I'm pretty late coming to show on this game; I picked up The Walking Dead (TWD) in the Christmas Steam Sale and never got around to playing it (read: busy playing NBA 2K13). Naturally, I heard quite a lot of brou-ha-ha about TWD from the Interwebs; that it was possible the Game of the Year from many sources, stories of the amazing,emotional story and of course, the countless videos and screenshots of the choices that people were making in the game. Naturally, I was skeptical; I always am. When something gains this much interest and this much fanfare, I am always suspicious of what this means for a game. Call of Duty: Black Ops taught us that much.
Dutifully, I started playing the game about a week ago, and only just finished playing this morning. Not because I kept dying. Not because I was too busy. Not even because I suck. It was because it took such a toll emotionally to play the game that I didn't want to finish off Episode 5. So if you don't like spoilers, turn back now. Go look at pictures of kittens. Call your loved ones. Board up your windows... Ignore that last part...
As you may have heard, TWD is an episodic game with 5 episodes. I've never really been a fan of episodic games; too often is there too much time between games, and you lose the flow and urgency that the game works so hard to create. My recommendation for playing this is to play it through as if it were one long game. This I feel is the best way to play it, and I'll definitely do that for the next season of TWD games.
Most reviews would discuss the story first, however I feel TWD's story is special enough that I will rant about that at the end. So: design. TWD is actually remarkably badly put together. It's slow, jerky, and sometimes it feels like the game doesn't realise it's a game. You've probably all heard the stories about glitches and bugs that have made it unplayable for some people. I'm not entirely surprised; while I didn't personally have any major issues, I can see where the game might trip up. Graphical glitches, cutscenes not starting at the right time to match audio, and just general unpolish is on show for all to see. That said, I didn't actually notice that much while I was playing what was otherwise an amazing game.
The gameplay is somewhere between a third person action game and your standard 3D adventure/puzzle game. It is a remarkably well thought out control scheme, while it works. It does away with specific keys for specific actions and instead just keeps simple action options overlaid on what can only be described as your crosshair. I would recommend playing TWD with a Xbox controller as this seems to be the way the game was designed to be played. And it plays really well. Random button-mashing, quick-time events aside, the controls are very well implemented. I will note though, those quick-time events actually seem to be included in situations where you will actually want to mash your controller: getting choked by a zombie, or opening an elevator shaft. Telltale makes clever use of the conversation mechanic that we have come to love in games with dialogue where you, the player, choose what tone your character will answer will. And it's done amazingly, through amazing voicework and amazing scripting. Beware though, as the answers you made will influence the characters surrounding you, and they will remember what you said and do.
TWD adopts Telltale's telltale (come on, this stuff writes itself) presentation; cartoony, 3D models that don't quite look human and can sometimes freak you out (still trying to forget Omid's eyes). The PC version of TWD doesn't have any extra bells and whistles (as perhaps is becoming the norm for cross-platform releases *grumble*) and this shows; the zombie models look horrific (I guess by design also) and the textures sometimes look like I drew them. With my feet. I even had to turn down the graphics settings on my Beast just to get the juddering to stop in cutscenes. Luckily, the textures for the main characters seem to be unaffected by whatever settings you choose, so they don't look like eyesores for the entire game. There is little in general to complain about; Telltale has delivered on its now characteristic presentation style and it does it well (glitches aside).
Now I get to talk about the story. I feel a bit guilty because I probably won't be able to do the game justice by talking about it here, but I urge every one who reads this to please play this game. This game is all about the story. Frankly, if this game doesn't win 'Best Story' in every possibly game award in 2012, then something is wrong with this world. The story isn't anything unusual; it's exactly as you might expect from a game from the Walking Dead universe. The zombie apocalypse appears to have occured and you take control of Lee, a man who seems to have nothing else to lose. That is, until you meet Clementine. No, Clementine isn't a lady, she's a little girl. And that is all that really needs to be said about it; you spend the entire game protecting Clementine. And you will want to. Oh man, will you want to...
I think the thing that shocked me most about the game is that I didn't know how I would react in a real situation like a zombie apocalypse. Sure, everyone guy who has a lick of testosterone about them will say "Sure, zombie apocalypse. Too easy, give me a gun and I'll be on my way", and I thought that would be me too. But the game has told me I'm not. Not because I'm not strong enough, or fast enough. But because I'm human.
You will see a multitude of characters in the game, come and go. And when they go, it will be nothing you have experienced before. No matter what part of the moral compass you reside on, you will feel something for some other character in this game. And that is the genius of what Telltale's story has done here; it emotionally invests you in the game to the point that you feel that you are Lee, that you are making the decisions. Going back to the conversations that you can have, and the actions you can make: I have not felt this much control over the outcome of the story this much since the original Knights of the Old Republic, and likewise, I have not felt so emotional invested since then.
The Walking Dead is a masterpiece in gaming and storytelling. It's not about action, it's not about guns, it's not even about the zombies. It's about humanity. This game is everything that is good and bad about humanity, and it shows all the good things that can come out of humans when the going gets tough. And I think in our world's current state, a little humanity is a good thing.
The Walking Dead (PC) Review - 9/10
