Review: The Walking Dead: The Game

The Walking Dead is an adventure game, albeit one that is light on the game part, for PC, Mac, iOS, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It was developed by Telltale Games. It is based on The Walking Dead comic book TV series. It was released episodically over 2012, with the fifth and final episode released in November.

Lee Everett and Clementine, in one of the game's many "I have to think quickly about what I say or else it could cause problems later" conversations.

Lee Everett, college professor and convicted criminal, wakes up from a police car crash to find that the zombie apocalypse has happened. Lee stumbles upon a house and discovers Clementine, a little girl who has been hiding out on her own from the zombies. Lee befriends Clementine, and together the two have to survive in this dangerous new world.

The Walking Dead is a mix of long cutscenes where you control what Lee says, and parts where Lee can walk around, talk to people, and interact with objects. For the walking around sections, you either have to just talk to people to advance the plot, or solve a puzzle. The game progresses in a linear fashion, going from place to cutscene to place without much choice in the matter.

The talking sections take up most of the game. During those, the conversation progresses automatically, and when it is time for Lee to talk you will have a couple of seconds to put in one of three options available, or let him say nothing.

The talking parts are very entertaining, though the emphasis on talking over actually playing a game might not be for everyone, which is their loss. The only problem I had with the talking parts was that the game saves automatically, but it always saves before the talking parts. So if you wait until you can control Lee again and quit, then when you reload your save you have to go through all the cutscenes again.

In the puzzle sections, there are usually two options to solve it, an easy solution and a hard one. The difficult solution means being patient and looking for some item that will help you get past the zombies or find something to help the group.

A lot of puzzles are based on trying to find something that can help a person.

Puzzles are never difficult. You just have to have enough patience to find whatever it is you need to solve the puzzle instead of running out and getting yourself killed.

You cannot really lose in The Walking Dead, the story progresses no matter what you choose. The only way to lose are the few times when Lee or Clem can die, and if they die the game just starts right back up before they died, giving you another chance.

The game makes a big deal out of your choices having consequences, but most of the reactions to your choices are cosmetic. Like you do something and later on someone will yell at you for it, or having to choose which character lives and which character dies. But Lee and Clem still go to the same locations, run into the same people, and deal with the same major situations no matter what choices you make.

There is not much of a story. Lee, Clem, and other people they run into try to keep themselves alive. They have no bigger objective, most of the story is about Lee’s group working together, or fighting, until something bad happens to wherever they are holed up and they have to run. There is an awful lot of fighting over what the group should do to survive which causes most of problems Lee and Clem run into in the game.

What the game lacks in a focused story it more than makes up for it with characters. Everyone that Lee and Clementine meet up with is, if not likable, then at least interesting to watch. Everyone in Lee’s growing group has a backstory and their own conflicting motivations which make sense in the context of the story, so you do not feel like the game is just throwing obstacles at Lee and Clem. That is why you still care about the choices you make, even if they do not cause any major changes in the game, because it is upsetting to see Lee fight with everyone, and it is nice when everyone gets along. You will grow to like at least a few of these characters, and it will feel horrible when something bad happens to anyone, which is often. This game shows what interactive media has over books and television, because your interactions with everyone makes you care about them more, and it is often your fault when something terrible happens.

Lee himself is an interesting character, though his actions are dependent on the player, he does act like a real human instead of just a blank puppet you control. And it is impossible to hate Clementine, who is so sweet and agreeable, and unbelievably resolute in the face of near constant trauma. You will care about what happens to her so much, and seeing something bad happen to her will feel like someone reached into your guts and twisted them around.

To be Lee and Clementine is to know suffering.

I do feel though that sometimes the story becomes needlessly tragic for increased drama, which can feel a bit forced at times. Awful things will happen because all of a sudden someone starts acting like an idiot. The game does not give you a lot of control, but it still gives you some control, which makes it especially annoying when the games wrests control away from you to make the situation worse.

I am not sure if you would call The Walking Dead a really good “game”, but it uses the video game medium so well to make you care about what is going on, much more than a book or a TV show ever could. It would be terrible if anyone missed out on this, because you would be hard pressed to find a similar story that will get you this emotionally invested.