The Walking Dead Season Two is off to a great start
(Spoiler Free Review)
Generally speaking it’s fair to say that games are likely not the first place you’ll go to in order to experience a great story. Gaming is still a fairly young entertainment medium and the “rule” of what makes a great game is constantly evolving, nowhere else is this more apparent than in the advancements made to stories in recent years.
Telltale Games is no stranger to story telling and have had success in the past with various point ‘n click titles, a genre known for placing story importance above all else. The Walking Dead released in 2012 was a game that went above and beyond what it needed to be All anyone wanted was a mere non suck licensed title and in the end they got some of the best story telling ever seen in a game.
The key to The Walking Dead’s success was simplicity, it’s not Metal Gear Solid with it’s stupid bloated story about stuff no one actually understands. The Walking Dead in it’s purest form is about a “zombie” apocalypse with normal everyday people trying to survive. It’s not about how many layers the story has, how many plot twists you can throw in or how expensive the voice actors were. The Walking Dead is about making you care about the characters you meet along the way and it achieves this with by presenting us with people we can identify with. We’ve come to a point where you have players more attached to Clementine than they are their own family members, a testament to The Walking Dead’s brilliant writing.
The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode One continues where the first left off and is a promising start to another potentially excellent season of The Walking Dead if even the advancements are centred around the story rather than the gameplay.
The story featured in Season Two Episode One may be a direct continuation of the first but we now assume the role of Clementine who has been doing much growing up recently. Clementine is no longer the fragile young girl she used to be and isn’t afraid to get sh*t done this time round as her experiences in Season One have hardened her up. This becomes obvious right from the start as Clementine now has new dialog options whereby she can tell someone where to stick it if they’re giving you a hard time.
Without getting into spoiler territory, the story of Season Two focuses on the impact that the world of The Walking Dead would have on an individual. Clementine is supposed to be a young girl who still plays with dolls and yet here she is taking out walkers to the best of her ability despite her size. In the first game she’d be afraid to hold a gun let alone fire it but this time round she actually feels safer carrying one. This is what we call character development and it’s something we rarely see in games.
Take the ever popular Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series, he’s racked up quite the body count over the years and yet doesn’t come any worse for wear emotionally by the end of it. The Walking Dead on the other hand is about survival and death is never celebrated, each walker could be the end of you all and the characters in the game world know this. Everything in The Walking Dead has meaning, nothing is taken for granted and every encounter with a walker that you live through is a considered a small victory with a great sense of relief.
One of the best things The Walking Dead has going for it is the dynamic storyline, the power of interaction that only a game could provide. Unlike the TV show (which is very good by the way) that is limited to a static experience, The Walking Dead game allows players to alter the story as a result of their actions. Telltale Games isn’t content with having you sit down and watch a cut-scene, they want to get you involved every step of the way. You’ll be tasked with making harsh decisions in the worst of moments and not everything pans out the way you intended.
Telltale Games likes to advertise The Walking Dead as a choice driven game whereby your decisions will affect how the story plays out. It’s worth noting that whilst it’s not quite as dynamic as something like Heavy Rain, your choices WILL alter the story and it’s great talking to friends to discuss how things differed for them. The main core storyline is unaffected and ultimately everyone is going to get the same “basic” experience which is for the best in my opinion. We all want to have some kind of conclusive ending rather than be left wondering what was canon and what wasn’t.
It also helps greatly that The Walking Dead isn’t a predictable game, if you game wants to wants to trick you then I assure you that it will succeed in doing so. The writing team at Telltale Games are some of the best around and they do a fantastic job of always maintaining the player’s interest. This ability to genuinely surprise you is without a doubt, The Walking Dead’s greatest asset and the reason it’s so hard to stop playing once you’ve started.
The Walking Dead is what we refer to as a “graphic adventure” or as it’s better known to some, a point ‘n click adventure game. Typically movement in this genre is limited to clicking where you want to go and clicking around to find things that will progress the story. The Walking Dead breaks traditional by giving players full control of their character using the left analog stick whilst the right analog stick is used to move a cursor around the screen. Character movement is unfortunately rather stiff and clunky, it’s not something that will hurt the overall experience but it’s certainly not as smooth as one would like.
The cursor in the game also suffers from similar issues whereby movement is yet again not as fluent as you would prefer. I understand that an analog stick will never been as natural as a mouse but I can’t help but feel that more could be done in this area. One example in particular would be to have a small “auto-aim” on the cursor so rather than waste your time looking for the perfect position, the cursor would snap to the nearest point of interest. Sometimes in the more heated moments, you’ll be fighting the controls more than you will the intended target.
As for the reason of the game it’s basically down to QTE events which I understand isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but they’re well implemented enough. Besides it’s important to remember that The Walking Dead is already stepping far beyond what is expected from the genre. Never the less a little more polish to the controls would be nice but it’s not a deal breaker, we play this game for the story after all.
Much like the original season of The Walking Dead, Telltale Games continues to utilise a comic-book style presentation when it comes to the visuals. The end result is quite striking and it’s hard to imagine The Walking Dead looking any other way, especially when you consider the series is originally a comic-book adaption anyway.
Improvements have been made since season one and characters now look less blocky than they did the first time round. The character’s faces always appear to look more natural and life like than before, I’ve yet to see anyone in Season Two who looks anywhere near as weird as Ben’s long face from Season One.
The only real compliant I have for The Walking Dead visually is the same one I’ve been having for a while with various Telltale Games titles, performance. There’s no denying that The Walking Dead Season Two looks great but if only the same could be said about the framerate. Generally speaking it’s fine in most case but there are moments where the game suffers from some horrible stutters, the kind of stuff you would expect to see from a console struggling to read to scratched disc.
It’s rather annoying to see the stuttering issues continue to plague yet another Telltale Games title, you’d think by now something would of been done about this but instead all we get minor improvements. The richer Telltale Games becomes as a result of these titles, the less acceptable these performance issues will become.
The Walking Dead Season One left you wondering what would happen to Clementine and Episode One of The Walking Dead Season Two has arrived to begin telling us that tale. Everything you liked about the original is back as well as everything you perhaps didn’t like, what we have here is a direct continuation not major improvement.
The story is just as compelling as it’s ever been and once again we’re left wondering what will happen next which is exactly what an episodic game should be doing. I would’ve liked to have seen improvements made to the controls and the stuttering issues removed all together but at the end of the day, The Walking Dead Season 2 in it’s entirety will only cost you £15. That’s less than half of what a typical full retail title costs so it’s easy to overlook some of it’s faults when the whole thing isn’t all that expensive to begin with.
If you’re a fan of the original Walking Dead then you don’t need my recommendation, you’ve already played Episode One of Season Two, finished it and likely enjoyed it. If you haven’t yet checked out The Walking Dead then I highly advise you give Season One a try as Season Two isn’t doing anything that’s going to win over new fans.
In conclusion, The Walking Dead hasn’t “jumped the shark” just yet so let’s continue enjoying what is turning out to be one of the most interesting stories told in a game.
