Game Review: The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season (PS4)
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9 out of 10
The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season is a third-person episodic adventure game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. The Walking Dead began life in 2003 as a comic book series by Robert Kirkman and has since saw that success transcend to television with a series based upon the story of the comics that sees Rick Grimes, his family, friends and group of survivors attempt to come to terms with an apocalyptic breakout of zombies, referred to as walkers. The success of the television series has also transcended to the videogame adaptation that saw The Walking Dead win over ninety Game of the Year awards with mass critical acclaim from the gaming media across the world.
The story is played out from the perspective of a convicted criminal called Lee Everett who is given an unexpected second chance at leading an honourable life when the zombie apocalypse strikes and an incident occurs in which Lee finds himself free from his criminal conviction and seeking shelter from the undead. However, shortly after becoming a free man; Lee finds a girl called Clementine and seeks redemption for his prior sins in the form of protecting her from the hordes of undead roaming the streets.
The standout factor that makes The Walking Dead significantly different from other videogames is the amount of moral choices and the emotion of those choices that players will experience throughout each episode of the story. Whilst there are games that sometimes can become stuck in recurring clichés such as “Get that rocket launcher! Take out that tank!” and in the process box players in to a pre-drawn path; The Walking Dead provides gamers with a bunch of characters that will meet each other throughout the progression of the storyline and at one point or another; the player will ultimately decide their fate as to if they remain alive ahead of another character or if the character is abandoned for not agreeing with their opinions and actions to protect the rest of the group and it is in that sense that the player is effectively taking that freedom of choice and writing the story as progression is made through each scenario and episode. It is the moral choices that provoke an emotional response, not only from the character being controlled; but also from the gamer’s point of view to experience and to witness what is happening to the other characters that become progressively more attached to throughout the course of the story.
The characters are superbly well written as they all have their own stories, thoughts and emotions regarding the zombie apocalypse. The characters provoke a multitude of genuine emotions as the player takes on the game; ranging from anger at a poor decision or a moment of betrayal or greed from a member of the group to sadness as Clementine struggles to adjust to life in the zombie apocalypse as she continues her hopeful pursuit of her parents. It cannot be denied that the characters are what draw you into experience The Walking Dead to begin with, but after that they will never let go and will always vie for attention and heartfelt emotion in an impressively well written and appropriately balanced mix of emotions and characters that aptly play off each other.
As the subject matter of The Walking Dead covers a zombie apocalypse; players would naturally assume that there are horror elements to the gameplay and while they are not consistently there, they do creep up on the player more than enough. The horror elements are presented in one-on-one encounters with walkers and when someone else’s life is in immediate danger with only you in the vicinity to prevent such as occurrence, although there are other instances of horror elements as not every character, group or family met will necessarily be all they appear to be. However, despite the horror elements and the apocalyptic scenario; there is still room for light hearted humorous or sarcastic dialogue and expressions, which certainly lifts the standard of the dialogue to a new level as it changes the pacing and tone when appropriate, resulting in an even better game that never tires and instead manages to remain fresh from the outset.
The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the game is being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between game footage and player’s reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future. The Share Play feature provides a platform for a gamer that does not own the game to take control of the game started and invited that person to play, although it only lasts for one hour; it is a great service as it effectively presents a one hour demo of the game to anyone invited who does not own it, while being an excellent sociable feature too.
The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season supports the remote play feature that allows play on almost any PS4 game on your PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on the PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The performance during remote play is identical to that of the PS4 version with the graphics, audio, loading times and control scheme all remaining at the same standard of quality, while the PS4 version is not cross-save, so if players do not own the Vita version or they do but want to continue progress from the PS4 version, then remote play is a worthy way of doing so with the added bonus of the PS4 version looking better on the Vita via remote play than the Vita native version itself.
However, there is a cross-save element regarding the ability to import a save file containing moral decisions from the first season directly into the second season in order to affect the story in the future; which is an excellent design choice as it provides continuity to a story that you are capable of influencing.
The 400 Days downloadable content is available within the bundle of The Complete First Season, which adds some great value to the bundle as the PS3 version of 400 Days costs £3.99 alone. 400 Days provides a connecting story from the perspective of another group of survivors that centres on a truck stop on a Georgia highway with the story beginning on the first day of the zombie apocalypse and continuing through to 400 days after it had all started. The decisions made in the first season will carry over into the 400 Days story ark and the decisions players make in the 400 Days story will resonate with the story of the second season of The Walking Dead, so make sure to protect the characters that you want to see sticking around in future episodes and storylines. However, you can play any of the five episodes of The Walking Dead and even the 400 Days episode with randomly generated story decisions for the previous skipped episodes, although it is obviously recommended that players experience the game how it is intended to be and that is by playing through the storyline in the appropriate structure of episodes one through five and then the 400 Days episode.
The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller with the control scheme consisting of pressing X, triangle, square or O or alternatively by pressing up, down, left or right on the d-pad to perform a particular action, start a conversation with a person in the group or to choose a response in a conversation with the buttons being clearly marked towards the bottom of the screen; there are certain face buttons, such as X, triangle, square or O that you have to button mash when in one-on-one encounters with walkers as the buttons are randomly generated each time play is commenced; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move Lee around cover in a tight situation or walking around as players explore the environment and find people; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to move the cursor around the environment for investigation and observe certain objects and items of importance; pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.
The lack of touch pad implementation is surprising as the Vita’s touch screen control scheme was pretty much perfected as it saw the cursor being replaced with icons and consisted of tapping on an icon to perform a particular action, interact with an object, start a conversation with a person in the group or to choose a response in a conversation, while dragging a finger around the touch screen would move Lee around cover or exploring the environment and finding people, so it is difficult to understand why such functionality could not have made the transition from the Vita to the DualShock 4 controller. The lack of any light bar and vibration implementation is quite surprising as it could have produced an increasingly darker tone of red as a threatening situation looms to work in harmony with the visual effect of the HUD during such occurrences, while the DualShock 4 controller could have vibrated during any bumps and scrapes that Lee and Clementine endure along the way as well as the usage of any weapons to fend off walkers.
The graphics have a comic book cel shaded effect to them that makes them unique with the characters and surrounding environments possessing an extra graphical flare, while the majority of the minor visual performance issues from the prior releases have been ironed out to deliver the best experience of the game as it is now presented in 1080P resolution with better textures and much faster loading times.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, help and options, settings and gameplay menus, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and the lack of a touch based user interface via the touch pad is disappointing given the fact of how effective and responsive the touch screen user interface is in the Vita version. The background of the menu screens focuses upon a farm that looks rather still and quiet with the exception of the sounds effects of flies buzzing and birds tweeting.
The audio consists of voice-overs, sound effects and music that works well together to build layers of the world, the relationships and the story that is unfolding all around, while most of the minor audio issues from the previous versions have been corrected to deliver better audio. The voice-overs are exceptionally well performed and are at the very centre of a truly engaging and emotional experience with numerous voice-over artists that you would have most definitely heard in various videogames before or since the first season of The Walking Dead. For instance, Dave Fennoy who perfectly voices the lead protagonist Lee Everett has performed voice-overs for many characters in videogames, such as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots; Prototype; Ratchet and Clank: Driver: San Francisco, The Darkness II and Batman: Arkham Origins, alongside many other video games and voice-overs in popular television series, such as Archer; Star Wars: The Clone Wars and 1994’s Sonic The Hedgehog T.V. series. However, the experienced résumés of the voice-over talent does not just rest with Dave Fennoy; as Melissa Hutchinson who voices Clementine portrays the little innocent and lost girl brilliantly has voiced many other characters in Telltale Games’ videogames, such as Stinky in the Sax and Max seasons; Trixie Trotter in Back to the Future; and The Wolf Among Us, amongst other videogames. Gavin Hammon who voices Kenny is another standout performer having already performed voice-overs for Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath; Infamous; Avatar: The Game; Hitman and The Wolf Among Us, amongst other videogames. The sound effects breathe life into the world as players will hear nearby walkers, birds and flies, amongst a range of other sounds, while the music adds tension and ties in perfectly to what is happening at that particular moment of the scene to always set the appropriate mood. The lack of any DualShock 4 speaker implementation is surprising as it could have produced another layer of atmosphere from sound effects such as nearby walkers and ambient sounds, conversations or music.
The trophy list includes 41 trophies with 30 bronze, 5 silver, 5 gold and 1 platinum trophy, while the 400 Days downloadable content has 7 bronze and 1 gold trophy. The trophy list for all 5 episodes of The Walking Dead is entirely based upon completing each chapter within each episode; resulting in a somewhat easy trophy list in regards to the fact that players will earn the platinum trophy if they are able to complete the story with only a single playthrough required. It is also important to note that the platinum trophy can be obtained without completing the 400 Days episode as that is classed as downloadable content as part of the season bundle, rather than being included in an accumulative trophy list. The 400 Days downloadable content has an easy trophy list as 6 of the 8 trophies revolve around the completion of each of the characters’ chapters and the epilogue chapter. However, there are a couple of trophies that are not as straight forward, such as the Two out of Three bronze trophy for winning two out of the best of three rounds in a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors and the Reunited bronze trophy for finding an old friend. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 10 to 12 hours to platinum the trophy list for The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season and around 2 hours to 100% the trophy list for the 400 Days downloadable content.
The difficulty curve certainly fluctuates throughout the game as there are some tough one-on-one encounters with walkers, while there are easier areas of the game that require you to scavenge for supplies to keep the group’s energy up, so they can stay focused and on the move, alongside other parts of the game that will require conversations with characters to find out their opinion on a matter of interest that is important to the group’s survival. The only settings that are customisable in relation to difficulty levels are for the in-game user interface as players can have a standard setting that allows players to have access to more feedback when they make important moral choices and help in regards to highlighting any areas of interest, while the minimal setting will completely turn off any hints, help and choice notifications. When in one-on-one encounters with walkers; players will be required to do some button mashing, but these encounters are made harder by the buttons being randomly generated each time the game is played. This approach means that it no longer becomes anything related to memorising a certain button sequence and instead it becomes more about fast reflexes to ensure that layers survive the encounter, which is an appropriate design choice as it certainly adds more atmosphere and tension to the mix as you are not guaranteed to breeze straight through a one-on-one encounter with a walker.
There are no online leaderboards and no multiplayer, although players would not really expect a multiplayer component in something that is as story and character driven as this game. However, despite there being no online leaderboards; there is a statistical analysis of the decisions made during each episode in comparison to the decisions that everyone else who has played The Walking Dead has made, which is a positive design choice in the sense that it provides players with an in depth look at if they have made the correct decision or if they were incorrect in the eyes of a certain percentage of people who have played the game. The statistical analysis is actually broken down into separate categories covering such difficult decisions as: honesty; who you have saved; loyalty; mercy and more besides given the various situations that occur in each episode. Every decision within each episode is clearly defined in the statistical analysis and it is incredibly interesting to see at the end of the eighth chapter of every episode what percentage of players made the same decisions as you and to also see the percentage of players that disagreed with your choices.
The replayability of The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season and the 400 Days downloadable content stems from the multiple storylines that you can carve out by playing the game for a second or third time or so, while experimenting with different combinations of moral choices to see which direction it will take the story regarding which characters will survive that did not survive beforehand and which characters that did survive previously that will not survive given a different moral choice.
Overall, The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season is an amazingly original game that draws such emotion from its superb narrative that it certainly deserves all of the awards and accolades it has ever won since the first episode was released, while 400 Days continues to tell a superbly open story from different perspectives. If you have never played The Walking Dead before on any other platforms, then it is the epitome of the term must buy, although even if you have already played it on another platform; it is still worth a purchase on the PS4 as it is bundled with the 400 Days episode which certainly adds more value to the release and for the chance to play a version of the game with various performance enhancements to the graphics, audio and loading times, which it deserves as it is such an amazingly memorable narrative driven experience, therefore making it a purchase you will not regret even if you already own it on PS3 or Vita.
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
Title: The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season (including 400 Days episode)
- Developer: Telltale Games
- Publisher: Telltale Games
- System: PS4
- Format: Retail/PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: No
- Cross-Play: Yes (Save Import for Story Decisions from Season 1 to Season 2)
- Players: 1
- Hard Drive Space Required: 4.46GB