Daniel Konicek
Staff Writer
Alongside the popular AMC television show, Telltale Games released an interactive story based on The Walking Dead comic series. With the game playable on smartphones, Steam, Xbox and Playstation, it saw wide release and great praise for the unforgiving plot and vivid characters. Now that season two has premiered, it doesn’t look like the character’s lives amongst the zombie apocalypse are getting any easier.
The first episode of the season is titled “All That Remains,” but for Clementine, the new playable character, all that remains doesn’t amount to much. Pretty much the entire cast from the first season has left or died, leaving her alone and more vulnerable than ever. The shift from the strong and capable Lee Garret to the ten-year-old Clementine adds a whole dimension of vulnerability to the character.
The writers are not interested in being kind to her, however, and this episode is full of such reminders. Much of the new cast makes it clear that they would not hesitate to put a bullet in Clementine if she posed them any danger, but that doesn’t mean she is helpless. Her dialogue choices are consistently intelligent, all of it tinged with grief at all that has happened to her, but she still has a fierce drive to survive.
As far as gameplay goes, this is not too different from the first game. The puzzles are fairly simplistic, but the story is really what matters here, requiring the player to choose dialogue and certain actions, as well as the close calls dodging zombies and thieves.
If you played the first season, know that this looks like another fantastic season. If you haven’t played the first season but you are a fan of the show or zombies in general, pick it up immediately. It’s available as an app on iTunes, as well as Steam and other popular online game stores, as well as XBLA and PSN. If your only experience with gaming is Angry Birds, this won’t pose much of a challenge to you, either, if you can handle the dark storyline.