Struggles Of The Zombie Apocalypse, Done Right.
"The Walking Dead: Episode 1" shows us that it's much more than another doomsday diary.
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| Lee's paternal relationship with Clementine fuels an entire pillar of the story. |
With a well renowned series of graphic novels, a hit mini-series on AMC, and now an interactive episodic video game, I can rightly assume that you are aware of The Walking Dead. As an avid watcher and part-time reader of these horrifically realistic zombie survival exploits, I admittedly was skeptical when I heard a game interpretation was in the works. Especially given that the past projects of the studio behind it consist of Jurassic Park, Law and Order: Legacies and Back to the Future, all movie game re-makes that reek of mediocrity. Regardless, I downloaded the game and proceeded to play the entire first episode in a single two hour sitting, and to my surprise, this game did anything but disappoint.
The game follows Lee, a man with a dark past plagued by regret.... as well as a murder of passion, who finds himself cuffed in the back of a police cruiser leaving Atlanta. In typical zombie movie fashion, the car swerves to avoid a walker in the road, tumbling ensues, and Lee is plunged face first into a living nightmare.
Lee wakes up (presumably a few days later) to a slough of undead, a busted knee and a little girl named Clementine. Lee befriends the helpless girl and soon discovers that her parents were on vacation when the infection hit, and left with no choice he assumes a parental role and decides to seek help.
The story picks up quickly. Lee and Clementine come across new characters, travel to new locales, and most importantly develop relationships with the survivors around you. The game relies heavily on dialogue and the player’s ability to manipulate it, similar to that seen in games like Mass Effect.
When you meet a character you chose what to say to them, but unlike in other similar games, this can prove to be extremely difficult. The Walking Dead gives you a limited amount of time to chose your response, mimicking real life. Depending on your chosen reply, these split second calls can make the trust of a character waiver, initiate or avoid a fight, and even cause the death of another survivor. The way a situation plays out is unpredictable, and no matter how hard you try, it is rare for one to end as planned. These results often disheartened me whilst playing. However, these moments also added to the urgency and sadness, in turn creating a more compelling experience.
As in the TV show and comic, The Walking Dead has an underlying theme of having to pick sides. We can also infer that these choices will manifest themselves positively or negatively in future episodes, as well as in the end of the entire game series.
Aside from the dialogue sequences, there are very little scenes where the player has full control over Lee. This makes the mixed gameplay particularly unique. For the most part, he is either in a quick time event (a segment in which you have player control, but it is very limited for cinematic value), walking around in a limited space to find items or people to talk to, or in one of the game's problem solving sequences.
These problem solving sequences are exemplified by a scene in which Lee has to get to a boarded up survivor and zombies are blocking his path. You then have to tactically move Lee around a parking lot looking for weapons or other tools that could help him silently dispose of the scattered undead. I found these parts to be particularly intuitive, and surprisingly reminiscent of moments in the TV show.
It should also be noted that there is never a single moment where Lee moves and shoots at the same time, an aspect of most modern games that would scare away those new to a controller. Instead The Walking Dead, offers up extremely graspable slow controls that even your Grandma and three year old brother could handle.
When it comes to aesthetics, The Walking Dead looks and feels like a comic book. Its simplistic, cartoony graphics manage to create a dark mood and the depressing musical score generates a feeling of desperation.
The Walking Dead stands trial to my claims of video games being a superior form of storytelling, and perfectly embodies the points I was trying to get across. It also acts as a worthy extension to the already fleshed out Walking Dead universe, as it features familiar characters, as well as extremely subtle references to moments in the comic and show. Not to mention the game's five dollar price tag, simple controls, and broad availability (Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac) make it a worthy consideration for anyone to try...
9 / 10
IMAGES COURTESY OF PLAYDEAD GAMES
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