Walking Dead Game Review

  Walking Dead: The Game is based on the popular television show and comic book series, The Walking Dead. This game is unlike the games you usually see people playing on their phones or tablets. It is a story-based game with the goal to stay alive. In the game, you are allowed to choose what your characters’ outcome is going to be and it could be different from someone else playing the game. The character narrative in Walking Dead: The Game is shaping your characters personality, friendships with the other characters, and deciding how the story can go.
     Starting the game, you are allowed to make your own choices for your character. The game gives you up to four options in dialogue: telling the truth, lying, compromising, or staying silent. The game gives you three options in actions: to do, not to do, and the occasional, let someone else do. In certain situations, your responses are timed; however, these situations are mainly when you are in an emergency such as walkers attacking and people arguing. For example, when my character was in the back of the cop car at the beginning of the game, I ran out of time to answer the question I was asked and it automatically chose to be silent. Not only does this make you more involved in the game, it also makes the game more interactive for the player because you are the character making your own choices.
     In Walking Dead: The Game, you decide the relationships you want to have with other people. When you tell the truth to them, you gain their trust and respect. When you lie you have the possibility of getting caught and can be viewed differently than before. For example, when I first met Hershel, an owner of a farm outside of Atlanta, I lied to him, he caught me and never trusted me for the rest of the time I stayed at the farm. The friendships you have can also be affected when you have to pick if someone lives or if someone dies. For example, in the first episode I had the choice to pick if Duck, Kenny's son, should live or if Hershel's son, Shawn, lived. When I picked Duck, Herschel told the group that we should leave his farm. As an experiment, I replayed the first episode. When I did this, I picked Shawn to live and found that decision didn't make a difference because he dies regardless; however, making the decision to save Shawn, damaged my relationship with Kenny. If you make this choice and damage your relationship with Kenny, later in the game Kenny does not offer you a spot in the RV when they escape the motel.

     Allowing the player to make the choices given to the character, automatically decides how the game can go. Doing this means you can either kill someone or show them mercy, either take someone along for the ride or leave them behind, and making the decision to befriend or unfriend people. Although you are given different choices, you may come out with part of same result. In episode two for example, Larry collapsed on the floor with no heartbeat. In this situation, I was asked to help Lily try to save her father or kill Larry with the help of Kenny. In the first attempt, I helped Kenny kill Larry causing Lilly to hate both Kenny and my character. In the second attempt, I helped Lily perform CPR on Larry only to find out that Kinney kills him either way. Once again, picking against Kenny damages my relationship with him. Although the outcome of Larry does not change, the relationship with the person you sided with or person you went against, does.

  I personally do not play anything other than puzzle games, so when I was assigned to play Walking Dead: The Game, I did not think that I would like it as much as I do. The ability to choose what happens in this game helps not only myself but others become more intrigued. Having a choice in what happens in the game makes the game more fun and interesting for all ages.