More Walking, More Dead.
The Walking dead franchise and series really needs no introduction at this point, especially with its rabid and huge fan base. While the Telltale series took videogame players by storm with its heavy hitting exposition and split second decisions, this has seemingly paved the way for more and more of these types of games to be released. They have taken lots of inspiration from the comic series and created their own stories to tell within that universe, but now we get a miniseries staring one of the most popular characters in the actual franchise: Michonne, a machete wielding badass, who definitely takes no shit from anyone.
MSRP: $14.99 (for entire series)
Platforms: PS4, XB1, PC, 360, PS3
Price I’d Pay: $14.99
Multiplayer: N/A
How long to beat: 1.5 hours
Up !@#$ creek!
I’m not as familiar with the comics as with the show, but I do know that at a certain point and time Michonne is not with the group and this game aims to bridge that gap, letting us get to know her just a bit better during this time and what happened. Struggling with survival, the game opens in a very dramatic retelling of past events involving her children and also mirroring current zombie attack. It’s a very inventive way of changing the perspective and weaving a moment of the past and present together. It also sets the mood for this episode, which sees far more action then most of the previous episodes in the franchise. It makes sense, as this is the case with her character type, and it’s exciting during these moments.
The characters and events that do play out in front of the player are interesting enough, but I do get a sense that this definitely feels like a miniseries. It feels like it’s in the middle of an already going narrative, and this is a break between it. Michonne is now working with another group of characters that have seemingly been more then forth coming to work together, when they get a distress signal. Of course, things always go bad for the folks and living people turn out to be often worse than the dead. It all builds up to a really interesting drama filled ending that leaves me wondering just what is going to occur with the choices I’ve made and the things that happened.
The sense of tension from zombies felt rather empty though as Michonne can kick their asses and she does so in great style, so I never felt in true danger. The other characters are all new and any one of them could go so I’m already starting to worry about the resulting decisions at play. I’m already feeling tense, conflicted, and hating specific people.
Less is more?
The miniseries appears to still use the same engine Telltale has been using over the years. Though I happened to notice, on PS4, the framerate and stutter was still very much there at moments during the game. Less often then the majority of time but it’s a shame it isn’t all running smooth and I have to wonder when the engine will get an update and shine a bit more. That aside, what you see is what you get, more walking dead, more split second choices, and dialog (with excellent voice acting as always) This won’t create any new fans of the series or bring anything extremely different to the foray, but it’s still a solid first start to a 3 part miniseries. I do hope the other two episode play out just a little longer than the 90 minutes this lasted, but otherwise, I’m definitely down for the next episodes.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
