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score: 5.5/10Developer: Telltale Games
Released: 2012 Genre: Adventure Official Website: The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series PROS:
Beautiful graphics and consistent art design Simple controls Riveting story and cast of characters CONS:
Non-existent gameplay Lag, stuttering, and generally buggy performance Ending is outright enraging |
The Walking Dead: Season 1 If you’re looking for a great, classically veined adventure game you’ll be seriously let down by The Walking Dead: Season 1. There’s no inventory management and no puzzles to sleuth; the only thing the game offers is tons of dialogue that’s almost perfectly recorded and acted. Some of the games misgivings can be overlooked, but glaring issues detract from to the overall experience. The Walking Dead: Season 1 is more along the lines of a choose-your-own-adventure book, following the story through a series of five episodes that pit Lee, the player-controlled character and main focus of the narrative, against the zombie hoard. While the undead are a clear and present danger the game focuses more on character development and interaction with other survivors over the more traditional action-oriented zombie-themed games that flood the market. The game is certainly not for everyone, especially children due to the graphic violence and language, and those looking for more pulse-pounding action will find this series tedious. Gamers take on the role of Lee, a former convict who is suddenly freed from incarceration in a dramatic interactive opening scene. He finds Clementine, a child desperately trying to cope with the sudden zombie outbreak after losing her parents in the chaos, and together they attempt to stay alive while searching for Clementine’s family. The story is executed well but the game suffers from some serious limitations imposed by such heavy emphasis on story telling over familiar game mechanics. Overall The Walking Dead: Season 1 is an excellent title as an interactive story book loaded with gore and foul language but there will be a large group of gamers who won’t be enamored by this series. If you’re looking for something to play that requires very little input, something that doesn't rely on twitchy reflexes, and an excellent story that’s flawlessly presented then you’ll be extremely impressed. If your gaming preferences lean towards more complex controls and a free-form style of game then you’ll become quickly bored. Also, if you have a weak stomach for blood and guts or your ears burn from, shall we say, choice words then you'll find The Walking Dead may be too intense. Parents should be well aware that the cartoonish graphics belie a game that’s most definitely for grown-ups. If you’re ready to be read a fantastic story, and not much more than that, then strap yourself in for The Walking Dead and be prepared to have your mind blown. If you need actual interaction in your video games (and most of us do) then bypass this series and pick up a point-and-click adventure to occupy your time as The Walking Dead is far too light on gameplay to be worth the effort and investment.
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graphics
Everywhere you look The Walking Dead has fantastic visual appeal. The game looks exactly like a comic book turned into an animated fright fest. The entire game world has a unique cel-shaded look with thick black outlines around everything that evoke a heavy brush stroke. The graphics are clear and bright thanks to a vibrant color palette; all is displayed with an immediately obvious attention to detail. Character models have the same hand drawn look you’d find in the graphics novels that supplement the franchise, though the animations that accompany the models are rigid and unnatural looking. Other small, but noticeable, touches are swaying tree limbs and tufts of grass and the environments are crammed with debris and litter, the clear signs of an apocalypse. The unique style of the game’s look is generally well presented and the lack of issues like tearing and clipping keep your eyes immersed from start to finish.
The graphics prop the game up and the use of the cel-shaded veneer, while nothing new, is not often used in the industry which keeps the visuals feeling fresh. Where the graphics suffer is in the animation division. The movement of the survivors is awkward and artificial and there is an extreme delay in transitions from the point of player input to the display of the result. When you choose your response to the current situation the game appears to deliberate for a few seconds as it decides what to load up next. It’s painfully evident and is something that shadows the entire course of the game and can really break your engagement. The animations of the zombies are excellent however and they ambulate exactly how you’d expect, shuffling and lurching towards Lee, Clementine, and the band of survivors you pick up along the way. They can be executed in satisfyingly blood ways but these encounters are rare.
The graphics are, for the most part, a major strength for The Walking Dead even with the lag issue that troubles the entire game. Where the body animations of the unafflicted humans is a bit of a nightmare, the facial animations are expressive enough to instantly convey annoyance, fear, and a host of other human emotions without looking manufactured. With the heavy-handed approach to character interactions, and the subsequent reactions to your conduct, the facial animations are an example of some of the best in video games thus far. The entire game, hang-ups and lag aside, is a breathtaking visual experience. Colors pop off the screen and, even though the story is somewhat depressing, the world is still an effervescent place despite the mass destruction. The zombies are creepy bags of viscera that slink around, and the locations the story line whisks you away to are intriguing and visually interesting, if cliche for a genre that's becoming intensely overrun with the same type of settings. The cel-shaded graphics evoke a comic book come to life even though the game shudders and appears to nearly break your system.
The graphics prop the game up and the use of the cel-shaded veneer, while nothing new, is not often used in the industry which keeps the visuals feeling fresh. Where the graphics suffer is in the animation division. The movement of the survivors is awkward and artificial and there is an extreme delay in transitions from the point of player input to the display of the result. When you choose your response to the current situation the game appears to deliberate for a few seconds as it decides what to load up next. It’s painfully evident and is something that shadows the entire course of the game and can really break your engagement. The animations of the zombies are excellent however and they ambulate exactly how you’d expect, shuffling and lurching towards Lee, Clementine, and the band of survivors you pick up along the way. They can be executed in satisfyingly blood ways but these encounters are rare.
The graphics are, for the most part, a major strength for The Walking Dead even with the lag issue that troubles the entire game. Where the body animations of the unafflicted humans is a bit of a nightmare, the facial animations are expressive enough to instantly convey annoyance, fear, and a host of other human emotions without looking manufactured. With the heavy-handed approach to character interactions, and the subsequent reactions to your conduct, the facial animations are an example of some of the best in video games thus far. The entire game, hang-ups and lag aside, is a breathtaking visual experience. Colors pop off the screen and, even though the story is somewhat depressing, the world is still an effervescent place despite the mass destruction. The zombies are creepy bags of viscera that slink around, and the locations the story line whisks you away to are intriguing and visually interesting, if cliche for a genre that's becoming intensely overrun with the same type of settings. The cel-shaded graphics evoke a comic book come to life even though the game shudders and appears to nearly break your system.
Sound
The audio quality in The Walking Dead is another strong area
of the game. The voice acting is top
notch, with the nuance of emotion in the reading of the script clearly
vocalized. All the characters you meet
sound like actual humans with motivations and believable reactions as opposed
to an actor trying hard to express the sentiment correctly. With a wide cast of voice actors you won’t
hear the same three people reading multiple parts desperately attempting to
change their timbre and inflection to become someone else. There are a few sync issues between the
graphics and the audio but these errors are few enough to be overlooked. The script itself is well written; it doesn't overextend itself in an attempt to come off as realistic, and with the flawless
voice acting behind it the writing literally comes to life. The voice acting is some of the most remarkable and believable I've ever heard in a video game, and the discreet sound effects and music are actually a benefit to the overall experience rather than a major detractor.
There is an observable lack of music in the game and when it does crop up the score is kept to a minimum with a few flourishes for dramatic effect. This forces you to pay attention to the characters as they speak with, or in most cases argue with, each other and doesn't bloat the game with the usual trappings of video games. Even the title splash screen has no music to set the mood, instead opting for eerie silence and the soft chirping of crickets. The lack of music, in this type of game at least, is barely noticeable and actually helps to create atmosphere rather than the silence detracting from the experience.
Sound effects are also decidedly minimalist, further reinforcing the push toward dialogue as the main selling point of the game. The game isn't totally without music and sound effects but they’re not the foremost highlight as in other video games. Everything is quiet and the stillness sets a creepy mood, especially when you sense impending danger before Lee or Clementine. The zombies are the usual fare expressing grunts, groans, moans, and screams that pierce the reticence; they’re ultimately forgettable in their banality. This game isn't so much concerned with eliminating the zombie threat or even surviving it; this game is more concerned with building up character relationships and forcing the player to make tough choices in crisis situations, not blowing the head off every walking corpse within a thousand miles with guns roaring.
There is an observable lack of music in the game and when it does crop up the score is kept to a minimum with a few flourishes for dramatic effect. This forces you to pay attention to the characters as they speak with, or in most cases argue with, each other and doesn't bloat the game with the usual trappings of video games. Even the title splash screen has no music to set the mood, instead opting for eerie silence and the soft chirping of crickets. The lack of music, in this type of game at least, is barely noticeable and actually helps to create atmosphere rather than the silence detracting from the experience.
Sound effects are also decidedly minimalist, further reinforcing the push toward dialogue as the main selling point of the game. The game isn't totally without music and sound effects but they’re not the foremost highlight as in other video games. Everything is quiet and the stillness sets a creepy mood, especially when you sense impending danger before Lee or Clementine. The zombies are the usual fare expressing grunts, groans, moans, and screams that pierce the reticence; they’re ultimately forgettable in their banality. This game isn't so much concerned with eliminating the zombie threat or even surviving it; this game is more concerned with building up character relationships and forcing the player to make tough choices in crisis situations, not blowing the head off every walking corpse within a thousand miles with guns roaring.
GamePLay
And here, finally, is where The Walking Dead starts to tread on slippery ground for my taste. The Walking Dead is hard to even call a video game, attributable to some of the design decisions that were made. The almost total absence of action sequences keeps this game feeling trite. A string of conversations leads you from one decision point to the next and there’s not that much to do in between but have more conversations to fill the time. A few quick time events are about as close to video game convention as The Walking Dead gets, and most gamers cry out in agony when these pop up in any title. They’re not terribly difficult but here they’re an acceptable shake up to otherwise listless gameplay.
The Walking Dead is also not an adventure game in the typical sense as there are almost no puzzles to solve and Lee has basically no inventory to manage. A few items can be picked up in prescribed scenes that must be used in order to advance, but the complexity behind these “puzzles” is nothing compared to traditional adventure games. That’s not to say the group of survivors will find no trouble out in the world, far from it in fact. There are many sticky situations the surroundings will spew out such as figuring out a way to clear the zombies from a motel parking lot so Lee and his gang will have a place to set up camp, but these kinds of situations are really nothing more than a guessing game of figuring out the right order of objects to interact with. There are many adventure games out there that are far more interactive, contain some fantastic puzzles, and have excellent dialogue but The Walking Dead has forgone this kind of gameplay and the game is left bland because of it. If you can’t be bothered to pick up a book then you’ll really enjoy The Walking Dead’s hand-holding attitude as it reminds me of a parent reading their kid a bedtime story. The player is more of a passive consumer versus an active participant which is a basic component of what constitutes a video game over other vehicles of information and entertainment.
The game is controlled by a reticule that works flawlessly in its simplicity. As it passes over objects of interest interactions will pop up in the four sections that mirror the layout of the face buttons on your controller. It’s an unconventional system for an unconventional game and it keeps things neat and orderly while simultaneously avoiding cluttering up the screen with useless information. Conversation screens are handled in much the same way with responses mapped to the four face buttons as well, which are also color coded for easy reference, to make sure you don’t mistakenly select the wrong option. Some conversations are timed so these two systems working in harmony help you make the choice you want without hitting the wrong button. It takes some getting used to, especially when trying to get Lee to walk around the small environments, but once you have a feel for how the game controls it’s an extremely easy affair.
Where the game falters, and fumbles shamefully in fact, is in the overall gameplay experience. The writing is superb and delivered deftly but the game doesn't have that much to actually do outside of talking to the band of followers. It’s hard to even call this a game as “interactive fiction” seems more appropriate. The story will keep you riveted for sure, and just like the TV show you’ll keep coming back to see what else is in store for the survivors, but it leans over the line between video game and animated graphic novel too far towards the latter. It’s not until the end of the final episode that the smoke and mirrors are yanked from in front of your eyes. When you see the ending you’ll feel like everything was for nothing, that you needlessly overstretched yourself, that you banged your head against the wall trying to choose the absolute perfect combination of moves to obtain the best overall ending. When it’s all said and done Season 1 feels like nothing more than an expository piece whose sole purpose was to set up Season 2. It’s jaw dropping and not in a good way; I couldn't help but toss the controller down in frustration, aggravated with how much I invested into the story and the characters to have it all ripped from my grasp in a matter of minutes.
Even with the flaws the game is still an experience you owe to have for yourself, just make sure to pick up the season pass at the lowest possible price point. It lends itself to moments of conversation with your friends to see how each of you played and why you made the choices you made. Not often does a game bleed out of the video game realm of online message boards and Internet comments and into the real world. For all the praise that’s been showered on the game I can’t help but think that it’s a game for “right now”; once you've finished it and moved on to Season 2 or even other games it’s ultimately a forgettable and empty experience. But when you’re in the middle of the game the real world slips away and you’re completely and totally immersed in the story, though I fear it doesn't have the kind of staying power that it wants you to think it has.
The Walking Dead is also not an adventure game in the typical sense as there are almost no puzzles to solve and Lee has basically no inventory to manage. A few items can be picked up in prescribed scenes that must be used in order to advance, but the complexity behind these “puzzles” is nothing compared to traditional adventure games. That’s not to say the group of survivors will find no trouble out in the world, far from it in fact. There are many sticky situations the surroundings will spew out such as figuring out a way to clear the zombies from a motel parking lot so Lee and his gang will have a place to set up camp, but these kinds of situations are really nothing more than a guessing game of figuring out the right order of objects to interact with. There are many adventure games out there that are far more interactive, contain some fantastic puzzles, and have excellent dialogue but The Walking Dead has forgone this kind of gameplay and the game is left bland because of it. If you can’t be bothered to pick up a book then you’ll really enjoy The Walking Dead’s hand-holding attitude as it reminds me of a parent reading their kid a bedtime story. The player is more of a passive consumer versus an active participant which is a basic component of what constitutes a video game over other vehicles of information and entertainment.
The game is controlled by a reticule that works flawlessly in its simplicity. As it passes over objects of interest interactions will pop up in the four sections that mirror the layout of the face buttons on your controller. It’s an unconventional system for an unconventional game and it keeps things neat and orderly while simultaneously avoiding cluttering up the screen with useless information. Conversation screens are handled in much the same way with responses mapped to the four face buttons as well, which are also color coded for easy reference, to make sure you don’t mistakenly select the wrong option. Some conversations are timed so these two systems working in harmony help you make the choice you want without hitting the wrong button. It takes some getting used to, especially when trying to get Lee to walk around the small environments, but once you have a feel for how the game controls it’s an extremely easy affair.
Where the game falters, and fumbles shamefully in fact, is in the overall gameplay experience. The writing is superb and delivered deftly but the game doesn't have that much to actually do outside of talking to the band of followers. It’s hard to even call this a game as “interactive fiction” seems more appropriate. The story will keep you riveted for sure, and just like the TV show you’ll keep coming back to see what else is in store for the survivors, but it leans over the line between video game and animated graphic novel too far towards the latter. It’s not until the end of the final episode that the smoke and mirrors are yanked from in front of your eyes. When you see the ending you’ll feel like everything was for nothing, that you needlessly overstretched yourself, that you banged your head against the wall trying to choose the absolute perfect combination of moves to obtain the best overall ending. When it’s all said and done Season 1 feels like nothing more than an expository piece whose sole purpose was to set up Season 2. It’s jaw dropping and not in a good way; I couldn't help but toss the controller down in frustration, aggravated with how much I invested into the story and the characters to have it all ripped from my grasp in a matter of minutes.
Even with the flaws the game is still an experience you owe to have for yourself, just make sure to pick up the season pass at the lowest possible price point. It lends itself to moments of conversation with your friends to see how each of you played and why you made the choices you made. Not often does a game bleed out of the video game realm of online message boards and Internet comments and into the real world. For all the praise that’s been showered on the game I can’t help but think that it’s a game for “right now”; once you've finished it and moved on to Season 2 or even other games it’s ultimately a forgettable and empty experience. But when you’re in the middle of the game the real world slips away and you’re completely and totally immersed in the story, though I fear it doesn't have the kind of staying power that it wants you to think it has.
Final Thoughts
From start to finish The Walking Dead: Season 1 is an outright excellent example of interactive fiction, it's just a weak video game proper. The story is intriguing and the cast of characters you come into contact with are all expertly and eloquently portrayed. The characters are enthralling and easy enough to figure out, though sometimes you’ll wonder why someone is freaking out for a choice you thought was the “nice” option. The cheery and colorful graphics belie an intense and violent story of life and loss, death and suffering, survival and compassion. The complexity of character development and narrative behind the writing in The Walking Dead is the kind that’s usually reserved for high literature. It’s nice to see a video game utilizing this kind of complexity, but The Walking Dead only partially succeeds at trying to create something truly artistic. The story just can't cover up the flimsy gameplay and serious deficiency of interactivity.
Speaking to agency, The Walking Dead certainly shovels tons of this the player’s way. You always feel in control of the flow of the story and the game makes you think that you are having a serious and grand impact on the story. I can’t help but slam the game for taking this sense of importance from the player and smashing it utterly. As someone who spent years critically analyzing literature I understand the reasons why the story ended the way Telltale Games decided, and it’s for this that I feel the game stands on legs made more for something that’s on paper and bound between covers over the video game medium. As a piece of graphic fiction The Walking Dead is prime cut, as a video game the façade crumbles and is swiftly destroyed by the end of the 5th episode. The story doesn't have to end the way it does; there could have been a more creative way to carry over the decisions made, and characters kept alive, in Season 1 that doesn't wipe the slate clean in such an abrupt method. It smacks of lazy planning and design; the major changes would have been best served in the beginning of Season 2 to keep the player from feeling they just played an extremely rigid game that basically just lied about the importance of their choices for the group as a whole, not just Lee's conversations with, and attitude towards, Clementine. When you drill down into the story you'll see just how on-rails the entire experience is with almost no room to truly influence the outcome.
The game does an exquisite job keeping the player engaged and it’s fantastic to see the emotional reactions between the characters. The writing is nearly perfect and the voice acting is of the same caliber. Teasing out the motivations, the secrets, the plotting and subterfuge within the grand arc of the narrative is great fun. The graphics bring motion to the otherwise one-dimensional medium of the written word or graphic novella. The nearly nonexistent controls and a HUD that only exists in a few key areas keep you glued to the game without a bunch of crap sprayed across your screen. The only thing you have to pay attention to is the people who are leaning on Lee for guidance, including Clementine, and deciding what the next best move is going to be. People will die and you will have a moment to mourn them, but inevitably the game introduces another new crisis to tackle keeping everything moving along at a quick clip. Not everyone will be allowed to live and not everyone will consent to your actions meaning Lee is the main decider of the fate of guilty and innocent alike. Some choices are clear depending on your ethics but for the most part players will be faced with tough selections; you’ll truly be torn between who lives and who dies and why.
Another sticking point is the length of the game overall; it’s a bit short and if you have good hand-eye coordination and are able to react quickly to problems you’ll be finished in a relatively short amount of time. There is a rewind feature that lets you replay episodes to see divergent outcomes for different choices but I didn't bother using it; it feels like a cheap attempt at artificially extending play time. Lots of gamers will certainly use this feature just because it’s there but I found it personally pointless, doubly so when I finally got to the end of the game. Another point of frustration I found was Clementine herself. I felt bad wanting to drop kick a child from a window if the game would let me but her voice verges on annoying, and in a game like this you hear her talking a lot. It’s not so much the quality of the voice acting but rather of sound engineering, like someone had to manipulate an adult actor into sounding like a child. The grating voice isn't evident throughout the game but it’s apparent enough to cause your spine to tingle much as nails on a chalk board would make you want to scream.
If this review sounds like I’m bitching it’s because I kind of am. The delay between when you input your choice to when the game resumes the vignette is mind wrenching after a time. This isn't a resource hungry game at all and seeing this laggy occurrence over multiple hours of gaming is infuriating. The lack of any real puzzling strips the game down to something more like watching a stage play than playing a video game. Without any real combat, and a smattering of quick time events and timed player dialogue choices, the game starts to edge farther away from being anything close to resembling a video game. And with the ending that made me want to pull out my hair, well that just sealed my dislike for a game I desperately wanted to like. It’s an entertaining piece of fiction in motion and you will enjoy your time spent with The Walking Dead: Season 1 if your expectations are decidedly low; don’t expect the end result of all those hours to end in some explosive proclamation. There are a bunch of moments in the game that make you sit back with a wow face on, especially when finding out the survivors living on a remote farm are engaging in some truly horrific practices, but the veneer starts to fade as the story drags on; it’s all just too light on video game and too heavily reliant on narrative alone. While I found The Walking Dead worthwhile, and enjoyed my time with Lee and Clementine, I find this game just isn't one of those titles I find myself blown away by. It’s merely an alright game, definitely not a great one, and players should keep an open mind and low expectations before stepping into the role of Lee Everett. The Walking Dead: Season 1 withers on the vine in a sense; here’s to hoping Season 2 adds more “video game” to this series and sheds off the shackles that keep it from being something superb.
Speaking to agency, The Walking Dead certainly shovels tons of this the player’s way. You always feel in control of the flow of the story and the game makes you think that you are having a serious and grand impact on the story. I can’t help but slam the game for taking this sense of importance from the player and smashing it utterly. As someone who spent years critically analyzing literature I understand the reasons why the story ended the way Telltale Games decided, and it’s for this that I feel the game stands on legs made more for something that’s on paper and bound between covers over the video game medium. As a piece of graphic fiction The Walking Dead is prime cut, as a video game the façade crumbles and is swiftly destroyed by the end of the 5th episode. The story doesn't have to end the way it does; there could have been a more creative way to carry over the decisions made, and characters kept alive, in Season 1 that doesn't wipe the slate clean in such an abrupt method. It smacks of lazy planning and design; the major changes would have been best served in the beginning of Season 2 to keep the player from feeling they just played an extremely rigid game that basically just lied about the importance of their choices for the group as a whole, not just Lee's conversations with, and attitude towards, Clementine. When you drill down into the story you'll see just how on-rails the entire experience is with almost no room to truly influence the outcome.
The game does an exquisite job keeping the player engaged and it’s fantastic to see the emotional reactions between the characters. The writing is nearly perfect and the voice acting is of the same caliber. Teasing out the motivations, the secrets, the plotting and subterfuge within the grand arc of the narrative is great fun. The graphics bring motion to the otherwise one-dimensional medium of the written word or graphic novella. The nearly nonexistent controls and a HUD that only exists in a few key areas keep you glued to the game without a bunch of crap sprayed across your screen. The only thing you have to pay attention to is the people who are leaning on Lee for guidance, including Clementine, and deciding what the next best move is going to be. People will die and you will have a moment to mourn them, but inevitably the game introduces another new crisis to tackle keeping everything moving along at a quick clip. Not everyone will be allowed to live and not everyone will consent to your actions meaning Lee is the main decider of the fate of guilty and innocent alike. Some choices are clear depending on your ethics but for the most part players will be faced with tough selections; you’ll truly be torn between who lives and who dies and why.
Another sticking point is the length of the game overall; it’s a bit short and if you have good hand-eye coordination and are able to react quickly to problems you’ll be finished in a relatively short amount of time. There is a rewind feature that lets you replay episodes to see divergent outcomes for different choices but I didn't bother using it; it feels like a cheap attempt at artificially extending play time. Lots of gamers will certainly use this feature just because it’s there but I found it personally pointless, doubly so when I finally got to the end of the game. Another point of frustration I found was Clementine herself. I felt bad wanting to drop kick a child from a window if the game would let me but her voice verges on annoying, and in a game like this you hear her talking a lot. It’s not so much the quality of the voice acting but rather of sound engineering, like someone had to manipulate an adult actor into sounding like a child. The grating voice isn't evident throughout the game but it’s apparent enough to cause your spine to tingle much as nails on a chalk board would make you want to scream.
If this review sounds like I’m bitching it’s because I kind of am. The delay between when you input your choice to when the game resumes the vignette is mind wrenching after a time. This isn't a resource hungry game at all and seeing this laggy occurrence over multiple hours of gaming is infuriating. The lack of any real puzzling strips the game down to something more like watching a stage play than playing a video game. Without any real combat, and a smattering of quick time events and timed player dialogue choices, the game starts to edge farther away from being anything close to resembling a video game. And with the ending that made me want to pull out my hair, well that just sealed my dislike for a game I desperately wanted to like. It’s an entertaining piece of fiction in motion and you will enjoy your time spent with The Walking Dead: Season 1 if your expectations are decidedly low; don’t expect the end result of all those hours to end in some explosive proclamation. There are a bunch of moments in the game that make you sit back with a wow face on, especially when finding out the survivors living on a remote farm are engaging in some truly horrific practices, but the veneer starts to fade as the story drags on; it’s all just too light on video game and too heavily reliant on narrative alone. While I found The Walking Dead worthwhile, and enjoyed my time with Lee and Clementine, I find this game just isn't one of those titles I find myself blown away by. It’s merely an alright game, definitely not a great one, and players should keep an open mind and low expectations before stepping into the role of Lee Everett. The Walking Dead: Season 1 withers on the vine in a sense; here’s to hoping Season 2 adds more “video game” to this series and sheds off the shackles that keep it from being something superb.