The Walking Dead - Game review.

HEY! Do you love zombies!? Me too! (I hope your answer was yes, otherwise I now look like an idiot). I have loved anything and everything zombie related from a young age, ever since I found an old video tape hidden away behind all the classic Disney’s that I also used to love,(*cough* and still do. *cough*) the mysterious tape was contained inside a plain black box with no writing or anything. Like any curious young boy, I jammed the tape into the video player and eagerly waited for it to start.

No, it wasn’t my parent’s sex tape, but something much less scary, it was Return of the living dead part 2.

I watched the whole thing with utter joy and amazement, I was a weird kid, even though it terrified me, I still loved every second, so much so that it remains to this day one of my favourite films purely because of the nostalgic joy it fills my heart with. Click here to see the zombie that infected most of my childhood nightmares.

Anyway, back to business. Developed and Published by Telltale games and winner of the Golden Joystick best downloadable award, the walking dead is set in the same universe as the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, and consists of 5 episodes. You play as Lee Everett, a convicted criminal on his way to jail before the outbreak changes the world around him; you soon become the protector of an orphaned girl named Clementine and on your travels, meet new friends (and enemies) and are forced to make difficult decisions which have the power to alter the game’s storyline and people’s opinions about Lee.

Now, I adore the telly series, mostly because of the excellent writing and shocking twists, it becomes less about the zombies and more about the characters, making you genuinely care when someone becomes zombie grub.

The game thankfully does the same; the moments where Lee is forced to make an important decision are highly influenced by the fact that the option you are about to take could seriously harm Lee’s relationship with different characters. Although other games have done this already, none have managed to do it as well as the walking dead game.

Unfortunately it is clear to see that some parts of the game are flat out broken, particularly the cut scenes and character animations, sometimes characters talk over each other during cut scenes, the camera will cut to a random person for no apparent reason and in one instance I even had one character walk inside the other one and have both of them talk to me at the same time.

You would think this would be a deal breaker, but the rest of the game is so good, it’s easy to shrug off these errors, and in some cases they can even be a tad amusing.

The gameplay is mostly point and click with some quick time events thrown in; that may not appeal to everyone, but as I said, the main focus of this game is the storyline and character relationships. Playing this game is like watching an interactive version of the T.V series.

All 5 episodes contain a good few hours of gameplay and after finishing one I found myself itching for the release of the next. Luckily though if you are yet to play this game you can now get all 5 episodes for a fair price.
The walking dead is one of those games that every gamer must try; I have played few games where I really care about the characters and this is one of my favourites. Plus it has zombies. How can you say no to zombies?

 

Reviewed by Mark Wilson – 22/12/12