The Walking Dead: Season Two, Episode One “All That Remains”

The Walking Dead: Season Two, Episode One “All That Remains”

Publisher: Telltale Games

Players: One

Genre: Graphic Adventure, Horror

Distribution: Download

For those of you new to Telltale Games' The Walking Dead series this game is categorized as a Graphic Adventure. It's kind of like a 'Choose your own Adventure' book, there are consequences to the decisions that you make. The first thing you do upon starting a new game is import any saved game files you have from previous games (either or both The Walking Dead: Season One and 400 Days). Those allows the game to tailor the game to the decisions you've made before.

Then you are reminded of your past exploits in a “Previously on...” montage. It's been a few months since I played through Episode One, but that quick montage reminded me how much I enjoyed the first game. The end of Episode One contains one of the few moments I've found in a video game that actually brought tears to my eyes.

In Season Two the player takes control of Clementine (One of my favorite characters in video gaming right now), an incredibly brave and resourceful child that you shepherded through the first season as Lee. As a child of the apocalypse Clem has learned to survive, either on her own or while in a group. This season drops you right into the action and doesn't stop. This episode is full of narrow escapes, harrowing encounters and a scene not for the squeamish. Clem reminded me very quickly why she's my favorite child of The Walking Dead-verse. Never a liability she not only holds her own with the adults she's grouped with, she makes herself indispensable to them.

The group Clem has fallen in with to begin this season seems much more dysfunctional than the group from the previous season. They're all obviously afraid of someone, someone whom they seem to expect to see hunting them around every corner. On top of the paranoia that causes, there's a soon to be child with a mystery father and lots of distrust of Clementine.

The voice acting for the most part is top-notch, with the actors voicing Clementine and Luke standing out the most to me. The game looks like a graphic novel, with the graphics seeming to have a hand drawn quality to them. My only gripe with the game is the same gripe I had with Season One; the action sequences interrupt the story and keep you from finding out more as quickly as possible. Unlike the show, where you wait for the next action sequence to break up the soap opera-ness of the interpersonal relationships, the action sometimes seems shoe-horned into the situation during play. I find myself rushing through the action, barely paying attention, until I can get to the next morsel of character development.

Conclusion: The first installment of The Walking Dead: Season Two picks up right where Season One left off. You experience the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of an adolescent, and discover the changes that such a situation forces upon the survivors. I can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store, there are already so many questions that need answers.

Rating: 7.5/10