The Walking Dead Episode 2 Review, The Best Zombie Game to Date
The Walking Dead Episode 2 is an amazing decision making game that will leave you wanting more.
There are a lot of zombie games out there. There’s no doubt about that. Most zombie games keep it simple, you see a zombie and kill it. There aren’t many zombie games that show the human emotion and the decisions one has to make during a zombie apocalypse. Telltale takes the zombie genre and flips it on its head with episode 2 of The Walking Dead game.
Episode 2 rightly named Starved for Help takes place 3 months after episode 1. You once again step into the role of Lee Everett, a felony who is now free because of the apocalypse and finds himself as the leader of a group of survivors in a ram shackled fortress that used to be a motel. Among these are Clementine, a young child who you stuck with throughout the first chapter of the series, as well as others, including the militant Lilly. These people depend on you and you must make the hard choices. A great example of this mechanic is the food ration situation. There is only enough food to feed four people and there are eight people total. So you have to make the choice who do I feed? Do I feed the kids and get the support of the families, or do I feed the other adults and gain allies for later on. There our choices like this throughout the game and none of them are easy. The line between good and bad in this game is gone.
Episode 1 really paved the way when it came to decision-making, forcing you to make harsh choices and side with certain characters, while turning a cold shoulder to others in your hopes of surviving the onslaught of the undead. But in Episode 2, you really see how these decisions shape the course of your adventure, as some of your fellow survivors opt to take matters into their own hands. It’s here where you really learn what it takes to survive such an event.
Leave it to Telltale Games’ team to once again shape a truly nerve-racking zombie experience, right up there with Robert Kirkman’s comic book novel. You’ll have your fair share of undead encounters, but the real twist of the knife here comes in the drama that unfolds between survivors, and the consequences behind your actions. Someone who you put your trust into could easily be the worst person possible, while someone you were counting on can easily turn their back to save their own hide. It’s mesmerizing watching how your choices affect the game.
That said, there is a slight bit less gameplay and puzzle solving in this chapter, as Telltale wanted to focus more on the decision-making this time around. So if you’re expecting plenty of zombie-shredding moments, you might have to go back to Episode 1 to get your fill. That doesn’t mean this isn’t a compelling game experience, because it is, but this isn’t one of those games where you’ll want to mash buttons just to see where it goes. You’ll miss the point of it that way.
Though the general gameplay time is roughly just over a couple of hours, you can go through the experience again and see where your decisions take you. You might even be tempted to go back to Episode 1 just to see how things shape up. Very rarely do you run into a game that gives you a reason to revisit its roots.
The Walking Dead Episode 2 might only last a couple hours but you will want to play through it again and again.
As far as presentation goes, Episode 2 has some slight blemishes with character design and lip-synching, but the surroundings are still quite stirring, and the zombies look more haunting than ever before. Some of the human reactions are a bit startling as well, especially if you catch some poor sap off guard with food rations. Likewise, the audio is top quality, with a strong voice cast and ideal musical cues working in the right instances.
Episode 2 of The Walking Dead game is great I could even go and say the best zombie game to date. It has something a lot of zombie games don’t have decision making; Making the hard choices to make sure you survive. Episode 3 will be coming out in the middle of August so we won’t have to wait long to continue this epic journey.
9/10
