The Walking Dead: The Game
The dead come to life in this brilliant but physically challenging adventure game
Back in 2003 Robert Kirkman brought us The Walking Dead comic book series that’s still going strong today. Then in 2010 AMC unleashed a TV adaption of The Walking Dead to rave reviews and great ratings. It’s one of my favorite shows on television and it’s encouraged me to check out the comic book series. So with the success of the comic book and television series it was no surprise when news broke last year of a Walking Dead video game in development. The people who chose to take on this difficult endeavor was none other than Telltale Games. This is the same company responsible for numerous adventure games including the popular Tales of Monkey Island and Back to the Future (both of which I previously reviewed here and here respectively) adventure games. So naturally Telltale’s take on The Walking Dead was going to be in the form of an adventure game, made available in episodic form just like most of their other games. The first episode entitled “A New Day” is now available and I’ve been playing it for a few days. If you’re an assistive technology user that has any interest in this game then I implore you to read on!
The game takes place in the same universe as the comic book series. Specifically it takes place immediately after the zombie apocalypse starts, during the time frame that Rick Grimes (the main protagonist from the comic book and TV series) is in a coma. You play a character named Lee Everett. We first meet Mr. Everett in the back of a police car being transferred to prison for some unknown crime. While Lee is conversing with the officer in the front seat emergency calls over the radio can be heard and cars and helicopters go speeding by. Something is obviously going on but the police officer is so preoccupied with playing twenty questions with Lee that he doesn’t seem to notice. The chaos of the situation soon takes over and before long Lee finds himself free and on the run in a zombie–infested world. He soon runs into a young girl named Clementine and together they set off to seek answers, and more importantly a safe place to stay. In their travels they will meet and interact with other survivors and face life or death situations in this horrifying world gone mad.
The first thing you’ll notice about this game is just how good it looks. In fact this looks better than any other Telltale game that I’ve played thus far. The graphic style is similar to the cell shaded artwork you’d typically find in a comic book. It makes it look like a comic book come to life and it’s striking. The voice work is exceptional which is nothing new for Telltale. I particularly liked many of the background voices like those heard on radios and answering machines and the like. These kinds of things are used to great effect here and really help define the true horror of what’s happening around Lee. The sound and music round out the immersion, including the painful grunts and hollers of the zombies as they desperately search for victims to satisfy their hunger. This is definitely the kind of game that will stop people in their tracks to take a peek if they happen to be walking by while you’re playing.
In terms of gameplay The Walking Dead: The Game is a pretty substantial departure from Telltale’s previous efforts. Unfortunately this is, for the most part, a bad thing for assistive technology users, especially physically challenged individuals such as myself. Much like a first–person–shooter the mouse cursor in The Walking Dead gets locked into the window during gameplay because mouse movements are used to control the camera and as an aiming reticle in certain situations. So if you’re a KeyStrokes or SwitchXS user you’re out of luck. Even if they were accessible during gameplay they would be useless since you sometimes have to press certain keys on the keyboard while you’re aiming with the mouse at the same time. So even though there’s a windowed mode it doesn’t matter so you might as well play in full-screen mode. There aren’t many keys on the keyboard that need to be pressed but the ones that are needed sometimes have to be pressed in rapid succession and they’re spread out from one side of the keyboard to the other. For example the “Q” key and “E” key are used for wrestling and shoving respectively. Moving Lee around can be done with either the WASD keys or the arrow keys. That’s fine if you can reach the left side of the keyboard okay but if the right side is the one side you can reach then you’re out of luck because the “Q” and “E” keys can’t be re-mapped. In fact none of the keys can. Since my right arm is the arm I can use well enough to even attempt to use the keyboard then this is obviously a problem for me. And as usual the Escape key is used to access the menu and that’s as far to the left as you can get. You can use either the numpad keys or keyboard proper number keys to choose responses during dialog sequences or you can even use the arrow keys to highlight the response you want then left click to select it. Oddly I had to go onto Telltale’s forums to figure some of this out because the "Controls" section in the Settings menu shows nothing but a labeled picture of a video game controller. There’s nothing there about keyboard and mouse controls. I’ve already mentioned most of the Mac (and PC) controls but here’s a summary I found that another player posted in Telltale’s forums:
W or up arrow key- move forward A or left arrow key- move left S or down arrow key- move back D or right arrow key- move right Q - wrestle(tap rapidly) E - shove 1-4 (on both the numpad and keyboard proper) - dialogue Mouse wheel - scroll for dialogue Left click for choices *Right click was only used once, to back out of handling an object *As far as I can tell there’s no key for skipping the cinematic cutscenes
The biggest challenge with this game comes from the dialogue sequences of all things. Much of the time when you’re presented with responses to choose from there’s a timer underneath them. If you don’t choose one response before the timer runs out then the default choice is made for you. Once the choice is made there’s no going back (unless you go back to the previous autosave point). Other adventure games typically allow you to go through all the dialogue choices at your leisure in whatever order you choose. But this game is designed so that all the characters you meet, and the entire story in general, change and adjust based on the responses you do choose in each dialogue sequence. The choices you make will carry over to the other four episodes as they are released. This was clearly designed to create a sense of realistic urgency and finality and it definitely succeeds at doing so. At a certain point you may even be presented with choices that determine whether certain characters live or die, which will also carry over into future episodes. So this all means the story that one player experiences may very well be different than what another player experiences. If you’ve ever watched the TV series and felt like yelling at the screen when certain characters made what you thought were dumb decisions the design of this game gives you the chance to make the characters (at least Lee anyways) do it your way and then you get to see how it plays out. I have to actually applaud Telltale for this because it really puts some weight on the choices you make while you play and makes this game rather unique. But this comes at a cost for assistive technology users that have trouble with anything requiring quick reflexes. The timer underneath the possible responses counts down pretty quickly so you have to both choose a response then hit the appropriate number key rather quickly. I often found myself choosing one of the first two responses (rather than looking over all of them) just so I left myself enough time to make an attempt to hit the right key on the keyboard before the timer ran out. When you can’t feel your hands you typically have to look at the keyboard when you’re trying to hit something with your knuckles just to make sure you actually hit the right key. Even then sometimes you hit the wrong key, especially if timing is involved. For the most part though I did manage to do well enough in this regard to where it didn’t adversely affect my enjoyment of the game too much. One potential alternative for this problem is Dragon Dictate. With that running while playing you could simply speak the corresponding number to each response choice. I’ve tried this and it does work but I would recommend using headphones if you intend to do this because that way the sound from the game won’t interfere with Dragon Dictate’s ability to understand your speech.
There’s also a bunch of sort of action sequences throughout the game involving the “Q” and “E” keys I mentioned above. For example, there’s one sequence where a zombie is wrestling with Lee and you have to keep mashing the “Q” key to keep the zombie at a distance and from biting you. If you can’t sustain the frantic mashing of the “Q” key long enough you’re dead meat. Since those two keys aren’t the easiest ones for me to reach I solved this problem by using an iPhone remote app called “Hipporemote Pro". This is one of the many apps in the iTunes App Store that turns your iPhone into a wireless mouse and keyboard. This nifty app takes it a step further and lets you create custom layouts with only the buttons you want. I created one just for this game and it has all the necessary keys except for the number keys because I wanted the other buttons to be as large as possible. I used the numpad keys on my physical keyboard, which I can reach pretty easily, for this game. Since my iPhone is mounted on my right wheelchair armrest it’s extremely easy to reach. However, I’ve never really used it for a game in this matter but sometimes you have to think outside of the box.
For people with poor vision you can turn on sort of an “easy” mode that makes it much easier to spot any interactive hotspots in each scene. There’s also an option to turn on subtitles which should be useful for anybody who has hearing issues. The subtitles are also large and easy to read for those with vision issues.
Despite the lack of documentation for Mac and PC controls and the absence of customizable keyboard commands I have to admit this might be the best Telltale effort to date. It was an odd game for me to review because as an adventure game it was much more difficult to play than I ever expected but at the same time I understand why they made the design choices they did because overall it creates an adventure gaming experience like never before. If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead franchise you’ll appreciate the design philosophy they chose for this game because it fits perfectly here. And then when you throw in the outstanding visuals, voice acting, and excellent story you’ll feel like you’re actually participating in an episode of The Walking Dead. But before throwing any of your hard earned cash at this game I urge you to consider all the issues with gameplay I mentioned above. The first episode (and most likely the other forthcoming episodes) only takes a few hours to complete so if, like me, you find it somewhat strenuous to play at least you’re not in for a long haul. Unfortunately there’s no free demo available at this time so if you’re an assistive technology user and really want to play this game it’s purely a judgment call. Hopefully I provided enough information for you to comfortably make the right call. All five episodes cost $24.99 with episodes 2–5 released separately every month or so from here on out. The game is being offered for the Mac and PC as well as videogame systems. An iPad version is in the works (which may or may not be physically easier to play than the computer version depending on how they choose to implement the user interface).
Note: This game contains language and violence that isn’t suitable for children.
Mac System Requirements:
Minimum:
- OS: Snow Leopard (10.6.X)
- Processor: 2.3 Ghz Intel
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 2 GB Space Free
- Video Card: 512 MB NVidia or ATI graphics card
Additional: Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics or Mac Minis or early-generation MacBooks
Recommended:
- OS: Snow Leopard (10.6.X)
- Processor: Core 2 Duo 2GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 2 GB Space Free
- Video Card: 1024 MB NVidia or ATI graphics card
Additional: Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics or Mac Minis or early-generation MacBooks
PC System Requirements:
Minimum:
- OS: XP Service Pack 3
- Processor: 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 2 GB Space Free
- Video Card: ATI or NVidia card w/ 512 MB RAM (Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics)
- DirectX®: Direct X 9.0c
- Sound: Direct X 9.0c sound device
Recommended:
- OS: Windows 7
- Processor: Core 2 Duo 2GHz or equivalent
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 2 GB Space Free
- Video Card: ATI or NVidia card w/ 1024 MB RAM (Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics)
- DirectX®: Direct X 9.0c
- Sound: Direct X 9.0c sound device
Paul Natsch
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