Anyone following the gaming world will probably know this game has received Game of the Year awards left right and center. It very much deserves these awards and should be regarded as an industry-changing game in storytelling.
Simply put it follows the story of Lee Everett - a convicted murderer - when the zombie apocalypse comes crashing down on the world. He finds an 8 year old girl called Clementine and the story follows their fight for survival while finding other survivors to go on with.
I have to give this game 9 stars overall as there are a few things that unfortunately make it a little less than perfect. These are mostly technical though.
Pros:
- The story. The Walking Dead's story is one of the best in the gaming world by far in my opinion, and you'll hear a lot of people saying the same thing. A lot of people focus on the Lee/Clementine aspect of it, but I personally enjoy everyone's contribution to the story equally. It wouldn't be the same without them! As expected with a zombie game it's not going to be a happy story. It's very heavy at times and faces a lot of morally disturbing questions. At the same time it lets you question your own morality if you do play this as if it were real life (which I highly recommend you do). The ending is so beautifully done both visually and musically and it'll certainly leave an impact on you for a long time after.
- The characters. Some you'll love and some you'll hate - but only if you instinctively hate them or the game WANTS you to hate them. Never the kind of hate for badly constructed characters. The characters are believable and could be very relatable to some people. The voice actors did a wonderful job on this game.
- Music. What more can be said here. The game has a fantastic at at times very emotional score.
- It is a choice based game. Player based choices run through this game's entirety. I particularly like how it tells you what percentage of people did the same as you at the end of each episode.
Cons:
- On my PS3 disc version of the game at least it can run a bit sticky sometimes, especially if it's been on for a while. What I mean by this is during cutscenes the screen will freeze up quite a bit and be very 'jagged' playing. This is a common complaint among disc players so it's not just a problem with me.
- Not-so-seamless loading screens. After key points where tensions are running high, the mood is somewhat broken by quite frequent and noticeable cuts to loading screens.
- Your choices don't really matter in the bigger picture. Now I wasn't expecting choices on the absolute massive scale of something like Mass Effect, but really... your choices don't matter in the long run. You don't even get one single alternate ending no matter how drastically you change your gameplay. Sure your choices will decide if someone likes you or hates you, and if one person does something instead of another. But it doesn't change the overall story at all.
These cons are not enough to detract from the sheer power of the story though, and although they may sound bad I really wouldn't worry about them ruining anything. You should definitely give this game a try, I'm sure you'll be hooked!
