A review of the latest chapter of Telltale Games' hit video games series 'The Walking Dead'
Before every episode of the video game of The Walking Dead there is a statement developer Telltale Games puts up: “This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play.”
I can only laugh at this inaccurate, fallacious statement made by Telltale Games.
Truth be told, The Walking Dead: Season Two, as a whole, does a better job than its predecessor of creating a more fleshed out, complete story.
But to claim the game is “tailored” towards how gamers play is unsettlingly false.
The Story
For those unfamiliar to Telltale Games’ hit video game series, The Walking Dead: Season Two follows Clementine, a young girl with great fortitude and moral compass, as she is thrown into the ravaged, zombie infested world.
After season one protagonist Lee dies in the final moments of the original season, players take control of Clementine. Telltale Games gives players a wide variety of options on how Clementine can handle a certain situation, as the season is split into five episodes.
Each episode is set up to further Clementine’s story of survival, even if some episodes throughout Season Two seem empty and unnecessary.
It is clear Telltale wants players to experience their story and not have the players make their own.
A problem I’ve ran into with The Walking Dead is that after two full seasons, I’m starting to not care about the minor characters anymore.
The carousel of characters that come in and out of the season, other than Clementine, is so rapid that I wonder what the point of caring about this character is if he or she is going to die.
In terms of actual storytelling, Telltale does a decent job of writing a meaningful and thought-provoking story. There are some head scratching moments here and there, but overall, the story is intense and worthy of a single play through. I won’t spoil anything here, but Clementine’s season has it’s fair share of gripping moments.
Gameplay
The Walking Dead has players do quick time events and button mashes accordingly. If Clementine is being chased by a walker, a prompt to move the analog stick left may come up. If the player succeeds, Clementine will dodge and continue on. If the prompt is failed, Clementine simply dies and the sequence is repeated. By the end of episode five, the QTEs and button mashing became embarrassingly stale and repetitive.
Players will also have the ability to choose what they want to say and how they interact during conversations, however by the final scene of episode five, a lot of choices players made throughout the season don’t even have a significant impact.
For example, Clementine meets a dog in episode one after running away from a wave of walkers. Telltale gives the player an option to either be friendly, hesitate or hasty towards the wild creature. It is supposed to give the player a sense of freedom for how they want to react, but this all falls in vain.
Telltale attempts to bring a unique story line to each player, but in reality it’s all just one forced linear storyline.
Final Verdict
The Walking Dead: Season 2 ends with a final chapter that disappoints. After a first season that was refreshing and new to gamers, Telltale fails to reinvent the wheel the second time around. The second season still develops into a powerful storyline about survival and the common characteristics that ties us all together, but the once promising gameplay premise has run dry.
@Lukeoroark
lr514812@ohio.edu
