Game review: The Walking Dead - an adventure game from Telltale Games

When I first heard about an adventure game based on zombie apocalypse, I rolled my eyes. Yet another zombie shooter and yet this time, we get to do it by pointing and clicking. I imagined a scenario where the player had to solve a puzzle wherein they "use" cleaver "on"zombie head. This idea is all the more pant-on-head-retarded given that zombie horror is all about tense, immediate danger with little time to think about it; how could you possibly have tense zombie horror when you have to walk around a small area with unlimited amounts of time clicking from one item to the next in an attempt to figure out what to do?

Well I was completely wrong. The walking dead is amongst one of the finest stories I've ever played. the game actually completely burst my expectations with some of the darkest pieces of humour, well scripted dialogue and extremely moving the characters and relationships. It is clear to me now where the adventure genre needs to go – towards storytelling and characterisation.

Plot

The walking dead tells the story of Lee – a middle-class black guy on his way to jail after having been convicted of a crime (funny that: P). The cop driving Lee towards prison accidentally runs over a person and when they both come to they find it was the person – it was a zombie. Cue police officer faced being chewed in. Lee manages to escape and comes across a little girl named Clementine whose parents have met a fate unknown, though it is pretty clear that they would have been eaten in the initial outbreak. Lee and Clem leave the suburbs and try to find others who can help them survive – they find a number of interesting individuals and families along the way, some helpful, some annoying. Players get a great deal of perceived choice in how to deal with any given situation – I say perceived because the plot still goes along certain paths no matter what choices you make. For example, a zombie attacks you and you get the choice of hitting them with a bottle or shooting them with a gun – while the outcome either way will be a dead zombie and you will (in this case at least) get off completely unharmed, the nature of your choice in packs up on the characters around you – notably Clementine.

The walking dead also has a new take on the zombie apocalypse. Traditionally what causes on zombification if the bite from a zombie – you get bitten, you die, you turn into one of them. In WD, the zombie bite is fatal, but all individuals are infected with the zombie virus to begin with. All types of death (excluding those which crush the head) lead to becoming a zombie. This means that death is not just the end of life – it creates a real danger to those around them.

A new type of choice

The use of choice in this game is an unusual one – after playing a dozen games where your choices have an impact on the ending (Mass Effect, Fallout, Alpha Protocol etc.) ultimately your choices don't affect the outcome, just the characters and their emotions. And herein is the true genius of choice in gaming – a method of storytelling in which the players choices impacts only the personality and relationships of the characters. No matter what you do in Mass effect, Shepherd will be regarded as one of the greatest heroes of all time. People will worship him or her regardless of whether they were paragon or renegade. In walking dead, Lee's choices impact extremely highly on Clementine and will leave the others either stricken or sympathetic towards him, and these relationships are all the more believable for it. Many people don't like games where they main character speaks – people enjoy characters like Gordon Freeman because they can fit him on like a  HEV suit - he is whoever they want him to be. This is also much of the rationale behind the awful character Bella in Twilight - a faceless nobody whom everyone likes unconditionally despite the fact that they do nothing. I find a fully voiced an emotive character far more compelling as it allows you to explore what they are feeling and their motivations, something that I find is sorely lacking in faceless-hero games. leaders of flawed person; he doesn't always met the right choice and things don't always work out. He tries to protect Clementine and her innocence, despite the fact that it it is next to impossible post-apocalypse. Half life is a post-apocalyptic world more or less and yet we ultimately know nothing about our hero other than what the other characters seem to think about him – for all we know Gordon Freeman could be a psychotic murderer with a penchant for watching skulls explode who just happens to have a Ph.D.

Gameplay
Quite a lot of the game is focused on solving very simple puzzles such as clicking on a pipe wrench and using it on nuts and bolts. There are a number of quite frenetic sequences where Lee has to quickly pick a weapon and use it on the right part of the zombie and I do have to admit that this is the only weak part of the game. It would be fairer to say that the walking dead is more like an interactive story in which you get to choose the persona of your hero, rather than a survival horror adventure. Most of the gameplay is in fact in dialogue choices, with a few QuickTime events thrown in the amp up the tension level (though all of these are effective in doing so). This is not a game to play if you're looking for a challenge; the solutions to all the problems are fairly obvious and the total amount of actual gameplay over the five episodes is probably about 20 minutes ( not counting dialogue).

Overall, this is one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. It does something so differently to other games – it's a top tier game which explores all of the grotesqueries of human nature when civilised society breaks down. The characters are all interesting - at more than one point I was seriously annoyed at a character for something cowardly or stupid or just frustrating that they did, and this is a mark of excellent literature – something that makes you feel. Jokingly I've asked people before what their zombie plan was and how they would survive in the zombie apocalypse, not thinking for an instant how I would actually react if the walls of society came crumbling down. Would I resort to dog eat dog? Would I become hardened against the problems of the world? Would I be up to sacrifice a loved one or allow someone to die so that I or others might live?
Ultimately I would probably be one of the first ones eaten due to my scepticism and cynicism. Not that I don't have the skills to survive but I would probably be unlucky enough to be crushed in a stampede filled with bogans.

I would highly recommend this game to all adults – the violence is high impact and extremely gruesome at times. The horror element of this game is also off the charts - the sinister farm from the second episode is a particularly high octane nightmare fuel. Still, this is why we ride rollercoasters - for the thrill and to feel something truly terrifying.

Singapore - Journal log and braindump

This is the journal that I kept while in Singapore - it's unedited.

Day one

Surprisingly comfortable economy flight. I am never going to get used to the terror induced by take-off however.

Our hotel clearly resides in Whore Alley. Every single hotel seems to be cheap block the full. Also the prostitutes aren't dissuaded by polite “no”. I’m going to have to show teeth and growl in the hopes that this overcomes language barrier.

We changed rooms in the middle of the night due to a malevolent entity possessing the air-conditioning. In retribution we stole all the bedding when we moved to a new room.

Day two

Why can't I set the god dam clock right!? The sun has been up for hours and yet it still has been 8 AM for the whole morning. Given the number of taxis here last night, I'm surprised they don't service Whore Alley in the mornings. Walking up and down the Geylang proper and gesticulating wildly traffic has not been a successful method of gathering attention.

I feel bad that my breakfast cost 60 cents and that I gave the poor bastard a $50 note. He wasn't happy but I really didn't have any options.

The shopping centres are much like the one at home. Specialty shops with the same crap but far more Asians on the cover. Those are bothering me though – every single person here has had either a completely vacant "I am dead on the inside look" or scowling through gritted teeth from exertion and work. The smiling faces and bright eyes on the ads tell a lie. They aren't fun and exuberant - their work themselves to death both spiritually and physically.

Mustafas pisses me off. A shopping centre 10 times the size of any Myer and no system of categorisation that a sane man could follow. James and I went to meet in a belt section at the bottom of an escalator but it turns out there are two that match that description. In two different buildings. And one name for both.

The zoo is a fascinating place. Mostly from the series of crude jokes Jasmine and I are making about how the phallic the animals look. I'm puzzled by the souvenir shop filled with glow-in-the-dark skeletons though.

Day three

Breakfast at Orchard Road. The opening of the shopping centre foods section at Takashimaya was very unnerving and impressive at the same time – all of the staff were standing in front of the stalls and bowing to us as though we were kings. And kings we were. Foodcourt hijinks ensued. Everyone goes to someplace different. Loving the sheer variety of cheap breakfast food. Big bowl, porridge, sizzling steak , hamburger.

Taxi driving remains the most stressful activity – cabbies spend more time in between lanes than in them. Indicating is clearly optional. Also honking repeatedly appears to have the message "you're behaving like an ass hole and only I'm allowed to do that.”

I find it really odd that 95% of the population are sour faced bastards. Not sure why the remaining 5% are having a good time considering that they are are doing the exact same things.

The Singapore Flyer is a giant ferris wheel that hasn't had excellent view of the city that takes about an hour. However just across the bay is one of the largest buildings in the world with a bar at the top so given the choice I'd rather go with the one with is. Cost is comparable. Also learn to break 50s ASAP. I accidentally paid an unscrupulous and competent cabbie $65 for a $13 trip because I couldn't sit correctly in the dark.

Day four: food tourism

1.       Roti Prata with curry dipping sauce at al-Jilani Muslim store. A giant platter of mutton flatbread and 8 Prata, with six drinks for $30. A breakfast only four dollars each.

2.       Beef bones in red sauce and bone marrow. Red food dye number two contained everything from clothes to faces and so this became the first meal I've ever had that required plastic gloves to consume. Bone marrow is one of the most disgusting foods I've ever eaten – I can't get over that it is marrow, and calling it hot meat jelly doesn't really help. Slurping hot jelly through a bone or a straw is equally unpleasant an experience.

3.       Sweet pork buns and fried bacon treats at Bay marine sands. A magnificent place to visit – high-class shopping with far fewer of the pathetic or beaten faces that seem to characterise so much of the population.

4.       Chicken rice! Chicken flavoured rice – Chinese greens and poached chicken. The official dish of Singapore. I'm not sold on this one – it is decent but nowhere near the best meal I've had here. The chicken has an odd lumpy texture and having trouble adjusting to having so many meats served warm or tepid in temperature.

There are some truly wondrous buildings here are some fascinating artistic ventures – on the walls of a Marine at 2000 metal rectangles on pivots; the movement of the wind on the gives the effect of waves rippling and water flowing. The MRT is very simple and efficient. And very underground. I'm uncomfortable being underground at the best of times - although it is clean.

Day five

I figured out that Singaporeans are a decent, if self-involved, people and at the Malaysians that are ass holes. They don't look where they're going, regularly try to scam you and generally have the worst jobs and lowest standards of living. It’s these people I see most often hanging about whore alley and loitering about the streets at night. The cultural differences between these ethnicities are quite drastic.

I don't trust any of these people in terms of intelligence and common sense. Getting into a packed train seems that a good way to get killed in an emergency – it’s like being in a meat grinder. I fully expect that should there ever be a collision or fire underground, more would die from the stampede than the incident. They will jam into an elevator without pausing for people to disembark and gridlock the whole process – just like on the roads. The slightest bit of courtesy would solve all of this but they would have to think outside themselves for five seconds to do so.

Singapore is the purest expression of capitalism I'd ever seen. High levels of socio-economic stratification, non-existent social mobility, and little social conscience. I hate it. Socialism FTW!

We walked nearly the entire length of Orchard Road in the evening. After picking up suits for the wedding we picked a direction and just went. Necessarily, we got lost from moment one; it was like turning around and slamming headfirst into a pole, only with more blisters.

Singapore is not a place to be if you are both wealthy and suffer from vertigo. The IMAX theatre here was on the sixth story in a highly steep cinema – at least a 40° incline. I am having serious difficulties dissociating where I am from what I am doing.

Day six: the wedding

Off to the Central Sikh temple in Singapore. The building looks utterly ordinary on the outside and from there it gets bizarre. The ground level has an elaborate antechamber which then moves into an old-fashioned cafeteria – one with a real soup kitchen feel. Dozens of people packed into rows of food hall bench tables eating off rough stainless steel trades. Random volunteers make the food and serve water. Up a single flight of stairs is the place of worship – outside the main room is a magnificent glistening fountain pool which leads into a highly domed carpeted room with a shrine at the front. The room is both spartan and impressive; the emptiness of the room gives a real sense of gravitas and importance to the ostentatious shrine where the Guru sits.

It turns out that the Raffles Hotel is actually a hotel like the shopping district. A real classy old school establishment with polished wood banisters.

Day seven

More hanging around Orchard Road – so far the only place to go for cleanliness. We ate breakfast at the top of the Ion complex – everyone having Burgwiches - extremely tall stack burgers. One would have to dislocate their jaw in order to fit half of this stupidly sized burger into their face – this is the first burger that I've ever had to disassemble into more than three parts in order to consume it.

Taxi riding is still awful. The drivers tailgate as a matter of course and are fairly incompetent compared to Australian drivers. Also not a fan of the driving technique wherein the maximum legal speed is constantly maintained and the foot on the accelerator constantly tops up the speed. The practicality of this driving technique means that every few seconds the car lurches forward in a way guaranteed to smash your head against the front seat headrest every time.

We went to a shopping centre late at night and ate at a pasta shop – some of these guys really know how to cook. I also enjoy the cinemas here – incredibly clean and cheap. The ads here are thoroughly strange – they are ads aimed at families of military officers (particularly the mothers) designed to allay their fears and put them at ease with the idea that their sons and husbands must serve for years. The primary concerns of those in the army are about how hard a life it is rather than any real chance of getting killed – from what I can tell the army engages in peacekeeping exercises rather than participating in any war.

The other odd set of ads is where work life balance is promoted as part of a commercial recruiting campaign. There are obviously using the maintenance of familial connections as a means of ensuring loyalty. Still unclear as to what extent this goes but it is very progressive for an Asian country.

Day eight

I don't think Singaporeans understand the causal links between deforestation and recycling. All over the zoo are banners and signs that raise awareness of the loss of rainforest but in no way do they practically address it. Tour guides will often recite the three “R”s of something which will save something else. All of it is unclear.

I'm sold on the idea that littering should be punished and the recycling reduces waste but they waste so much time with this three “R” straw man exercise. The Singaporeans are destroying rainforests. I'm not sure why a lecture on recycling will mitigate this fact. It all sounds so disingenuous when they drone on and on about recycling and this is clearly one of the most wasteful cities in the world. I guess it's a step in the right direction that they acknowledged as a problem at all.