Episode 2 of The Walking Dead video game series picks up three months after the events of the first. Having found temporary solace in a run-down motel, Lee and his group of survivors find themselves facing off against a new threat: hunger. With tensions running high, and supplies running low, a pair of potential guardian angels appear. In exchange for some fuel, this duo of survivors are willing to provide your group with shelter, and rations from their supposedly large supply. Could this be too good to be true?
The beauty of the first episode was that in spite of the zombies, it was a story centred around people, and the drama that comes with having to survive in an apocalypse. Episode 2 amps up the drama in a number of different ways. For one, the presence of zombies has been toned down greatly in this one. Telltale Games clearly had a particular story to tell that didn’t require them, so they left them out. I’m glad that they didn’t feel shoehorn them in for the sake of maintaining a certain zombie quota.
Two, this episode gives its story bits room to breathe. This episode in general is a bit slower in pace, and n takes its time to tell you everything that it wants to. Even during the seemingly ‘slow’ moments, I was as equally gripped to it as I was its most intense ones.
Speaking of intense moments, episode 2 clearly steps it up in this department. Without spoiling too much, the episode starts with a life-or-death scenario, where one of your potential choices involves you chopping off a person’s leg with an axe. When I saw this materialize as an option, I genuinely freaked out, and looked for every possible alternative in hopes of not crippling, or killing this person. The stakes only go higher from there, until it reaches the series’ biggest shocker yet.
The Walking Dead Episode 2 is another home run. If Telltale Games can keep this up, this series of downloadable episodes could very well appear on my shortlist for game of the year. Fingers crossed that they can keep this level of quality up for three more episodes.
In Third Person 