The Little Review – The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)

The world of video games is a world in perpetual evolution. In thirty years, video games have gone from a pixel mush to a new medium of creative expression, a new form of art. So obviously, it's rather difficult to determine what kind of game can claim the title of art, but we can easily declare that narrative games are an integral part of this art. And damn, we can say that it is well stocked, this category! Between the thousands and thousands of stories, saga and universes that exist on our consoles and PCs, there is yet another category, more particular and rarer: multiple-choice narrative games. So it's true, there are quite a few rather well-known ones. Between Life is Strange, Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human without forgetting the new but excellent Thronebreaker, these are the best known games in this category, but today we are going to talk about one of the precursors, the pioneers of games choice that met with phenomenal success: Telltale's The Walking Dead.

To see the video on Youtube (+ put a little like): Click here

Information about The Walking Dead video game.

Based on the original Walking Dead comic by Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead was released in April 2012 on PC and home consoles.. We therefore play Lee Evrett, arrested for the murder of his wife's lover. The player will therefore experience, alongside Lee, the beginning of the epidemic and the appearance of zombies. Through choices and dilemmas imposed on the player, Lee will have to survive the heart of the apocalypse in order to flee the hordes of monsters and eventually find a safe haven.

Remarkable writing.

If The Walking Dead is starting to date a little, once in play this weight of ages is practically not felt, in particular thanks to a writing with a little onion, presenting us with finely thought out characters, ranging from Kenny, father ready for anything to defend her family, Clémentine, a frightened little girl looking for her parents, Carley, a journalist who takes a liking to our protagonist, Lily, Doug, Larry, in short, a nice group of survivors with whom we will quickly fall in love . The player will be able to see them appreciate each other, tear each other apart and cry, which makes this group all the more alive and anchors us more deeply in the game, which is further accentuated thanks to the main mechanics of the game: the choices.

The weight of our choices.

Ah, I hope you enjoy making those, decisions, because Telltale's game is full of them. These same decisions will lead you to change, or not, some of your relationships with the characters. Lying, being sincere, staying away, taking the lead, so many ways of doing things that determine the image that the group has by judging the decisions of the character you control: Lee. On the other hand, we must be clear on this point; your decisions have very little impact on the story and how it unfolds. If some video games put choices at the heart of the narrative framework that directs you towards different ends, The Walking Dead offers you a very different mechanic. You can influence people's trust in you, their memories of decisions you made, but in no way will you reveal a different ending, because the objective of the game is to immerse yourself in a story, to live it in the skin of its protagonist, to feel his dread, his horror and his sorrows, all this mixed with your feelings and feelings, thanks to the empathy you have developed by sharing a candy with Clémentine, by discussing Lee's past with Carley or by hating the behavior adopted by Larry towards Lee and the other survivors. And once you're faced with an impossible dilemma, the game will show you how fearsomely well-thought-out its mechanics are.

A saga that died prematurely?

A real hit game, The Walking Dead did not stop with this first season, since a second season was developed a few years later, even more intense, more stressful, more violent but even more poignant. The Telltale studio has succeeded in showing a real know-how for narrative games, so much so that it will release other games using the same concept like Batman, extended over two seasons. But, it is following declining sales and games delivered with very low quality that the Telltale studio closed in November 2018, leaving his The Walking Dead saga at a standstill. But don't make an excuse! The Walking Dead is a game that you absolutely have to play, both with its first season and the three others that have managed to be delivered thanks to the author of the comics himself. So, for a handful of euros, don't hesitate and embark on a story that will glue you to your chair and upset your heart.

Required configuration :

Minimum configuration:  

• Operating system: Windows XP Service Pack 3.
• Processor: Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent.
• Memory: 3 GB of RAM.
• Hard disk: 2 GB of available disk space.
• Graphics card: ATI or nVidia card with 512 MB of video memory (Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics circuits)
• DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c
• Sound: Direct X 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended configuration:  

• Operating System: Windows 7
• Processor: Core 2 Duo 2 GHz or equivalent
• RAM: 3 GB RAM
• Hard disk: 2 GB of available disk space
• Graphics card: ATI or nVidia card with 1024 MB of video memory (Not recommended for Intel integrated graphics circuits)
• DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c
• Sound: Direct X 9.0c compatible sound card