Telltale’s Walking Dead games can be tough to review. The series is so heavily focused on story that it becomes increasingly difficult to write a review without giving away some of the finer plot details. In the Walking Dead universe, characters you’ve grown attached to are taken away in the blink of an eye, and if you know what will happen beforehand, the emotional impact is greatly lessened. In that regard, I’ve opted to provide a separate, spoiler-free review of The Walking Dead Season 2: A House Divided. That way, those of you who haven’t played the game can read on, knowing that nothing will be ruined. I promise to avoid any specific information or plot points throughout the rest of the review, so you can still feel confident in reading the entire review without learning too much.
Spoiler-Free Review: The game is amazing – go buy it right now!
OK, now that we have that out of the way, on with the review.
Platforms: iOS, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 (Version Played)
Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure
Release Date: March 5, 2014
ESRB Rating: Mature
As per the norm with episodic games, A House Divided picks up right after the previous chapter left off: the search group is under attack by walkers, and Clementine has just made a difficult decision on whether to escape with Nick or Pete. From there, she makes her way back to the survivors’ cabin. In the ensuing scene, we meet what appears to be this season’s antagonist: William Carver. Through the expertly-written dialog, we learn that he had some close ties with Clem’s new friends, but things quickly turned sour. The group decided to leave Carver’s camp – an action that he didn’t take too kindly to – and now he’s trying to bring them back by any means necessary. The gang decides to move on in order to elude him, and eventually come upon an old ski resort.
There isn’t much by way of action in A House Divided. Most of the game is spent on character development, and this pays off when it comes time to make those tough choices. There are some (not literal) nail-biting moments requiring you to think fast and pull the trigger, but a lot of the really serious situations require a verbal response. During the second half of the episode, you’re stuck in the middle of your new group and the group that resides in the resort, and need to take sides. Even something as simple as which table you sit at during dinner becomes a potentially sticky situation. But it does provide a nice break from the action while still maintaining that feeling of uneasiness.
Like Clementine, I’m finding it difficult to put my trust in some of these new characters. I just spent five long, excruciating episodes with Lee’s group, and I still don’t think I’ve gotten over losing them. I am finding myself connecting with some characters more than others – Luke and Carlos in particular – but there’s still some of them that I’m just not sure I can fully trust. Clem has become a bit more jaded, a bit tougher. This is also reflected in my choices: my first conversation with Carver was very tense and cold. But this is the kind of world we live in now: it’s dangerous out there, and if you don’t have the right people at your side, you’re as good as dead. This is just another testament to the writing of the game.
Again speaking to the quality of writing, there was almost nothing that happened in the story that seemed out of place. In fact, the characters’ actions were almost completely reasonable. During my playthrough, I paid special attention for any potential plot holes or nonsensical dialogue. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; in fact, at one point a character did exactly what I thought I would have done in the same situation. There was one instance, however, where the characters didn’t make as big a deal out of something as I felt they should have. The reason for this lack of urgency was explained, though, but to me it felt a bit flat. There was also a scene with Clem and one of the other characters that seemed like it was shoehorned in, maybe in order to make said character a bit more colorful.
I do have one other concern about the game. At the end of each episode, we get a teaser as to what to expect in the next episode. During Episode 2’s preview, one clip in particular gave me plenty of cause to speculate during the down time. There is a major scene in this episode, and it takes you completely by surprise. The only problem is that the preview gave us a glimmer of what was to happen. The reason I had an issue with this is because, based on that small snippet from three months ago, I kind of knew what to expect. Granted, it was still a powerful scene, but had I no inkling of what was going to happen, it would have made it that much better. From what I can gather, there’s no way to skip past the previews – aside from muting the TV and looking away. It would be nice to have a “Press A to Skip” option on the “Next Time on The Walking Dead” screen, though.
The audio is amazing. The voice acting is again top-notch, with the actors really giving it their all. I remember being particularly impressed with Carver’s voice actor, and was shocked to find out that Mr. Blonde himself, Michael Madsen, provided his voice. The music also fit the game perfectly. Towards the end, one track in particular had a real John Carpenter / George Romero vibe to it. Then, the song during the end credits was eerily appropriate, and very familiar if you were a fan of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance.
Telltale’s Walking Dead is driven by its storytelling, and A House Divided continues to prove that Telltale is capable of putting out a remarkable product. It is a bit of a lull in comparison to the first episode of Season 2, but that’s to be expected. Episode one was the set up, and in this episode we get to learn a bit more about our survivors. This works brilliantly, as we not only become more invested in these survivors, but the scene has been set up for what looks to be a particularly painful journey. I’m not going to lie – there was one scene where I got a bit misty-eyed, and if a video game can do that to me, then it’s really doing an amazing job. I honestly cannot recommend this game enough. For that matter, I strongly suggest picking up every episode if you haven’t already. I’m almost halfway into this season, and I can already see it following in season one’s Game of the Year footsteps.
Review Disclosure: A review copy of The Walking Dead Season 2: A House Divided was provided by Telltale Games for the purposes of this review.
