Friday 23 November 2012

In Which I Heap Untold Praise on The Walking Dead: The Game

Telltale Games has done something truly remarkable with The Walking Dead: The Game. They took a choose-your-own adventure in a recognizable, post-apocalyptic society - an ingenious enough idea on its own - yet managed to turn it into something more. It furthers the idea of games as a storytelling medium and over the course of all five chapters of season 1 they manage to redefine the very genre of adventure gaming.

I've held off reviewing each individual episode as they came out because I felt the game was better-served to be judged on the whole rather than as the sum of its varying parts. This is something I stand by as the game has high points (episodes 2 and 5 are brilliant) and parts where the story bogs down a little bit (parts of episodes 3 and 4), but taken a single, overarching story you can really appreciate it that much more.

Episode 1 starts out simply enough - as Lee Everett, you find yourself in the back of a cop car, headed towards prison just outside of Atlanta as the world is very slowly going to Hell in a handbasket. For the first time in Walking Dead canon, this shows what the apocalypse was like in the early days (as previous instances had Rick waking up from his coma several weeks after the fall of society) so it's interesting to see things from a slightly different perspective this time around. Inevitably, of course, the car hits a walker, crashes and Lee escapes - thus starting his journey.

I'm not going to touch on any plot points because this is really something you should experience for yourself, but, as you would expect in a zombie game, you meet people who will form the basis of a survival group. You'll get along with some, you'll want to kill some, some you'll just wish would get eaten alive so you won't have to listen to them anymore (*cough* Ben *cough*). Episode 1 has a couple of cameos from existing Walking Dead characters (Hershel of 'Hershel's Farm' fame and everyone's favourite college-educated pizza-delivery guy, Glenn) but thankfully they are off-screen quick enough that they don't act as a distraction. I liken it to the developers saying, "Hey, look - our story is taking place in the same universe!" but they smartly allow it to become Lee's story. And that's important because, as Lee, you will mould the way your group of survivors react. Will they be forthright and honest? Will you backstab them? When the going gets tough, will you run or will you refuse to leave anyone behind? All of these choices - some of which appear to be rather inconsequential at the time you make them - serve to round out your playthrough. Couple this with several quick-time events that can dramatically change how scenes play out and the time-limit you're given to choose your dialoague options (gone are the days where you can just mindlessly ask every single question that comes up on your dialogue wheel until you find out what you need to know - The Walking Dead demands you pay stay on your toes and you can only say one thing. And the character you're speaking to *will remember*. So think long and hard before you call Lily a bitch.) and it's not surprising to find that this is a game that encourages multiple playthroughs. How many other adventure games can say that, right?

A game that's as heavily character driven as this one needs good voice acting to really enhance the story that the writers are trying to tell and thankfully The Walking Dead has some of the best voice acting I've heard in a while. Featuring several of the company's stable of voice actors (If you've played Back To The Future or Sam & Max chances are you'll recognize some of the voices), the work is uniformly excellent. What might be most shocking is 8-year old Clementine - a character who you will quickly learn serves as the emotional heart of the story - who is actually played by a 40-year old woman.

If a game can be judged on artistic merit by its ability to illicit emotional responses, the finale of The Walking Dead may well be Telltale's Mona Lisa. The finale is frantic yet emotional and heartfelt and as beautiful as something knee-deep in zombie gore could possibly be. The fact that it can manage to be that satisfying, however, is only because the previous acts grew and developed characters and a story that we were interested and invested in. It is truly a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Geek Score: 10 out of 10 bacon strips (Golden Bacon award!)

What I'm Playing: The Old Republic (free to play!) on PC, Dishonored on XBox 360

What I'm Reading: Sweet Tooth vol. 5 by Jeff Lemire (only one more trade after this one. *sniff*)

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