 |
| The only time in the season everyone's genuinely happy |
- Developer: Telltale Games
- Publisher: Telltale Games
- Release Date: 27 August 2014
- Time Played: 9 hours
Just as I did with The Wolf Among Us, here's a final review for The Walking Dead Season Two that takes a look at how the season fared overall for each category.
Plot (5/5)
In the second season of The Walking Dead, you play the role of Clementine, a young girl who is separated from a couple accompanying her called Christa and Omid. It's then up to Clementine to fend for herself, alone in the wilderness, surrounded by hordes of zombies. Clementine eventually comes across another group taking refuge in a house but Clementine doesn't find it so easy to gain their trust.
The rest of the episodes takes you on a journey with this group of survivors and just like anything in the survival horror or zombie genre, you'll gain some new survivors on the way only to lose others. Clementine will have to make some pretty difficult decisions on the way culminating in a dramatic showdown in the final episode
The game has a branching narrative so conversations will be slightly different based on your relationships with other characters or certain clues you notice. At the end of an episode, you're also able to review whether you sit with the majority or not when it comes to pivotal choices in the game (e.g. showing compassion to a character or not). What I like best about this season's finale though is that there are actual multiple endings to this one, not like the first season where the ending is pretty much the same no matter which choice you make.
Gameplay (3/5)
For those that have played The Walking Dead: Season One, you know the drill. Gameplay is pretty light, with simple puzzles and the game feels more like a visual novel. The game is mainly conversation driven and focuses more on your relationships with characters more than anything else. You'll occasionally have some Quick Time Events (QTEs) during action sequences but that's about it.
The gameplay stays pretty much the same throughout the entire series with little variation.
Sound (4/5)
Audio quality and voice acting quality remained the same throughout the season. Voice acting was great but to be expected from veteran voice actors with the only issue I had being the audio volume which was sometimes too loud or too soft.
Music (4/5)
The game has a suitably atmospheric music soundtrack; while there are no memorable themes it is effective in setting the sombre, depressing mood to the game. Some themes from the first season of the game even gets some airtime in the final episode.
Graphics (4/5)
The graphics are similar to The Walking Dead Season One (as you'd expect) and are the best I've seen in a Telltale game yet adopting a thick edges, comic-book style (a similar style is adopted in The Wolf Among Us). The only thing that annoyed me was the fact the framerate tended to jump all over the place at times.
 |
| Sometimes you've got to be cruel to be kind |
Replay (3/5)
Just like Season One, the ending you receive depends on the choices you make in the game, so there is some attraction there to replay the episode (and indeed, the whole game once it is released). Also like Season One, achievements are still very easy to acquire (i.e. proceed to a certain point in the story) and there's not enough variety to encourage multiple playthroughs.
Just as it was in The Wolf Among Us, earlier episodes of the game tended to go for almost two hours with later episodes becoming shorter and shorter (usually being half an hour shorter). While I'm a firm believer of quality over quantity (some of my favourite games of all time are old point 'n' click adventure games that only take a few hours to complete), you still want to make sure you get your money's worth. Lets hope Telltale Games don't end up with episodes that are under an hour in duration for future games.
Polish (4/5)
Unfortunately, as it's a Telltale game, it uses the most recent Telltale Tool so the interface is a very console-friendly one, not a simple point 'n' click adventure. The game also has the annoying Type 1 save system where progress is autosaved but you never know when the next save point is.
Score – 8/10
The Walking Dead Season Two sticks to the same formula that made Season One so popular yet you now get to experience it through the eyes of a little girl called Clementine. As it was in the first season, Clementine discovers that sometimes it's not the zombies she should be afraid of but the surviving humans instead. Each episode explores different ethical dilemmas and hardships with Clementine learning from each experience, culminating in a dramatic finale where she gets to finally choose who she trusts.If you want to get the game, you can get it on Steam or Telltale Games .
If you like this game, you might like...
[ LINK: Official The Walking Dead website ]
Comments
Post a Comment