Less than ten minutes. That’s how long it takes for Telltale to crush any hopes that the inaugural episode for the second season of their adaptation of the hit comic book and TV franchise, The Walking Dead would be a feel-good game. Yet with its abundance of utter despair, “All That Remains” finds a way to be a masterfully written, horrifying yet heartfelt experience and a major improvement upon the first season.
Most gamers are used to violence, especially in the zombie sub-genre. Decapitations and gunshot wounds are the bread and butter of most video games. Still, many of those games are devoid of a lot of true emotional weight. Left 4 Dead? Dead Island? Left 4 Dead 2? They may offer a few jump scares that’ll unsettle you in the moment, but they’d rarely cause your emotions to drain from you, transforming you into a despondent creature similar to the ones you’re fighting onscreen. Perhaps then that’s why the violence in Telltale’s The Walking Dead hits so hard; it’s not just physical, with zombies biting and guns firing, but emotional violence as well; emotional violence inflicted tragically upon new playable protagonist, eleven year old Clementine.
Clem was undoubetedly the breakout star for the first season and so it’s obvious that she would take over as the main character after the, er uh, events of “No Time Left.” The change in hero also makes for a refreshing change in pace when it comes to the gameplay which now doesn’t consist of 90% dialogue. Dialogue still plays a huge role int he game and, if anything, it’s importance is heightened here. Not to spoil anything, but the beginning of the game puts Clementine in a much more desperate situation than Lee ever found himself in during the first season, so consequences go from “Guy with Moustache Might Get Mad at You” to “Guy Can Totally Kick You Out and Leave You to Die in the Cold.” That vulnerability translates into the gameplay too, as you are no longer fighting zombies and madmen as a well-built tall grown-up, but as an eleven-year old. Even though season one was still treacherous you felt pretty confident in your own safety. Here? Clem may be a badass but it’s still nerve-wracking to see the perils she faces.
And if you thought season one was the worst that our characters could face, then you are completely wrong. Season one definitely established a routine for Lee and Clem; stick with a group of people that would exist to support you. Even if you died, there was always a central core you could come back to and “All That Remains” even sets you up with one of these before ripping it out from your cold crying hands. This is Clementine, alone, scared, and in the woods with practically no chance of survival. When a group shows up in the latter half of the episode, they are not easily accepting the way Kenny or Lee was. The zombie apocalypse has entered Year Three (give or take) and the mood that there’s no hope for the old world coming back is firmly entrenched into the minds of all the new characters. If season one was Clementine trying to survive on a deserted island with her friends, then season two replaced the island with a 1’x1′ block of ice floating in the ocean and also shot everyone she ever loved in front of her. This is not a game for the faint of heart.
It’s also not a game for fans of traditional zombie shoot-em-ups. The first season was noted for its abundance of quick time events and to be honest, that still holds true here. Though, with cues taken from Wolf Among Us, Telltale has improved the action sequences quite a bit, by throwing in more options than clicking on people to kick them in the face or shoot them. That’s still present, but it’s broken up by more sequences of Clem running from and between zombies. That may not sound like a huge addition, and really it isn’t, this still makes the fights and action scenes feel organic and, more importantly, never repetitive. And even though the fights are basically extended quick time events, they still carry a weight that your typical shoot-em-up doesn’t. They’re one-on-one fights and the connection between you and the enemy is always made abundantly clear. Why, there’s one sequence in the beginning that made me forget I was even playing a game, and where I simply just wanted this man to die because he ruined my life and he was attacking me and his blood was mine by right an…
Continued belowOh er, right. The, uh, rest of the game.
In addition to the gameplay, the graphics have improved by a wide margin. Still utilizing the beautiful quasi-cel-shaded design, “All That Remains” feels a lot more like an actual world you can live in. In contrast to the first game, which mostly took place in the cities, this episode took place largely in the woods of Georgia(?) around wintertime, a setting that had hardly been explored before. The crispness of the air almost becomes something tangible that can be experienced. The characters also seem fresher in their faces and movement, while the zombies are… less fresher? They look more decomposed, ok? Thankfully, the graphics are still far from realistic, which sounds like a bad thing until you get to the climactic scene in the shed which lasts a minute but feels like ten. If that had been rendered with HD-style rendering I… I can’t think about that too long without my soul dying.
And really, without sounding too exaggerated, that’s the feeling many people walk away from Telltale’s game with. That doesn’t make them evil or anything, in fact I’ll say right now that Telltale currently houses the best writers in the gaming industry: the ones who can bend a medium to their whim to tell a stories that go far beyond their genre and into honest depictions of the human spirit. If you are a fan of storytelling, you need to play this game. If you are a fan of zombie stories, you need to play this game. If you are a fan of The Walking Dead, you need to play this game so you can bother your friends about how much the show can’t even compare to the games.
Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy! Somehow, Telltale Games outdid themselves here.
