Goombd Played! - The Walking Dead Episode 2: Starved for Help

It's all going south as soon as 'The Walking Dead' episode 2, titled "Starved for Help" opens. We find Lee and the group three months after the events of the first episode, after having found the motel and made an improvised settlement out of it. Much expected tension is brewing from within the group in regards to leadership and everyone can agree that that should be the least of their worries: they're hungry and supplies are running dangerously low.

Human drama is one of the best developed aspects of 'The Walking Dead', in both comic and TV show form, so it's no surprise that this episode of the game series revolves around it. Granted, some of the story bits turn out to be fairly predictable and clichéd, with how quickly some revelations are made and how some characters' behaviors change so suddenly.

Behavior change is one of the reasons that got me worried about the game while playing this episode. At E3, Telltale went on to mention how deeply your decisions would affect the story and events in future episodes, and Starved for Help already starts rolling out consequences about things you've said and reacted to in the premiere episode. Those particular spots seemed really out of place in my relationship to one particular character, considering how I've been treating that person since the beginning. Their change in behavior was radical and completely opposite to what I had been building by my actions and dialogue choices. This change revolved around the only time I went partially against that person's point of view in the previous episode.

I'm curious to see how far this change will go, although considering how other inconsistencies go, it might have been scripted from the beginning. Other events during this episode make it seem like your choices only affect small elements of the plot. Case in point, the E3 demo I watched which took place right at the start of the episode - someone is rescued and something happens to them a little while later. In my playthrough, I rescued someone else and later on, the same thing happened to them, in the same manner. Will that really be the measure of how deep my decisions influence the story? Or is the big shift coming in later on in the narrative?

Hopefully my worries will be destroyed as the series approaches its conclusion. Everything else about this game is absolutely brilliant and within the style of 'The Walking Dead'. We get to see some of the best action scenes and dramatic dialog seen in a Telltale adventure game in this episode. The new characters are well acted and irregardless of the shift in tone due to time constraints of a season episode, their development is realistic, despite the circumstances are little predictable. Although that might just be my inner thriller/horror movie fan talking here.

Conflicts and character development is what makes 'The Walking Dead' most unique. You won't be left starving for zombie carnage with episode 2 and by the time you're done with it, you'll have your fill of human drama. |8

Goombd Played! - The Walking Dead Episode 1: A New Day

 

The Walking Dead is a phenomenon and it's easy to see why. It incorporates the best parts of the classic zombie genre movies as well as introducing even more human drama than we're used to seeing in just about any medium. We got a very successful comic for years, a new TV show going to its third season and now an episodic game series coming in from Telltale Games. Does it capture the dread and hopelessness of the original source material?

That's a resounding yes. The first episode of the 'The Walking Dead' game, A New Day, starts off and ends with a bang, with many, many exciting and terrific moments thrown in between. If you were disappointed with the Jurassic Park series, Telltale's earlier release, you should look into The Walking Dead, since it takes the best parts of that game's mechanics and mixes them up with a bunch of little elements from other series, like Sam & Max's direct control and conversation wheels, as well as adding a timer to make decisions ever more important.

 

It all starts as Lee, the handsome guy who's in most of the promotional screenshots for the game, is being driven to a prison in the Atlanta, Georgia area by a very talkative police officer. During their conversation, the guy can't help but notice a strange commotion going on - police cars zipping by on the opposite highway lane, the patrol car radio going berserk and oh, the wandering zombie just hanging around in the middle of the road. After a violent crash, he's left to his wits to survive the zombie apocalypse, at least until he meets up with Clementine, a smart little girl who had managed to live by her own up 'til that point.

If you've seen any of the trailers, you know the story goes well beyond that, and if you haven't, you're not reading this searching for info if you can't just play the damn thing, so the spoilers will be minimal, in fact, non-existent for now on. Safe to say, chaos ensues, pressing decisions are made, which carry over throughout the entire game (and possibly the series) and it's all extremely well made.

Telltale teased repercussions for your moral decisions when I interviewed them at last year's E3. According to them, your actions would influence who lived and died, how others react to Lee and even if your companion, Clementine, liked you or not. That holds true and is taken even further right from the start. You can be honest and lay the entire truth to just about anyone you meet, or hold info back and gain their distrust. Decisions like that carry more water than you think, to the point of there being a comparison board at the end of the game, showing the percentages of other players who agreed with you. The Walking Dead is all about decisions having an effect on the overall experience, and thanks to that, you might just get an entirely different game than your friends', and part ways right from the first episode, depending on the choices you make.

Frankly, I was already expecting to get a great game when I heard that the series' original writer, Robert Kirkman would be involved, as well as The Book of Eli's Gary Whitta, so it came as no surprise how well the dread of the comics was translated in game form. You're never sure who is going to make it through and there's never a safe moment throughout your first playthrough of this episode. Fans of the (now huge) franchise can appreciate how well the source material is treated, not just in story form, but in the presentation as well.

 

The comics' look made the transition quite well to polygonal look featured in the game. While still sporting relatively simpler character models, the texture work was made to resemble a comic book, with thick black lines thrown in, as well as a very well directed color palette. Granted, the 'The Walking Dead' comics are black and white and at a point in its development, the game was thought of having that art style as well, I have to say, I'm glad they went with the colored look. None of the characters look absurdly cartoony, in the "Telltale style" seen in previous games. We're given some great performances from the voice actors too, that are tied to very expressive animation.

Don't worry, you'll get plenty of zombies too. The ghouls look pretty good too and die just as gruesomely as you'd hope. Telltale is not pulling any punches. Deaths are bloody and gory, and characters throw expletives left and right, like anybody would in the situations they're put in. Conversations carry out in fluid manner, and diffusing potentially violent situations is not as easy as just agreeing with one side of the argument. 

This feels like Telltale's most mature title yet and it's great to see how well the series is starting out. If you're anywhere near a console or computer, you absolutely have to give 'The Walking Dead' a go. Not only is it a great piece of lore for the series as a whole, it's an exciting and tense experience in the form of a game. I'm definitely excited to see where things will go from here, something I haven't felt about an adventure game in years. |9

Goombd Watched! - The Walking Dead 'Mid' Season 2

When I think of zombie related fiction, my mind is always drawn to the human struggles. That's probably due to my "formation" in the genre, that comes from watching the George A. Romero school of movies, which for the beginning half were strongly tied to the deterioration of the human mind during a crisis and less of a bloody fest.

Thanks to that and my liking of comics - I'm no collector, but I dabble in them from time to time - it was an easy transition to make when I first discovered and started reading the 'The Walking Dead' book. At that point, the series was already well underway and thanks to the excellent pacing and captivating nature of Robert Kirkman's narrative, it didn't take me long to get up to speed on the story.

It was just as easy to transition to the TV show. Season one had less episodes and the comics' story was somewhat retold in a different manner. Some characters were completely new and the survivor group movement relatively different than what the book told, a big plus in my opinion. Friends were pretty divided, though. Some hated the fact that the show was so slow at points, or the lack of deaths and violence.

That sentiment carried over and grew quite a bit on season two. There were more episodes for the producers to work with and they obviously took their time building up the impending group conflict for the second half of the season, with characters evolving and adapting to the situation in a slower and more deliberate pace and for some viewers, that's just dull.


I'm not torn up about it nor would I go out of my way to try to change their minds. For me, the show is working extremely well, taking bits and pieces from the original source and coming up with its own identity. I never wanted to see frame-to-frame from the comic in film form at any point. That'd be just boring for this show. Sure, I'd love to see some things from the book pop up here and there, especially after the farm setting is done away with (if ever, in season two) but unlike die-hard fans that grope and moan about every single little detail that's changed in a comic book adaptation, I'm happy with what's being done with The Walking Dead.

Will people get what they want in the second half of this season? More guts and gore, tension and deaths? Probably. Would I like to see it done every single episode? Certainly not. This is a show that should go beyond just seeing people getting torn to bits all the time. I'm fine with the concept of grindhouse existing for horror flicks, but those are just that. Flicks. This is a TV show, it spans for much longer and there are only so many ways the same thing can happen before it just becomes dull. And so far, The Walking Dead is anything but that.

February 12th can't come soon enough!