Game review: The Walking Dead

Hello ladies and gents!
Today I'll be talking about comic-oriented game called The Walking Dead.

 A bit about the game and developers.
The Walking Dead the game was made and published by telltale games studios. They are the same guys behind few other very famous and, as I heard, good games such as Tales of Monkey Island, Sam & Max seasons and few more.
Now, before I allow you to read my review, I want to tell you all that The Walking Dead TV Show is currently my favorite TV series, and therefore i was very assured that this game will ruin it all for me. I was wrong!

About Gameplay. 

Since The Walking Dead is more show than a game, there is not much to say about it's gameplay. This game is all about the story. Which I'll be writing about later. The Walking Dead is a puzzle game in which you have to react very fast. It's all about your own decisions. You don't move around the area too much by yourself, but when you do, you need to solve an easy puzzle. And by that I mean that you need to find out how to start a train, how to remove the wagon from the front part of the train,  how to kill few zombies without them seeing you and so on and on. It's easy but it does tend to get slightly tricky.

You also need to interact with your fellow "crew" members and ask for their opinions, thoughts and so on and on. In some scenarios you even need to decide which person should you save while letting the other one die.
 This game is more a show than a game to be honest. As stated before, you rarely ever move around. You are mainly stuck in cinematic which you can't skip because you have to chose something that you want Lee to say. Or you just decide to stay quiet and let the game take its course.

Very great thing about this amazing game is that story is tailored by the choices you make. Those who know me in real life, or at least those who spent some time to talk to me online know that I am actually a pretty good fella. And therefore, all my choices in game were always nice. Of course, that was not the best thing to do, but hey, that's what I'd do.

Choosing who to save and who to leave is the hardest aspect of this game. I'm a guy so, of course, I always chose females. Sometimes that was wrong. I'm sure that if I was making some other choices that the story of my game would be a bit different, and therefore I'll re-play it once i get home from Czech!

Graphic and Audio

Graphically speaking, The Walking Dead is very different than anything I've ever seen so far. I'm used on games with cartoony graphic such as League of Legends or Dungeon Defenders, and I'm also used on games that have "old cartoony" graphic, such as World of Warcraft, but this.. This game has something unseen. Comic book graphic! Everything in this game looks exactly as how it should look in a comic book! This makes it very unique. Songs in this game are very quiet. They are just "background noises", while you can listen to the wind, thunders and zombie moans. Zombie moans do, indeed, sound very great! Though, I didn't expect anything less from a game that got Game of the Year award!

Story -- EPIC SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! --

Okay so as i said in gameplay section, this game is all about Story, so be sure to skip it if you do not want any spoilers! In this game you start out as a killer who is going to jail because he killed a man who slept with his wife. His name (the guy that you play as) is called Lee. He was a teacher before all this happened. As you are heading out of Atlantic City you come across a zombie. You run over him and then fall off the road. I won't tell you many details because I think that it wouldn't be fun like that.

Anyway, after the crash you get into one house to search for help where you find one small girl. She decides to join you in your journey since you promised to look for her parents. Outside of her house, you find two guys who then take you to Hershel's farm, long before Rick and his crew comes there. After a while you leave the farm and end up in a shop which your parents used to own. You get a nice big crew there.

Then, you move to an empty hotel. You find some people who have a Dairy Farm and they invite you over for a dinner. Your friend gets shoot by an arrow there and those people from Dairy Farm end up cooking his legs for you and your crew. Once you find that out.. Let's say it's not so pretty sight. Few days / weeks after you return to your hotel some bandits come to rob you. You get into a massive fight and end up leaving the hotel behind and driving away. You also find out that there's a traitor in your crew.

After a while of driving you find a train. You need to solve a rather easy, yet tricky, puzzle to get it all set to go. Once ready, you and your crew start to drive to Savanah. Of course, there is no safe trip that lasts long. On your way there you end up stopping because there was a truck hanging right in front of the tracks, and you need to take care of it. Once you do that a friend of yours hurts his leg very bad since he had to jump from a "bridge" since there were millions of zombies chasing after you.

Once you get to Savanah you see that it's a very abandoned city and you find out that Clementine is talking to some random fella over a walkie talkie. Your main mission is to find an engine for the boat that you've found. After a while when you manage to find it, the little girl that you are taking care of gets stolen from you, and of course, you get bit.

You tell your friend to cut your arm off. Once they do that you go to search-and-rescue mission. When you located little Clem you find out that she was stolen by a psycho who is talking to a zombiefied head of his dead wife. You kill him and lead Clem to safety.. Well she actually leads you. The two of you get stuck in a small room.. You are almost turned into a zombie. You make her shoot you and as soon as that happens BOOM, the end.

I left out A LOT of details because I really did not want to spoil the game too much for you. You should all really get it!

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Amazing, new, unexpected graphic.
- Amazing storyline.
- Game is tailored by the choices you make.
- You meet Hershel and Glenn before they join Rick's crew.

Cons:
- The text that you have to chose from disappears very fast, so somebody whose English is not too good will have some troubles with playing the game.
- There are some occasional lags  when the cinematic are getting "tailored" so it's sometimes hard to react and kill a zombie in 2 seconds that you get.

Final grade: 8/10

Extra info: The Walking Dead the game surprised me! In a great way! As a massive fan of The Walking Dead TV Series, i really doubted that this game would be even nearly as good as the show is, but I was wrong. Both stories are amazing and I love them both! I really recommend this game to everyone! It takes a bit of time until you get used to graphic, movement and the game itself but when you do... Paradise, hehe.

Also, on the side note, I will be going to Czech Republic tomorrow and therefore, there will probably be no reviews for two weeks! There still might be some but i doubt it.
Therefore, I wish you all Marry Christmas and very Happy New Year! June wishes you all the same thing :P

Wolfie