Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Walking Dead: The Game (Season 2)

This review contains spoilers.

Over the past two years Telltale has become one of my favorite developers. It all started with Jurassic Park, not necessarily a good game but certainly entertaining and you could already smell the potential of this talented team. After that came the unbelievable The Walking Dead: The Game. I had never sympathized with characters in a freaking game that much, it was brilliant. With A Wolf Among Us they proved that even with subjects I don't care about (fairy tales) they could still make magnificent games. Still, The Walking Dead: The Game Season 2 was the one that I really DESPERATELY wanted to play.

Left to fend for herself, Clementine has been forced to learn how to survive in a world gone mad. Many months have passed and she is in search of safety. But what can an ordinary child do to stay alive when the living can be just as bad - and sometimes worse - than the dead? 

In season 2 you crawl into the skin of Clementine, a character that, after you played season 1, you'll love with your life. I'll be the first to admit that it took some time to get used to the switch of bad-ass Lee to the small Clementine, but Telltale made it work. Season 2 starts off a little slower than season 1 did in my opinion but as the series continue they again manage to create the quality that season 1 had, in some episodes they even outclass season 1 (something I thought would be impossible). Again you'll sit on your couch shocked when one of the characters dies, again the action is intense, again you can just feel the emotion and again you experience Clementine's troubles like they're your own. 

Episode 4 and 5 achieve a an almost unearthly level of storytelling. There are only a limited amount of people that you can REALLY trust in this game. When you're not looking some of them will stab you in the back (Die Mike and Bonnie, Die). Also during the game you have to ask yourself how far you'll go to protect and back someone up who is definitely losing it and is a potential threat to your group. There are multiple endings to this season that all vary a lot from each other. I myself arrived at Wellington with AJ and Kenny (I just couldn't kill the poor bastard, he's not a bad guy, just really fucked up by his past). But I decided to leave along with Kenny and AJ when Wellington mentioned that they only took in children. I'd rather live ''on the road'' with a somewhat crazy but always protective friend than live ''safely'' inside some walls and act like it's still the normal world. 


Telltale keeps making quality games, they prove it once more. Some choices will be even harder than in season 1, if that's even humanly possible. Every episode Clementine emerges more and more into a grown up, while always keeping Lee's advice in the back of her head of course. Telltale already confirmed a season 3 (FUCK YEAH!), and I'm not even going to go speculate about what I want and what I don't want. I fully trust Telltale to make another classic. Just one thing though: Please do not let us wait another year until we can play again, Please! Ah well, I guess Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands and a possible season 2 of The Wolf Among Us will keep us entertained until we can get back into the world of the undead.



 

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