Photo courtesy of Telltale

Walking Dead’s narrative changes as you play it, the choices you make can be as subtle as attitude with a character or as dire as life and death. Every choice you make is meaningful and if you have the option enabled the game will display text letting you know when you have altered the story. The Presentation in Walking Dead is almost flawless; the writing is brilliant and is extremely well acted, this is truly hollywood level voice work. The cinematics are equally masterful and really show off the game’s unique art style. It looks like a fluid comic book, and when you hear that about a zillion games a zillion times it loses its meaning but Walking Dead should be the prime example. The textures look hand drawn and there is a subtle cell shading effect similar to what was seen in the Darkness 2 though Walking Dead pulls it off far better. Special attention is payed to characters faces and lip synching, they really emote and it helps you lose yourself in the story. Some models in the game can however look slightly dated as they feature a low poly count though this is never true of the characters. Music and sound effects are a high point as well, the main theme is haunting and will truly stick with you in the way that great themes do it just like the Game of Thrones theme that just won’t get out of my head.

Photo courtesy of Telltale

The Walking Dead is an episodic game it is being released for the PC, PSN and XBLA the PC is my platform of choice though all the versions are identical. For twenty five bucks you can buy a season’s pass for all five episodes and that is a hell of a deal! The episodes are about two to three hours long and at five bucks a pop you’re getting a complete game for less than half the price of a brand new console title. Walking Dead is so good I prefer the narrative more than the TV show, I put the game on the same level as the comic book series. I’m starting up my second play through right now and eagerly awaiting episode 2. The Walking Dead cannot be missed it is the true zombie story experience.

-Max Romano