The Walking Dead: Season 1 (PlayStation 4)


The Walking Dead is an interactive adventure game in which you take control of a man named Lee. When our story begins, Lee is in the back of a cop car making idle chitchat with the police officer, when suddenly all hell breaks loose, because zombies. As he's running from the awful situation in front of him, he meets a young girl named Clementine, whose parents were away when the incident happened.



Lee and Clementine travel together, trying to find her parents, or even just a safe place in this new, unsafe world. On their travels they'll meet and say goodbye to many people, some of which is dependent on your actions. In essence, this is a story about a man trying to take care of a young girl in a horrific situation.



Being an interactive game, most of the gameplay comes in the form of choices you have to make. Some choices have a time limit, which varies, and saying nothing is also an option in most situations. How you respond to things and the decisions you make will have some effect on the narrative. Sometimes it will only be a change in dialogue, and other times it will determine your companions. It will also shape people's impressions of you.


Aside from dialogue options, you'll also move around, examine things, use things on other things, shoot things, or other such actions. Most of this is done by pointing and pressing a button, although occasionally you'll need to mash a button, or hold a button. Like dialogue choices, many of these events are on a timer, so make sure you're paying attention for any quick time events. This is a largely narrative game, don' expect high action because the periods of action are pretty minimal. This game spans five episodes and supposedly will have an impact on Season 2 (although I haven't checked it out yet). You may also get the 400 Days DLC, which adds a few small side stories to playthrough as well.



Overall I really liked this game, much more than I was expecting to. I won't list characters as to not spoil anything, but I found them to usually be fairly well written and believable. The moral choices were great and it really had you explore some of the things that might happen in a disaster scenario and the difficult choices that might need to be made. It was really touching and at time heartbreaking, and I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen. It was a game I didn't want to put down, and I'm excited to try season 2. I really wasn't expecting to like it too much seeing as how I don't like the show, but it was actually really excellent, and if these interactive adventures are your cup of tea, I would highly recommend it.

Verdict:
LOVED IT