Back in late April, I brought you my review of the first chapter in Telltale Games’ entry into The Walking Dead universe, an episodic adventure game that takes place alongside the storyline from the original Image comic books. At the time, I said some pretty bold things and if you haven’t played the game or read the review, I implore you to do so before you continue reading here. It’ll help to familiarize you with the game’s setting, gameplay and mechanics, all of which I said were incredible. I even went so far as to say that Telltale’s iteration of The Walking Dead is THE BEST iteration that is out.
And having played through the second episode, entitled “Starved For Help”, I can only say that it got even better. The choices that the game asks you to make become more stressful, the world in which the story takes place gets bleaker and the responsibilities that your main character takes on become greater as Lee begins to inherit his role as the leader of the group of survivors. The Walking Dead videogame really does the best job of putting you in the shoes of a zombie apocalypse survivor in a way that the comic book and the TV show can’t and Telltale has used this second chapter to move beyond the introductory phase of the first and ratchet things up a few notches.
The episode begins 3 months after the ending of the first, in which the survivors have made a well-guarded camp for themselves out of an abandoned motel. The problem that they now find themselves in though is a dwindling food supply. During a hunting trip through the nearby woods, Lee and his new companion (who’s name I forgot because his character is new and doesn’t make much of an impression beyond being potentially expendable) come across some new survivors, one who has his leg stuck in a bear trap. As the undead begin to close in, Lee must figure out how to either get the trap open or use his axe to make one of the most hardcore decisions the game will force you to make. The fact that the scene plays out in a timed quicktime event really adds the stress and makes you feel directly responsible for the choice you must make in trying to save everyone’s lives.
This guy is new… and he’s lame. And he shouldn’t get too comfortable with that gun.
Upon returning to camp, the game doesn’t make things any easier when you’re tasked with choosing who among the group (of about 10 survivors) gets 4 remaining food items. Again, as I said in reviewing the first episode, the choices that you make not only effect the other characters, they are permanent and are carried through to the other chapters. If you choose to give food to one character, another might feel slighted and not come to your aid later on, while choosing wisely might earn you the respect of someone else. The problem is, in Episode 2, there never seems to be a right answer. You will always end up pissing someone off.
The clearest case of this is in the dynamic between Kenny, whose son Duck you may or may not have saved in the first episode, and Lilly, whose father knows about your questionable past and rides your ass like nobody’s business. Both Kenny and Lilly step up to make opposing decisions for the group and you are quickly forced to try and play peacemaker while the game asks you to take sides. Regardless of your choices, it’s almost impossible for your relationship with Kenny to come out unscathed and your never sure if the choice you made or the dialogue option you chose was the right one (hint: there will never be 100% right answers and you are pretty much screwed no matter what you do). And as the episode progresses, the rift between Lilly and Kenny only gets greater and leads to one of the biggest “holy shit” moments of the episode. I’m serious. I literally yelled it out loud.
This dairy farm should offer some safety… right?
The writing and design of this game have to be continually commended. As the episode progresses, and the group is led by two brothers to a nearby dairy farm, everything in the game seems to escalate. The omnipresent sense of paranoia and fear that began the episode soon give way to downright panic as the entire safety of the group is threatened by new surroundings. Each character has a unique voice and opinion and the story takes a ton of unexpected twists and turns. There is more action, character and consequence packed into a single two hour episode of this game than there is in an entire season of the AMC show or storyline of the comic book and that’s a feat in and of itself. And it isn’t shy from going to places that are much darker than either the TV show or the comic have ever explored.
This dinner scene is the best scene in the episode… maybe.
And beyond being an engrossing, dynamic experience, this game is just fun to play. The adventure game mechanics are well designed, the quicktime events are appropriately stressful and the choices you are forced to make are each pretty challenging. And there’s a lot of blood. Way more so than in Episode 1, as the larger world of The Walking Dead is explored in this second episode, the horrors that accompany it begin to come into full view. We get our first real glimpse of human survivors beyond our group and just how desperate they’ve become since the onset of the zombie outbreak. And things do not look good. There are some seriously gross, intense and horrific moments in this episode but never did they seem forced or inappropriate to the story or the characters.
What Telltale is doing here is really building upon the world that The Walking Dead comics have established and then improving on it a few times over. If you’re a zombie fan, a Walking Dead fan or just a fan of adventure gaming in general, you owe it to yourself to just get the $19.99 Season Pass and enjoy each episode as it comes out. My wife, who watches and helps me navigate the game’s choices as I play, and I have been enjoying the heck out of these new, enhanced Walking Dead experiences and I can neither recommend them enough or wait for the third episode to be released.
This game scores a clear 5/5.