Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7/Mac Snow Leopard, 2 GB Pentium IV or better CPU, 3 GB RAM (4 GB for Mac), 512 MB graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: All five episodes available now

Many players complain about the stories in games, or the lack of them. These folks should be flocking to The Walking Dead, Telltale’s five-part odyssey through graphic novelist Robert Kirkman’s zombified universe. You’ll find more honest-to-god storytelling in a single episode of this series than in any three AAA releases. But is all of this narrative emphasis too much of a good thing?

Picking up at the end of Episode 1, escaped convict Lee Everett, his young companion Clementine and the rest of his group of plague survivors are holed up in a suburban motor inn. Their food is almost gone, making an already contentious situation much more dangerous. Circumstances force them to hit the road, where they pick up new traveling partners, lose a few to death and misunderstanding, and encounter people and situations that could only possibly be found at the end of the world.

The strength of the entire series lies both in the storytelling and how you react to it. Your decisions at pivotal points of the story can have a significant impact on how the rest of the plot plays out, making the series almost infinitely replayable. “Immersive” is one of those words that we game reviewers aren’t supposed to use, but there’s no way around using it to describe these games. But as the series progresses, it starts to get weighed down in exposition, almost to the level of Dear Esther, an indie game in which you do nothing but spend several hours wandering around an environment, triggering voice-over dialogue. This is especially true in Episodes 3 and 4, which lull you into a sense of complacency, then hit you with quick-time events and mouse-aiming combat out of the blue (don’t let your fingers stray far from the keyboard). The developers also couldn’t resist the temptation to throw in some tried-and-true adventure-game mechanics; at one point, Lee puts a blowtorch and a heavy acetylene tank in his back pocket. And there are some problems. You have to use the arrow keys to select dialogue choices instead of being able to click them with the pointer, and there are some audio issues later in the series (low volume, stuttering, etc). The final chapter is better focused than the previous two, but the ending is abrupt, leaving too many dangling threads (be sure to stay with the game after the closing credits of Episode 5 for a setup to Season 2).

The Walking Dead is unquestionably Telltale’s best episodic series thus far. The combination of an involving, sometimes heartwrenching story, comic-book-style graphics and the player’s ability to shape the narrative has spawned a new kind of adventure game. However, the focus of the series shifted too far towards plot exposition in the last three episodes. Hopefully Telltale will be able to refine their technique and make a better-balanced Season 2. Because I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Episode 5:

Our Recommendation (all five episodes):