Banana Scoop

For a while now, The Walking Dead franchise has been buzzing like a fly around manure.  The cult comic book got a television adaptation that brought the names Rick Grimes & Daryl Dixon to becoming a household name.  Unfortunately, the original creator of the characters, Robert Kirkman, still isn’t so much a household name, nor is his glorious comic book.  A year ago, two games carrying the franchise name were inevitably released.  One revolved around the television show’s original creations, The Dixon brothers, and was critically panned.  The other one, which was created by Telltale Games, was more based on the universe created from Kirkman’s comic book and generated an enormous amount of buzz, even gathering several Game of the Year rewards.

So what made the comic book adaptation game better than the television adaptation game?  It must be better zombie killing weapons or better graphics right?  Wrong.  Telltale’s The Walking Dead is much different from any other game I’ve ever played, and it’s one game that I won’t long forget for a long time.

Minor spoilers from the game, none that will ruin your experience.

You’re put into the body of Lee Everett, who is a college professor on his way to prison after murdering the man who his wife cheated on with.  The zombie apocalypse gives him a second chance when he runs into a young girl, Clementine.  Amongst thousands of zombies, untrusting allies, and brutal mercenaries, Lee finds himself doing whatever it takes to protect Clementine.

This Game is Essentially a Really Long Cut Scene 

I mentioned above that this game isn’t like any other game I’ve ever played.  By this I mean, there aren’t a lot of the typical video game tropes and mechanics that are so often in mainstream video games.  There isn’t a HUD screen showing you your health, how much ammo you have or a radar with an objective.  Most games today have some form of roam freedom with customization options and the like, but The Walking Dead’s story is incredibly ‘linear’.  By this I mean, after a series of cutscenes, you’re thrown into a very linear chunk of gameplay where it’s fairly obvious the direction you’re supposed to heat into, with a small number of puzzles that impede your path.  By accomplishing these tasks, you’re set into another cutscene with more dialogue options that lead to another chunk of gameplay.  Over all five episodes of this game, it doesn’t much stray from that formula, occasionally breaking out into an action packed scene.  Think of the game as a movie where you sometimes control where the main character walks and how he talks.  What I’m not really explaining well so far is how difficult this game can be, which is covered below.

The Most Difficult Parts of This Game Isn’t a Hard Level or a Distinct Overarching Foe

I’d say the crux of the gameplay in this game isn’t the walking or puzzle solving I covered above, but the dialogue options presented to you during the cutscenes.  The game warns you in the beginning that your actions directly influence the flow of the game.  Other games have claimed the same level of choice, but none deliver the consequences of your actions as much as Telltale’s The Walking Dead.  Normally, four options are given to you and you can approach a situation that most agrees with your own personality.  Even in light conversation, you can choose to be a complete jerk or a total pushover.  But it’s during the intense scenes where these decisions are most crucial.  Two people are getting attacked by zombies, who do you choose to save? Someone in the group is falling behind, do you wait for him and risk the rest of the group? You have four rations of food for eight people, who do you choose to starve?  How do you handle your best friend losing his mind?  Decisions like these, made even more-so panicky with a time limit, make the game emotionally stressful in ways I personally have never felt..How do you live with the decisions you make?  Are you a merciful guardian or a brutal mercenary?  What’s even better is that The Walking Dead’s story path is forged by your decisions.  And while the game comes to the same conclusion no matter what path you took, the journey taken to get there is individual and unique.

The Things Man is Capable of During the Zombie Apocalypse…Are Horrifically Sensical.

In this game, there are no good guys or bad guys.  At least this is so in my honest opinion.  The zombie apocalypse was something no one could have seen coming, and how people are supposed to react during a stressful time [while surviving] can’t be predicted.  This game shows you the hard way that the decisions made don’t always mean you’re an awful person.  Throughout the game you meet some awful people who have done awful things, but the game reminds you that some of the decisions you’ve made doesn’t exactly make you a saint yourself.  How far do you go to judge an awful person, knowing yourself that what you’ve done makes you an awful person?  Now don’t get me wrong, there are some seriously screwed up things that happen in the game, but how you handle them can truly define who you really are…

The Relationships You Develop Aren’t Forgotten

Across five episodes you meet a myriad of people, each with distinct and memorable personalities.  You make best friends, you find potential lovers, and you deal with incredible assholes.  It’s the distinct personalities that Telltale instilled into these characters that make you grieve if [when] they die or silently cheer when they meet their unfortunate ends [especially when it’s by your hands].  There are times when I defended my best friend over choosing reason because there was a time he saved my life in the past, and I don’t regret the consequences of my actions [and yes there were consequences.]  There are times when my general pacifistic nature was completely thrown out the window when confronted with the biggest asshole of all time.  Something beastly came out of me, something I wasn’t entirely sure I was capable of and I didn’t care about the consequences that came along with it.  I lived with it, and when I was reminded of it, I paid for it.  Dearly.

Clementine

And then there is Clementine.  Clementine is the heart and soul of this game.  She’s what you fight for during the 8-10 hour journey.  She’s your motivation for making any action, worried how you look in front of her.  Clementine is a beacon of innocence that makes you squeal when she does something adorable [which is everything].  I’ve never cared so much for a fictional character on such a personal level [falling in love with Lisbeth Salander/Maggie Greene/Jane Kerkovich {gawd I miss Happy Endings} doesn’t count].  I found some of the most emotionally powerful moments revolved around Clementine, whether it be discussing your true past with her [you being a murderer and everything] or lying to her about her parents still being alive.  You teach her how to use a gun and you warn her about bad people.  People often remind Lee that if he is a good role model for Clementine, and while sometimes I believe someone else could be better for Clementine, my own attachment wouldn’t allow her to leave me.  Conflicted feelings aren’t scarce in a scene with Clementine and I knock myself in the head every time I told her something that made her cry.

What Happens After

I purposefully blurred out the major decisions, hopefully the right side doesn’t spoil too much.

Perhaps one of the coolest features o this game is the end-game statistic it provides you.  At the end of each episode, it outlines the five or six most important decisions and matches you up against how the rest of the world decided.  I’ve included an example above while blurring out the conflicts in hopes of avoiding spoilers.  What is perhaps the most interesting is how 50/50 some of the choices were, meaning that people truly have divided opinions on how a situation is approached.  I found a surprising number of times I laid in the 13% range, making me think “really? why wouldn’t you do that??”.  What makes this statistic even more valid is that the player isn’t swayed by prizes or rewards for sticking to a truly altruistic or chaotic path as seen in inFamous or Mass Effect.  It simply allows the player to choose what option they would legitimately choose, allowing you to compare your true self with other players’ true selves.

Overall The Walking Dead has definitely set a high standard of what emotional gaming has the potential to be.  With incredible character development, difficult choices, and unconventional action scenes, Telltale’s The Walking Dead will forever be one of my favorite games of all time.  Who knows, I might try my hand at it once more making different decisions from before and being taken down an all new emotional road.

But meanwhile we can get hype for this…

Spoiler: Clementine is alive and ready to kick ass in Season 2