's walkie-talkie goes off, with an unknown man telling her she will be safe once he deals with Lee and the group, and promising her that her parents are waiting for her. The group takes shelter in a well fortified mansion, and Lee and Kenny head towards the pier to find a boat. There, they encounter Molly, who informs them there are no boats left in the city, and whatever useful supplies do remain are being held in Crawford, a fortified community who don't permit the elderly, the sick, or children into their ranks. When walkers attack, Lee is separated from the group, and as he makes his way back to the mansion through the sewers, he encounters Vernon and his group hiding in a hospital morgue. Vernon returns with Lee back to the mansion, where Clementine has discovered a boat in the shed. It lacks fuel and a battery, but both items can be obtained in Crawford. Lee and the group plan an invasion, but once there, they find the entire population has turned into walkers. They quickly gather the necessary supplies and leave. Vernon departs, but not before warning Lee that he doesn't think he is an appropriate father-figure for Clementine, and offering to take care of her instead.

The next morning, Lee wakes to find Clementine missing, and in his haste to find her, he is attacked and bitten by a walker. Initially suspecting Vernon, Lee finds the morgue abandoned, when Clementine's walkie-talkie goes off. The man on the other end reports that he has Clementine and challenges Lee to come get her. Clementine is able to reveal to Lee where she is being held, and Lee heads back to the house only to find that the boat and other supplies have been stolen by Vernon's group. As the group head to rescue Clementine, Kenny sacrifices himself attempting to save another character. As they cross the rooftops, Lee is separated from the others, and he instructs the survivors to wait for him and Clementine at the edge of town, making them promise to care for her after he is gone.

Lee makes his way to the hotel where Clementine is captive. The man holding her explains that he was the owner of the car that the group ransacked after leaving the dairy, and as a result, he lost his family to walkers. Lee realizes the man has gone insane, and with Clementine's help, kills him. He then helps to cover Clementine in walker blood, disguising her from the other walkers. As they leave the hotel, however, Clementine spots her parents, both of whom have turned into walkers, and Lee collapses to the ground. Clementine drags him into a jeweler's, pulling the shutter down and locking them in. However, Lee realizes he is near conversion, and instructs her to escape the city and meet the other survivors at the edge of town. In his final moments, Lee guides Clementine past a walker near the backdoor, and says goodbye to her. The player can choose to have Lee instruct Clementine to either kill him or leave him be and become a walker, or can opt to do nothing, where Clementine will choose an action based on the culmination of the player's choices within the game.

After the game's credits, Clementine is seen walking in a field by herself. She spots two figures in the distance. After a moment, they stop walking and turn to look in her direction. She holds her gun out nervously as they watch her. -- via Wikipedia

Gameplay: 

The Walking Dead is a graphic adventure, played from a third-person perspective with a variety of cinematic camera angles, in which the player, as protagonist Lee Everett, works with a rag-tag group of survivors to stay alive in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. The player can examine and interact with characters and items, and must make use of inventory items and the environment. Throughout the game, the player is presented with the ability to interact with their surroundings, and options to determine the nature of that interaction. For example, the player may be able to look at a character, talk to that character, or if they are carrying an item, offer it to the character or ask them about it. According to Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead game is focused more on developing characters and story, and less on the action tropes that tend to feature in other zombie-based games, such as Left 4 Dead.

Some parts of the game require timed responses from the player, often leading to significant decisions that will impact the game's story, in the manner of role-playing games (RPGs). Some conversation trees require the player to make a selection within a limited time, otherwise Lee will remain quiet, which can affect how other characters respond to him. Unlike in other RPGs such as the Mass Effect or Fallout series, where choices fall on either side of a "good or evil" scale, the choices within The Walking Dead have ambiguous results, having an effect on the attitude of the non-player characters towards Lee. The player can opt to enable a "choice notification" feature, in which the game's interface indicates that a character has changed their disposition towards Lee as a result of these choices. In more action-based sequences, the player must follow on-screen prompts for quick time events (QTEs) so as to keep themselves or other characters alive. If the player dies, the game restarts from just prior to the QTE. Other timed situations involve major decisions, such as choosing which of two characters to keep alive.

Each episode contains five points where the player must make a significant decision, choosing from one of two available options. Through Telltale's servers, the game tracks how many players selected which option and lets the player compare their choices to the rest of the player base. The game can be completed regardless of what choices are made in these situations; the main events of the story, as described below, will continue regardless of what choices are made, but the presence and behavior of the non-player characters in later scenes will be affected by these choices. The game does allow the player to make multiple saves, and includes a "rewind" feature where the player can back up and alter a previous decision, thus facilitating the exploration of alternative choices. -- via Wikipedia

The Verdict: 

I'm going to say it right now, but I'm sure people are going to be either extremely pissed at this review or absolutely love it. That being said, I've read some of the comics before it turned into a prime time television phenomenon. I don't follow the TV series as if I'm perfectly honest, the zombie genre has really been done to death in current media, no thanks to the Resident Evil series, Left 4 Dead series, and even zombies popping up in the Call of Duty franchise. 

First of all, I'm going to start off this review by saying that this game as a complete package is NOT Game of the Year material. Allow me to elaborate. In my opinion, in order for a game to be GOTY worthy, it needs to deliver in gameplay and story. This game only delivers in its stellar narrative. The gameplay is nothing above anything else on the market, but kudos to Telltale Games for reviving the dying adventure genre of video games. I personally thought these point-and-click adventures died off in the '90s, along with the Monkey Island series... If you even remotely know what that is, give yourself a pat on the back. Gameplay consists of QTEs and wondering around environments for tools or supplies to advance the plot. In a classic sense, this is literally PSX-era Resident Evil in its most basic form (sans combat, save for the last 2 episodes) while sporting a bit of Asura's Wrath-style QTEs. The gameplay is pretty straight-forward without any complexity to it at all. Sure, players can die from not reacting to the QTE sequences fast enough, but other than that, the narrative drives most of the game's direction. This type of gameplay is rather dated. As a result, there's several instances of poor collision detection and some rather unusual movement throughout the environment (see above). Plus, I know I'm not alone in saying that this game would be a lot better if they had some kind of run button. If you're looking to play this game as an alternative to the action-oriented Resident Evil series, then you're going to be VERY disappointed here. There's no much action at all throughout the course of the entire span of this season and even when it does occur, it's simply down to a few simple button prompts.

Secondly, I want to say that Clementine is the star of this narrative. She's not forced on you like how Elizabeth is always following you around or in your field of vision in BioShock: Infinite nor conveniently bending over and perfectly framed into every cutscene like Kat in DmC (Devil May Cry). Instead, this child forms a natural bond between herself and the player. You literally cannot hate this child. It's impossible.





At the end of all of your choices, Clementine serves as your conscience in this game. Throughout the game, I constantly hesitated doing actions that would mentally scar or give this little girl any bad impression of me as her guardian. That's the main thing that TellTale Games does the best with this game. It's genius but at the same time, it's borderline sinister and methodical on how this game toys and plays with the player's emotions from start to finish. You will want to forsake several characters throughout the course of the narrative, but at the same time, there's that one quality or aspect that makes you WANT to save them. For example, I wanted to kill these cannibals at the end of Episode 2, but Clementine saw me kill the first one, so I couldn't kill the other one while the entire group of survivors were watching with her in tow. It's moments like those that are littered across these episodes that test your nerve or conviction to keep these people around.

Last but not least, my biggest issue with the game is this. No matter what you do, nor matter what choices you make. You fail. Your allies die (or abandon you) one by one and even you fail Clementine as her guardian. It's a depressing feeling that you cannot do anything to prevent these things from happening but at the same time, it's the harsh truth of reality. Instead of providing the fantasy of escapism that most games manage to provide, this game gives players nothing but truths about the world that we live in. There's little happy endings and there is no avoiding death in whatever shape or form that it occurs. This "failure" adds to the impact of the narrative as it hits home harder than your choices in the Mass Effect or Fallout games, as there's no happy ending. On one hand, I can understand why they went this route, but at the same time, it's pretty fucked up that you cannot obtain a better end result than the one presented before you during the game's finale. We (well most people) play video games for a sense of accomplishment that is lacking in our ordinary day to day lives. This game manages to strip and rob us (as players) of that satisfaction of victory.

TellTale Games has stated at San Deigo Comic-Con 2013 and stated that there will be a Season 2 to this game series, continuing to add onto this game's narrative, using players' game saves and choices to carry over. I personally doubt I would playing that anytime soon. I have played a lot of games throughout my 28 years of life, but I have not been this depressed after a game's ending. I doubt my emotions can be toyed with much longer. I play games to be entertained and this was one of the few times where I felt emotionally disturbed after completing a game. It's hard to describe my personal reaction as there's a lot of personal identification for me with the protagonist of this game being an African-American male and I have a niece at the same age of Clementine. I don't want anything to happen to her that would result in anything close to the events of this game, nor would I want to see that happen to any child, but I guess that's the appeal of this universe and what hooks people in. A lot of fucked up shit happens, and there's nothing that you can do is get up, brush yourself off, and just keep moving. Ironic that I say that as it's literally the last thing I told to Clementine during the game's finale...

I know that I have rambled a lot here on my thoughts pertaining to this game, but it is all justified as this game is an unique piece of work. This isn't a video game meant to be played; it's a game meant to be experienced. This is a narrative that simply has to be experienced at least once in your gaming careers. You definitely won't remember this game for its gameplay in the least, but what the lasting impact this narrative provides. The Walking Dead: The Game serves as an uncanny example of how video games and films are quickly blurring the lines of their distinct differences in media.

You're now wondering what rating that I'm going to give this game, aren't you? From a gameplay stand-point, this game offers really nothing new nor challenging for the player as most of the "action" is displayed through QTEs and other button prompts. I find it ironic that Asura's Wrath released last year with this title and provided a similar QTE-oriented experience, but the reviews weren't generous nor forgiving on that game at all since it was a new IP from the minds of Capcom and CyberConnect2. It makes me wonder how this game would have fared if it was not marketed without The Walking Dead label or not released during the peak of this comic book and TV series' popularity. Asura's Wrath is a much more over-the-top fantasy experience, but at the end of the day, it's still a similar story to this one - a father trying to do everything in his power to ensure that his daughter has a bright and shiny future.

The Walking Dead: The Game's strongest feature is it's narrative that easily allows players to forget its shortcomings. That's why when playing this game, I don't understand why there is this double standard when it comes to rating video games of this type that are literally interactive films. If the player enjoyed the experience then it should receive a strong review, but at the same time, don't forget to mention where it fell flat. This game is far from the perfect adventure game, but still, it's one of the many narratives in gaming that I will remember for many years to come. I'm giving this a 8.5 out of 10. The limited (and lack of) gameplay really hurt this game from me giving it a 9.5 rating.

For me personally, I can't see myself returning to this universe. The message between the lines of this narrative really depresses me as it's visual representation of the worst in mankind. The narrative shows that humans (as a species) are incapable of anything and destined towards failure no matter what. You can run and hide from this basic truth, but you're bound to fail. If that's not a depressing message then I don't know what is. I don't know about anyone else, but I play video games to be entertained and to escape from the hells of reality. I didn't appreciate being slapped in the face with such a hard reality check about our species.