The Walking Dead: Episode 1 – A New Day Review!
Overview:
Systems: iOS, PC, PS3, XBOX 360Pros:
Wonderful story with different outcomes.Cons:
Lacks action, not a ton of replayabilty.With the anticipation of the Walking Dead season 3, it seemed just absolutely necessary to throw myself into the world of Walking Dead. The cash cow that is Walking Dead could only be improved with a game that brings the comic world to life.
Sometimes, it can be a risky investment making a video game out of a comic and a show but Telltale Games took that chance. The Walking Dead is an adventure game where the player makes timed choices that affect the entire game. This game focuses way more on the feelings and the story rather than a lot of action and shooting but what you may feel the game lacks in that aspect is made up by a heartfelt story and an emotional ride. The Walking Dead game brings back the classic point and click genre to a world of zombies. Follow Lee Everett and the young Clementine through the zombie apocalypse and to an enemy worse than the zombies: the people that are still alive.
Story:
The game starts with Lee Everett handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. While discussing whether or not he committed the crime he’s accused of, the police man hits something and crashes into the nearby wooded area. Lee awakens with an injured leg sometime later and he finds the officer driving the car dead. He searches the dead body for the keys and as he unlocks them, the officer springs up and attacks him. A scared Lee crawls away and grabs the officer’s shotgun and shoots him, alerting more zombies in the area. He tries to find recluse in a nearby house and hears some heart wrenching messages on the answering machine. He hears a walkie-talkie go off with a little girl on the other end of it. The very young Clementine introduces herself and tells Lee about how her parents went out of town and she was staying with her babysitter. When things started going haywire, she hid in her tree-house for safety. Lee decides to care for the little girl until they find her parents. Leaving the house, they come across Shawn Greene trying to escape the neighborhood. With Lee’s help, they manage to leave the neighborhood and find refuge at Hershel Greene’s farm. They join Kenny and his wife, Katjaa along with their son Duck. The next day as they’re doing chores, both Shawn and Duck are in danger of being killed by zombies and where the first major choice of the game comes into play.
Gameplay:
The gameplay of the game is pretty simple. When you call this a point and click game, you’re getting exactly what the name is. There’s some movement but it’s nothing too significant. You get to move Lee around pretty small areas so there isn’t that big open world element that most games have. The action is pretty lacking as well. Most events are timed to where you have to hit a button, and even sometimes aim and hit a button. Responses to character’s actions and dialogue are timed as well. It’s nice how the game tried to bring in some characters from the comics. You get to encounter both Hershel Greene and Glen in just the first episode. Just seeing those two characters make you want to play the rest of the game just because you want to see who else is going to show up.
Graphics:
The overall look to the game is very comic-cartoonish. You feel like you are playing an interactive comic rather than a game that has more realistic character and environment models like most games out there. It doesn’t diminish the game’s value at all and it’s actually nice for the player’s who have read the Walking Dead comics because you feel like you’re actually inside the comic world of Walking Dead. It’s nice that the characters look more like their comic book counterparts instead of ripping their body models off of the television show.
Sound:
The sound is severely lacking when it comes to the atmosphere as a whole. There’s not really a soundtrack but there are parts that have some form of music. This is usually when the moment is very intense or emotional. When you do get to hear those parts, the music definitely helps the mood out. The sound effects are pretty good. It’s nice to hear the hammer striking the head of a zombie or the busting out of a glass window. Overall, the sound was in the middle for me, being neither good nor bad.
Verdict:
I really enjoyed how this game turned out. If you are more interested in the story of the game rather than a bunch of action, I strongly recommend playing the Walking Dead. Don’t be alarmed by what I just said, there IS action element to the game but it’s just not as intense as other games. The graphics are really great with how it feels like you’re playing a comic book. The biggest thing that I loved about this game is how it doesn’t give you the entire game all at once. Spanning out the game over an episode a month basis keeps people coming back for more.
