The Walking Dead [Finished]

A milestone! If nothing else, starting this blog has cleared one game from my backlog, so I'd call that a success. Oh, and what a game it was.

Unfortunately, episode 4 had some of the weakest sections so far.  Too much of the frankly awful shooting mechanics, and a fair amount of traipsing up and down corridors when a simple cut away to the next scene would have been far better for pacing.  This, in particular, was a real shame, because the game has done a pretty good job of giving the player control at just the right moment.  Games like this always include a certain amount of backtracking, and where other episodes have done a good job of getting right to the meat, here it seems to forget that it's even an option.  This is even more surprising given that this is the penultimate episode.  There's a lot to get done in order to position the story for the finale, and I would have liked to see some of the newer characters get a bit more development.

The set up ends up being more than worth it.  The final episode is all killer, no filler.  The conversations that highlight the awful choices you've had to make along the way.  The gut-wrenching moment when you realise that Lee is truly done for, combined with the gradual transfer of player control to Clementine. This last deserves special mention.  I was reminded of Brothers, a wonderful game that everyone should play, in that the mechanics of player control underpin and reinforce the story.  As Lee slips away, his, and by extension the player's, only agency in the world is to issue verbal commands to another character.  It's a neat trick because it reminds us that, in a point and click adventure, this is all we ever really do. 

So, farewell for now, The Walking Dead.  I still have 400 Days to play, but I'm going to need a break first to appreciate it properly.  I don't imagine I would be doing it justice by launching into it immediately after that ending.