Episode 1 & 2 Spoilers - Episode 3 = Spoiler FreeStory: When we last left our party, there were talks of hitting the road since supplies were low, the majority of the group were becoming famished, and wound up from staying in the motel for 2 months. This story begins at the 3 month mark (take notice to the pattern), so you can imagine what's happening when you take control. As Lee hits a few major roadblocks for becoming the obvious "group leader", the Long Road Ahead starts off with many more.
If you follow The Walking Dead at all (comics especially, or the TV show) you know that you're left in the dark when everything is going good. You're given a little taste once in awhile to remind you that the characters were doing just fine, but whatever you're reading is obviously going to be when poop hits the fan. TellTale's series is no different.
With the series trend, and the video game's trend starting to become obvious; Chapter 3 is predictable; yet jaw dropping at the same time. By "predicable", I want you know that I don't mean this story is in anyway short-coming but the pace of the game is. The first 4 chapters are face pace, with not much changing followed by one long head scratching "puzzle", followed by two more quick and painful chapters. The story itself; without posting spoilers, is very dramatic. A very vase amount of surprises follows, which is really hard to write to a review without ruining....
Choices: Now, I've only been playing the game one route, but I do plan to run through it again once it is all available. Let's just say it's starting to be known that at this point your choices don't matter as much as you would hope. I spent this whole chapter wondering what it would have been like if I was a prick to Kenny, didn't back Lilly and spent less time worrying about Clem. Somewhere around the middle of Episode 3 you start to realize that maybe none of this wouldn't have mattered at all. I think it's really hard to tell without 2 play-throughs, but I will keep pretending that it does.
Mechanics: On the last Episode review I mentioned some odd graphic errors, rendering, and video hangs that other people didn't seem to get. I asked on Twitter if anyone was experiencing my problems, with no response. With "Long Road Ahead" I experienced audio-drops in the first chapter, and more video lags with auto-saving and cut-scenes then the first two episodes combined. At first the audio drops were a great problem having to turn the volume up and down suddenly for no reason. They went away after the first chapter, but I was left with sporadically common 3-4 second video hang-ups throughout the entire game. It's not enough to ruin a game for me, but it really does effect the experience when you're in the hype of things, only to quickly worry about being in front of a frozen screen.
In-Short: Episode 3 was my least favorite chapter (so far), I'll be honest. For some it will be their favorite as it seems the emotionally available enjoyed the roller coaster much more this time around. As dramatic and hectic as the story become, I didn't get to have "edge of my seat" moments as I did with the second episode. I guess I've watched enough zombie movies and know people too well to expect "in group drama", and have become senseless to the idea. It's the out-of-group crazies which get me (needless to say, there wasn't enough - if any at all).
3.0