The Walking Dead: My first Telltale Games Experience
This past week I got my first ever taste of a story that will probably change the way I see and play video games for a very long time. For my birthday I was incredibly lucky to receive the Telltale Walking Dead games from one of my friends. They’re games I’ve always heard people talk about but up until now I never really understood why. Through The Walking Dead, Telltale tells a story about survival like NO OTHER video game I have ever played. Through the hard choices you’re faced with, I started to wonder if I would be able to make those same choices in real life.
This is a series of games that demands you think really fast on what choice you make and how you and the rest of the characters will have have to endure the consequences of that decision. What I liked about this aspect is that no matter what decision I made it always felt like I kept making the wrong choices and that I had to pick more carefully going forward.
Before playing the game, I decided to do a “background check” on the game first to see if it would be something I’d like. The first thing I noticed was the incredible art style by Derek Sakai, who used his own daughter as a model for the facial features of the young Clementine we all get to know and love. The art style is stunning and really lends itself to the world we experience throughout the game.
You play through the story as Lee, a middle-aged university professor, who was on his way to a prison cell for killing a senator who was having an affair with his wife. On the way, the officer driving the car hits a walker on the highway which sends the car rolling off a cliff.
Shortly after escaping almost certain death, he meets a little girl, Clementine, who has been hiding in her treehouse waiting for her mother and father to return from a trip. She was in the care of her babysitter at the time the dead started walking. We soon see these two individuals from two completely different worlds help and support each other, making the grim and dark world of the Walking Dead universe a bit easier to cope with.
As you play the game you get to meet a lot of interesting individuals all with their own backstories and I wondered that if this was ever to happen if we would be more forgiving towards others that did wrong in their past. The game really made me step back and think about some of the choices I made and I began criticizing myself and my decisions. If I acted in the game the way I think I would have acted in real life then I’m pretty sure I would be dead in a world filled with zombies very early on. This is a game that truly pushes you to think fast and on your feet, every decision you make is something you will have to deal with until you complete the chapter or reload a checkpoint.
The game is about forming friendships, gaining trust and just trying to figure out what the best course of action is, not just for you but also for the others in your group to ensure they all survive. The game is so well written that I feel like all this is happening to me. So far there hasn’t been one second I felt like the game was boring or I was getting tired of playing. I am constantly being drawn in by the art, the characters, and the playstyle.
Upon completing the game I’ve cried, giggled, have been left speechless and was angry. I can’t think of a game in recent years that has made me feel like this. Like I’ve said in a previous article I get very easily attached to a character and although I’m not happy with how season one ended I understand why it had happened.
When I don’t agree with something I almost always say it’s “lazy writing” and don’t listen to anyone else’s opinion on the matter. I was invested in that character and they deserved a happy ending and you can’t convince me otherwise! But in this case, the story pulled out all the stops, it made me feel like I was a new person and I wanted to do better because of it. The story of two strangers coming together and finding love and meaning. It makes me wonder if they needed to go through the hardships to be where they ended up.
I could sit here and write about the amazing job Telltale games did with this series and even though I’m just through season one I can already tell you that season two is already installed and ready to be played!
It’s games like this that make me feel sad that I only find and play them so far beyond the time they were published. However, it also gives me the opportunity to share my thoughts on the games and share them with newer generations and gamers who might be like me that haven’t experienced it yet.
I can very easily say that The Walking Dead has been an incredible story from the moment I began playing it. I really don’t think I’ve ever felt so involved or invested in a story in such a long time and it really is a credit to the people who made the game. I really can’t wait to play season two!!
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