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The Walking Dead is somewhat of an anomaly amongst recent video games, as it is essentially an evolution of the old point and click style adventure game, a genre which barely exists anymore. What does feel contemporary about it is the setting, a dystopian world menaced by zombies. Have shambling corpses ever been so hip as they are at present?
Despite the obvious similarities to Resident Evil and especially The Last Of Us, Telltale's game manages to have a distinctive style all of its own. For one thing the graphical style is completely different; The Walking Dead is based on a comic book series and appropriately has a vibrant artistic design which feels completely appropriate for that. For the main part the animation is quite accomplished and there are only a few moments where the characters expressions seemed overly exaggerated or a little flat.
Another difference is that despite the title this is a game which isn't really focused on the zombie plague at all. Like the carnivorous plants of the classic story Day of the Triffids the zombies are used as a plot device to examine what would happen if civilisation started to break down, although this was a much less cosy story with a grim atmosphere closer in tone to The Death of Grass by John Christopher. Don't be fooled by the cartoon style, this is a bleak, adult story which has moments of graphic violence and a fair amount of profanity.
If you are used to point and click games then you would probably expect a lot of challenging puzzles but there are in fact very few. Walking Dead is more of an interactive drama where the story is played out based on how the player's character responds during conversations with the other survivors. You are usually given a choice of four options which must be made within a limited time period. Some of the decisions you have to make are real moral dilemmas such as who in the group gets to eat when food supplies are limited, and they feel like they have real weight as they can actually affect who lives and who dies.
The story is really brought to life by the excellent voice acting and clever scripting which ensures that the survivors come across as complex personalities. It has the feel of a quality television serial, being divided into 5 separate 'episodes' which even have previews of the following episode and recaps of previous events just as a tv show would. Although some plot twists were predictable the storyline was mostly compelling, with some excellent cliifhangers which really make you want to continue to see how events pan out. The heart of the story is the relationship between Lee Everett, an escaped convict and a young girl he meets called Clementine which was genuinely moving. It all builds up to a very powerful climax, my only disappointment about this being that there is only one way that the story can end no matter what actions the player takes as Lee. I would have preferred it to have multiple endings in the style of Fallout: New Vegas which would have given the player a greater sense of influence on the narrative.
The other less impressive aspect of the game was the action scenes when the zombies attack. They do provide a nice change of pace but felt a little pointless as there was no real penalty for failure. It would have been more effective if you were given a rating or lost the trust of the other characters if you screwed up, but the game just makes you play the scene again which gave these sections the feel of being merely filler.
As well as the 5 episodes an additional scenario, 400 Days, is included which introduces 5 new characters. The production values are as high as the rest of the game but each of the 5 segments is fairly short and I did not find them quite as involving as the main story. They pretty much stand alone and can be played in any order, although an epilogue makes some attempt to join them together. This part mainly seems to exist to introduce some characters who will feature in the next 'season' so did not seem quite so interesting when played on its own.
Overall though this was an excellent package and is highly recommended to gamers looking for a more thoughtful style of game with a strong storyline and good characters. If you'd rather be shooting up the undead with a shotgun then you would be better off looking elsewhere.
9/10
