Bring out yer dead! (TellTale's The Walking Dead, PC)

*SPOILER WARNING*

A slight warning to readers: while I will do my best to avoid specific spoilers. Since The Walking Dead is as much about the journey as it is the destination, even generic ones may end up removing much of the emotional punch that the game has to offer. Forewarned is fair warned. To those who want my suggestion without the spoilery details, know that the game comes highly recommended to both fans of the show/comic and newcomers alike.


Up until I played the game, I had never before read or seen The Walking Dead (TWD) in any other medium, so I was not entirely sure what to expect when I started playing. I had been hearing good things about the game, but my lack of investment in the series kept me from following it. Having received a few hearty recommendations from friends, I decided to give the game a try. What I ended up playing did not disappoint and remains one of the highlights of 2012, doing so well as a game that it sold me on the premise of the series and got me into the tv show and even comic. The game, though, stands out as the strongest of the three, and that has everything to do with TellTale's expertise in dialogue, story telling and characters.

Aside from the whole 'zombie apocalypse' thing, TWD is firmly rooted in being a realistic portrayal of 'normal' people desperately trying to survive the end of the world. The series is built around the question "What would you do to survive in a world bent on killing you?" As a player, you will get to live these decisions on your own choice and decide how you should react to events.

While TWD is sprinkled with Quick Time Events and standard fare inventory/environment management puzzles, most of the real gameplay comes by way of dialogue options with other characters. You decide almost (if not all) of Lee's (the main chracter) interactions with other characters. Each conversation choice will prevent with several options to choose from, with 'say nothing' even being an option in most cases. Decisions (or indecisions) you make can directly affect the story and will definitely change how other characters perceive you and interact with you in future situations.

However, you are not given an infinite amount of time to think about the decisions before you have to act. Almost all of them are 'real time' decisions, and while this may sound frustrating it actually makes the decisions you make feel far more natural and impactful. It actually helps reduce the urge to 'min/max' the game to try to make 'perfect' decisions and instead brings out more basic instincts and really prove who you are and what you would do when placed on the spot. Much of the impact of the gameplay occurs outside of the 4-5seconds you have to decide, as you personally come to grips with what made you make that split second decision and how you are going to deal with the repercussions.

While it can be frustrating that 'major' decisions are not explicitly labeled as such, I found that by not doing this, Telltale made the rest of the game more engaging. By not knowing which decisions are considered 'major' and which ones are just fluff conversation pieces, each conversation becomes important as you have no indication otherwise. It helps lend additional weight to the feeling that every decision is important and can have an impact on how the story plays out and how people react to you.

Speaking of characters, Telltale does an extremely good job of creating believable characters, situations and dialogue that helps emphasize their growth and place in the world. This is crucial for a world like TWD where characters are by no way guaranteed to make it past the next hour, let alone by the end of the game. It helps to make decisions more personal and more engaging when you have a level of investment in actual characters as opposed to nameless fodder and helps to give TWD that extra emotional punch that sets it above the pack.

The story and gameplay are also well paced throughout most of the episodes. Your time will swap between light puzzles (which are all very logical and do not involve trying to combine every weird combination of items you can pick up), conversation and quick action (QTEs). This helps to cover up one of the few flaws the game has, which is it's not much of a "game". Light, easy puzzles, QTEs and selecting dialog choices does not make for incredibly compelling gameplay. However, since it's paced well (and the story/characters are engaging enough) the game rarely begins to feel tired or samey and helps to keep you playing. Recapping major decisions at the end of each episode (and showing comparisons vs. other players) helps to keep the impact of your choices in mind and gives a good conversation starter for seeing how you and your friends played differently.

Possibly the only other complaint I would have - and one that I really only got after reading up on the game after completing it - was the fact that, over time, many of your decisions still do not "matter". If you just play the game through once, though, you would be hard pressed to notice it... in fact, the choices and story are so well placed that they VERY successfully give you the illusion of choice, even while rarely providing it.

*WARNING*: Continuing on to the next section is probably the most spoilery part, so if you are still trying to read this and want to avoid spoilers, DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ :*WARNING*

While most of your decisions will have short term impacts (who lives, who dies, who goes and who stays), very few have long term decisions as plot points tend to neatly tie themselves up one way or another. Did you piss someone off early? They might 'forget' if you help them on something later. Were you a helpful saint or a ruthless tyrant? Doesn't matter!

Now I'm not saying there are no decisions that have a meaningful impact, as some do and the rest are masterfully crafted to feel that way. But take a peek behind the curtain and it just doesn't feel as magical as it is if you don't. It is one of the few times that replaying the game can actually make the entire experience worse, not better.


Overall, The Walking Dead is a strong game and a breath of life into the well-tread Adventure genre. The game is not perfect, but it's a solid first offering and I look forward to how they improve in "Season 2".