I recently wrote about my love for the
adventure genre of video games, still while the genre has been reduced to a
downloadable format of games, with few exceptions on big budget productions
(Heavy Rain for the PS3 comes to mind), it has growth to new markets, in much
different styles of play from the one I used to love. The most prominent
developer of these kinds of games right now is Telltale Games, and while they
are fine in their own, I still think the old games are better. Tell Tales have
done something very interesting with a business model were they have not really
created new properties, they have made adventure games using a mixture of
comics, TV and movie licenses like Strong Bad, CSI, Back to the Future, Jurassic
Park, Law and Order and also old video game franchises like Monkey Island, Sam
& Max (also a comic) and in the future Kings Quest. Their latest release is
a license of The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead is a black and white comic
book series, published by Image, created and wrote by Robert Kirkman. The
comics are very dark in its topics, and are centered on the survival of a
varying group of characters in a world where the dead walk the earth chasing
living beings and trying to eat them. It has no end in sight, and the author
even say there is no objective, no end game; it’s just trying to survive and
the struggle of the cast to keep their humanity and body parts without becoming
one of the walking dead. It has spawned a popular television series, and a
novelization, I haven’t read the novel, I have read a great length of the comic
book that is reaching number 100(I have read until #71 more or less), I didn’t care
much for the TV series, while I liked most of the first season, the 2nd
one didn’t grave my attention, while still watched most of it. Then there is
the Video Game, I loved it, great and dynamic story(at least in the first
episode), the artwork is effective enough, giving it a lot of emotion even with
a style reminiscent of the comic books (is almost cel-shaded with some detail
in the characters, to give them more emotion), the game also features very good
voice acting, that give the game emotion it deserves, and makes it feel a
mixture between a comic book and a movie, with interactive moments and a
branching path that takes to several endings depending on how people see you
and how you´re character interacts with them.
I was amazed how my wife, who never plays games
and rarely watches me play, she doesn’t like zombie movies and even less comics,
and she was completely engaged in the story and wanted to know what was
happening to the characters. That for me is a good sign of a story well put
together in a complete package. I recommend the game for everyone who likes the
license and especially lovers of old adventure games, I haven’t seen such a
great representation of the adventure game in years and am really glad to see
it from the same company that is bringing back King’s Quest.
The Walking Dead
2012 Telltale, Inc. THE WALKING DEAD is © 2012
Robert Kirkman, LLC. Based on the Comic Book by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and
Charlie Adlard.
Released in PS3, PC / Mac and Xbox 360
