Main Review
Review Context: I played the first season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead and a few of their other works; The Wolf Among Us, Jurassic Park: The Game, and Tales of Monkey Island to name a few. I am also an avid player of point and click adventure games such as Grim Fandango and Day of The Tentacle. I have read most of The Walking Dead comics and have watched a few seasons of the TV show.
Date Playthrough: May 2014
PC Specs Game Played on:
OS: Windows 8 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i3-3227U CPU @ 1.90GHz
RAM: 4 GB
Video Card: Intel HD Graphics 4000
Resolution: 1366×768
Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
The Walking Dead Season 2 starts off with a bang with the first episode, “All That Remains”. It picks up roughly several months after the ending of “No Time Left” with you taking control of Clementine as the main character after the amazing finale of “No Time Left”.
The first thing you notice when you start playing is that the graphics are a pretty good refinement to the original season’s graphics. The art style seems to work more in this episode, the characters look better, and the environments seem more detailed than in the previous episodes.
The gameplay is very tight and enjoyable. I don’t have too many complaints with how the game works overall. There were some problems that I did have with how the Clementine walks. She walks kind of stiff in some instances and it made her walk animation seem a little off as I was playing. This is a recurring problem I see sometimes in games by Telltale Games, but overall it didn’t really detract from the enjoyment I had.
During the entirety of the episode you really feel the pain and danger that Clementine is subjected to especially if you have played the original season and protected Clementine as Lee. There were moments in the game where I felt afraid for Clementine because I was not thinking of her as the main character, I was putting my mind in the role of Lee as her protector. I really feel like this works in favor of the game because while I play I see how Clementine conquers these challenges making me feel more confident with Clementine as the main character.
A major improvement to this episode as opposed to the previous season is that the pacing is a lot faster than the previous season. In the previous season, it wasn’t until the later episodes to have more action/drama in them, but this episode delivers immediately with action and drama. There is a part right off the bat were I was already biting my nails as if this was a later episode of last season.
The audio in this game is very atmospheric because the ambient sounds in the game really make you feel like you are traversing this open and empty world full of the walking dead. Another aspect of the atmosphere is that the sound effects of combat on the zombies are very good. The sound of Clementine fighting zombies in hand-to-hand combat is very sickening. The voice acting, like most of Telltale Games works, is very superb and I enjoyed all the dialogue between all the characters.
While there are no major choices that seem evident in this episode, there are small dialogue changes that occur depending on what choices players made in the previous episodes. If you played 400 Days the events that are happening in this season will be more evident.
I did run into some technical problems while I played. The main problem I had was clipping when Clementine held things in her hand. There were also some glitches that I saw early on when some of the background items would keep popping in and out.
The entirety of the game lasted about an hour and thirty minutes, which is an adequate time for an episodic game. Other than some very mild complaints, if this episode is any indication on the quality of this season I can not wait until future episodes of The Walking Dead Season 2 are released.
Similar Games Liked:
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (Xbox 360)
The Walking Dead (PC)
The Wolf Among Us (PC)
Similar Games Disliked:
Jurassic Park: The Game (PC)
Back to The Future: The Game (PC)
