- Gameplay choices (and many are
gut-wrenchingly hard to decide) really matter as far as how each
individual gamer’s story progresses
- Has some “item seek & find” lulls, but when there’s a walker
attack, the adrenaline gets flowing and the heart starts pumping
quickly
- Combat controls are well designed
- Extremely well-written script, although the voice-acting is
just average
- The “search & find” gameplay
elements can get a bit annoying, particularly when gamers would
rather be engaged in the more entertaining walker fighting
action
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The
Walking Dead Episode 1: A New Day
Score:9.0 / 10
The Walking Dead has reinvigorated the
zombie genre with the extremely popular comic book and television
series. Now, Robert Kirkman’s amazing zombie-filled (or as Kirkman
prefers them to be known as, walkers) apocalyptic universe has ventured
its way into videogame form (on the Xbox 360) with the release of The
Walking Dead series from the developers of high-quality episodic
adventure gaming, Telltale Games. A five-part episode release, the first
one, A New Day, introduces gamers to Kirkman’s depressingly deadly and
full of despair world, right at the very first “new day” of mankind: one
where the walking dead have risen and
the living left behind trying to find any
means possible to avoid joining those undead ranks.
The story doesn’t follow that of The Walking Dead’s most famous
character, Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes. Instead, gamers get introduced to
convicted criminal Lee Everett, an African-American University of
Georgia professor from Macon, Georgia, who at the
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outset of the episode is being escorted
from Atlanta, newly convicted for murder (catching your wife in bed with
a senator can kind of drive a man to commit extremely deadly bodily
harm) and on his way to prison in the backseat of a police car. As
Everett and his police escort have a conversation about what happened,
discussing that and other innocuous chit-chat, more and more police
vehicles are zooming full-sirens-wailing back into Atlanta, foreboding
something terribly wrong. That manifests itself just a few minutes later
when the squad car flies full speed off the highway and down an
embankment after smashing full-speed dead-on into a walker on the
roadway. And then that’s when the realization for both Everett and
gamers becomes crystal clear that hell-on-earth has been unleashed with
first the now-dead policeman driver resuscitating back to life and other
walkers in the woodlands trying to attack the injured Everett, who
narrowly escapes into a backyard of an Atlanta neighborhood.
Entering the seemingly abandoned house, and after another harrowing
encounter with yet another walker, gamers are introduced to another main
character, Clementine. She’s a young girl who has survived on her own in
her treehouse, waiting for her now-presumably-dead parents to return to
rescue her (the answering machine message Everett plays pretty much
leaves no doubt they’re not coming back in any other form besides
walker).
From there, gamers get introduced to a host of characters, including a
few from comic/TV show fame, including Hershel and Glenn. Everett,
looking to find his parents and brother, does eventually find his way
back to Macon, unfortunately to discover the horrible reality that he
had not wanted to find: no one in his family survived. Holed up in his
parent’s drugstore with other survivors, Everett, like those around him,
must find his way to safety, which in this case is a motel on the
outskirts of town, in the new hellish reality of living undead.
Only one episode into the videogame series, gamers will be impressed
with how incredibly well written and detailed A New Day’s script is,
just as expertly and first-rate scribed as the comic and TV show
(although the voice acting is just average). What’s even more first-rate
is the gameplay feature that has the choices gamers’ make throughout the
game affect how later encounters with characters and walkers,
particularly the many gut-wrenching choices that literally have Everett
deciding between who lives and who dies. Characters remember Everett’s
dialogue interactions/gameplay choices and react to him in later
interactions (not only in this episode, but across the spectrum of all
five) accordingly to those choices. This makes each individual gamers’
experience with The Walking Dead somewhat unique to only them.
But don’t expect much time to make those
choices, especially under duress of walker attack. Gamers have just
precious few seconds to make a decision, and oftentimes that decision is
going to cost someone dearly while saving another. Tension fills a lot
of the short-lived gameplay. It only takes about three hours to get
through the episode, but that’s usual for Telltale Games titles, as if
all five episodes should bring the total gameplay time in the 15-hour
range.
A mixture of “search & find” gameplay with intense walker combat is
deftly combined in the first episode. A New Day definitely has some
“item seek & find” lulls, but when there’s a walker attack, the
adrenaline gets flowing and the heart starts pumping quickly. The
“search & find” gameplay elements can get a bit annoying (some items are
very hard to find), particularly when gamers would rather be engrossed
in the more entertaining walker fighting action.
For combat, gamers will need to move the cursor over a walker and
interact quickly and more importantly, have the cursor in the right
place within a small window of opportunity. If the first well-designed
combat interaction doesn’t hit the “sweet spot” for walker killing,
there’s a high chance that a gamer will soon be walker food. A few other
interactions require rapid button-mashing to avoid a similar fate.
Just as impressive as the script and combat is, the graphics are even
better. Taking inspiration right from the pages of the comic book
itself, A New Day is visually striking, and the animated movement of
Everett is fluidly good.
A New Day brings a new entry into the line-up of quality Telltale Games
episodic gaming releases. Fans of both The Walking Dead comic book and
TV series will be impressed with the great story and gameplay that is
another excellent extension of the walker lore. And the scintillating
second the episode ends, gamers will be anxiously awaiting the second
episode, which if the teaser trailer at the end of the first one is any
indication, will be even more tension-filled and exciting.
