Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: 9.5 out of 10
The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season is a third-person episodic adventure game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. The makers, Telltale Games, have gradually become more popular with every game having developed the cult classic Sam and Max seasons to episodic games based upon such well known licensed properties as Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us with Telltale’s star rising upon every release which has led to Tales from the Borderlands, Minecraft: Story Mode and even Game of Thrones with certainly a bright future ahead.
When The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season was originally released in April 2012 on PS3; no one could have predicted the impact it would have had as it went on to win over 90 Game of the Year awards and receive worldwide critical acclaim from the gaming media, but how does the second season shape up in comparison to what has went before it?
Following the events of the first season; Clementine is now the lead character in the second season which is not something that would necessarily work in many games to have a child as the lead character, but given how Lee Everett looked after her and taught her responsibly throughout the first season; it works well as it is far more believable due to Clementine now being more independent, knowledgeable and aware of her surroundings.
The story begins with a light hearted moment as Christa and Omid, who are now looking after Clementine, are discussing the name of their unborn child as Omid continues to suggest Omid or Omid Junior for the name, while as Clementine players can join the conversation by suggesting that Omid would be an appropriate or to ask if Omid would be an appropriate name for a girl. However, the pacing of the first season returns rather quickly as it turns the dynamic of the scene on its head with shocking and emotional moments that have repercussions, therefore affecting the flow of the story for the second season and changing the lives of multiple characters forever, while returning to horror elements and scary moments that really plays on the source material superbly.
Season 2 makes multiple nods towards the player’s moral choices and the consequences of those decisions throughout the duration of the five episodes and the 400 Days episode from the first season as players have the ability to import their save file containing all decisions made from the first season directly into the second season, which is a positive design choice as it affects the story of the new season, while providing continuity to a story that players are capable of influencing.
The second season takes the established decisions and kicks it into high gear with even more open and moral choices which can be the difference in taking revenge on a walker or bandit and committing a frighteningly painful action with an ever narrowing window of time to make a decision which could potentially save the life of someone close to Clementine within her group as such moral decisions always draw a powerful emotional response from the player.
The My Choices feature improves upon the feature which was previously displayed at the end of each episode in the first season by providing an entire listing of made choices including the statistical analysis regarding the percentage of players who have made the same choice as the player for each moral decision with the feature being directly available from the main menu.
The second season possesses something that was essential to the first and that is a core cast of characters that players may become attached to and care for set against the walkers that will be encountered as well as bandits and even group leaders that prefer to make themselves look heroic, while technically using their group to commit to slave labour in return for shelter with a risk of severe punishment if their tasks are not carried out to an enforced standard. The fact that players meet not only walkers, but villainous and ruthless humans along the journey to find a new home makes the thought of caring even more for the core group of characters, especially Clementine as her bid for survival becomes harder as a result.
The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the game is being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between game footage and the reaction captured from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.
The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season supports the remote play feature that allows play on almost any PS4 game on the PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on the PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The performance during remote play is identical to that of the PS4 version with the graphics, audio, loading times and control scheme all remaining at the same standard of quality with optimisation to the control scheme as running and fighting actions have been reconfigured from R2 on DualShock 4 to L or R on the Vita, while the PS4 version is not cross-save, so if players do not own the Vita version or do but want to continue their progress from the PS4 version, then remote play is a worthy way of doing so.
The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller with various enhancements to refine the control scheme from the first season. In regards to differentiating actions, conversations, fighting and running rather than the controls being mapped to the same buttons while only being based upon the context of the scenario the player finds themselves in as to which button pressed as was the case with some of the gameplay during the first season. The control scheme of the second season consists of pressing X, triangle, square or O to perform actions, start a conversation with a person in the group or to choose a response in a conversation with the buttons being clearly marked towards the bottom of the screen; pressing R2 to run or perform fight actions when defending yourself; pressing up or down on the d-pad to look at inventory; mashing certain face buttons such as X, triangle, square or O when in one-on-one encounters with walkers as the buttons are randomly generated each time the game is played; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move Clementine around cover in a tight situation or walking around as the environment is explored during the search to find people and supplies; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to move the cursor around the environment to investigate and observe certain objects and items of importance as well as deciding who to start or continue a conversation with or even positioning aim at when about to defend the life of the character from a walker. Pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.
The PS4 version of The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season lacked any touch pad, light bar and vibration functionality and the second season also lacks the same features which is quite surprising as it would have provided some further improvements over the initial season. The lack of touch pad implementation is surprising as the Vita’s touch screen control scheme was pretty much perfected as it saw the cursor being replaced with icons and consisted of tapping on an icon to perform a particular action, interact with an object, start a conversation with a person in the group or to choose a response in a conversation, while dragging a finger around the touch screen would move Clementine around cover or exploring the environment. So it is difficult to understand why such functionality could not have made the transition from the Vita to the DualShock 4 controller. The lack of any light bar and vibration implementation is quite surprising as the light bar could have produced an increasingly darker tone of red as a threatening situation looms to work in harmony with the visual effect of the HUD during such occurrences, while the DualShock 4 controller could have vibrated during any bumps and scrapes that Clementine endure along the way as well as the usage of any weapons to fend off walkers.
The graphics and animations have noticeably improved in comparison to the first season as they are even more vibrant and have the finer details of real world surroundings such as leaves blowing off trees during gusts of wind and the character animations are certainly more fluent, while retaining the same colourful and visually striking comic book cel shaded art style.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, my choices, settings and gameplay menus, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and the lack of a touch based user interface via the touch pad is disappointing given the fact of how effective and responsive the touch screen user interface is in the Vita version. The background of the menu screens focuses upon a river that is surrounded by a forest on both sides as the sun shines with the sounds of flowing water, the occasional gust of wind and birds tweeting.
The audio consists of voice-overs, sound effects and music that collectively work in harmony to build layers of the world, relationships and the unfolding stories encountered through each episode. Melissa Hutchison has delivered an amazing performance not only across the first season but also throughout the second season where it is clear that Clementine’s character has evolved in a major way from the little innocent and lost girl at the start of the first season to the more dependable character she has gradually become. Melissa Hutchison’s performance as Clementine provides a guaranteed emotional response from the player as for instance hearing Clementine crying in pain as she attempts to stitch a dog bite on her arm only to then immediately have to defend herself against a walker is particularly harrowing, while dialogue and reactions to the world around her is delivered with expert precision. If players have played any of the other of Telltale Games’ videogames then they will be familiar with Melissa Hutchison’s adaptable voice acting as she has voiced many other characters such as Stinky in the Sax and Max seasons; Trixie Trotter in Back to the Future; and The Wolf Among Us, amongst other videogames. Among a large cast of voice-over artists; other noticeable roles include Michael Madsen voicing William Carver and who is known for Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill as well as such videogames as Driver 3, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Yakuza, alongside the returning Gavin Hammon who provides another stunning performance as Kenny having already performed voice-overs for Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath; Infamous; Avatar: The Game; Hitman: Absolution; Tomb Raider and Skylanders: Trap Team.
The sound effects provide an even greater sense of surroundings in comparison to the first season with more of an emphasis on ambient sound such as heavy rain and wind as well as the groans of nearby walkers, tweeting of birds and buzzing of flies. The in-game music adds a further layer of tension to scenes in which players will have to defend Clementine from walkers or provides more emotion to dramatic scenes, whilst the music during the menu screens and at the climax of each episode sets the tone perfectly. The lack of any DualShock 4 speaker implementation is surprising as it could have produced a further layer of atmosphere from sound effects such as nearby walkers and ambient sounds to conversations or music.
The trophy list includes 40 trophies with 15 bronze, 24 silver and 1 gold trophy; however there is no platinum trophy regardless of whether the game is purchased on any PlayStation platform at retail or via digital download which is hard to understand as the first season had a platinum trophy and Telltale’s games usually have a platinum trophy. The trophy list for all 5 episodes of The Walking Dead is entirely based upon completing each chapter within each episode; resulting in a somewhat easy trophy list in regards to the fact that players will 100% the trophy list if they are able to complete the story with only a single playthrough required. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 10 to 12 hours to 100% the trophy list.
The difficulty curve certainly varies throughout the game as there are some tough one-on-one encounters with walkers to survive, while there are easier areas of the game that require players to scavenge for supplies to maintain Clementine’s energy, so she can stay focused and on the move, alongside other parts of the game that will need players to have conversations with the group to plan a collective escape from multiple difficult situations in order to attempt to preserve the group’s survival. The only settings that are customisable in relation to difficulty levels are for the in-game user interface as players can have a standard setting that allows access to more feedback when players make important moral choices and help in regards to highlighting any areas of interest, while the minimal setting will completely turn off any hints, help and choice notifications. The user interface of the second season is far more refined in comparison to the first season as the cursor is presented with a more colourful and distinctive design as there are icons and colours within the cursor that really differentiate actions from one another rather than mostly being presented in the same way as actions were in the first season which makes for a better experience, while it also provides more control inputs to represent chosen actions. As was the case with the first season; players will find themselves being required to participate in some button mashing during one-on-one encounters with walkers, but these encounters are made harder by the buttons being randomly generated each time play commences. This approach means that it no longer becomes anything related to memorising a certain button sequence and instead it becomes more about fast reflexes to ensure that survival is assured, which is an appropriate design choice as it certainly adds more atmosphere and tension to the mix as players are not guaranteed to breeze straight through a one-on-one encounter with a walker.
As is the case with the first season; there are no online leaderboards and no local or online multiplayer, although players would not really expect a multiplayer component in something that is as story and character driven as this game. However, despite there being no online leaderboards; there is a statistical analysis of the decisions that have made during each episode in comparison to the decisions that everyone else who has played it, which is a positive design choice in the sense that it provides players with an in depth look at who has made the right decision. The statistical analysis is broken down into separate categories just as the first season was, but actually covers a wider span of desperate scenarios with such difficult decisions as: forgiveness; friendship; generosity; honesty; loyalty; mercy; trust and more besides given the various situations that occur in each episode.
The replayability of The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season stems from the multiple storylines that can be shaped by playing the game over the course of multiple playthroughs, while experimenting with different combinations of moral choices to see which direction the player’s decisions will ultimately guide the story regarding which characters will survive that did not previously do so and which characters who survived beforehand that will not survive this time given an alternative moral choice.
Overall, The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season is just as amazing and original with its superb narrative drawing on just as much emotion than the first season. It could have simply been a re-tread of the initial season due to its popularity and success, but it is very clear to see that Telltale Games have actively improved upon the first season in every way possible in order to refine the experience to reach as close to perfection as possible which shows the craft of a developer that cares very much for the quality they offer their fans in return for supporting them. With a third season already officially confirmed at Skybound Entertainment’s panel at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con; the quality and future of The Walking Dead and Telltale Games looks brighter than ever before as fans wait with eager anticipation.
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
- Title: The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season
- Developer: Telltale Games
- Publisher: Telltale Games
- System: PS4
- Format: Retail/PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: No
- Cross-Play: Yes (Save Import for Story Decisions from Season 1 to Season 2)
- Players: 1
- Hard Drive Space Required: 4.30GB (Version 1.01)