The Walking Dead: Season Two (Xbox 360) Reviews

This will be a Spoiler free review. However feel free to discuss the story in the comments section. That can be our spoiler filled zone.

INTRODUCTION

Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains begins a few months after the end of Season 1, and we now follow the journey of Clementine rather than Lee or any of the other characters from the first game.

In preparation for Season 2 I've spent this week playing the whole first season and the 400 Days DLC so that it's fresh in my mind and all the choices I've made are fresh and clear to me.

If you've played the first game you'll already be familiar with how the controls work and the way conversations and dialogue choices work. If you're in a non action conversation with a character in the game a pop up at the bottom of the screen appears and gives you four choices of responses. This sounds simple but the countdown bar underneath it forces you to make decisions quickly.
This is a surprisingly engaging tactic, you can't zone out whilst playing The Walking Dead because you might miss something important that was said to you that you need to make a quick response to.

One of the other main play styles are the action scenes which mostly have you moving the cursor around the screen to hit the spot or make a choice whilst being attacked, depending on the situation.
This has been improved from the original as now instead of fumbling around to get the cursor where you want it and then moving your thumb to hit the A button, you now just have to move it to the right spot and hit the R Trigger, meaning no more moving your thumb from the right stick to hit A and possibly losing your target. Somehow this setup doesn't become like a FPS and works really well.
There's also now added directional action bits where Clem may have to duck or weave out of danger and you follow directional arrows to make her do it. This is a cool little addition and is luckily quite forgiving and reminds me of the Classic game Shenmue QTE's.

GRAPHICS and PRESENTATION

The graphic style of The Walking Dead Season 2 is top notch, I'm not sure what they've done exactly but they've done something to add that little bit of extra detail to this game. Having literally played the 1st Season again this week I'm coming into this game and immediately seeing something is improved. There's an added layer of richness to the presentation so to speak.
The Pausing screen has a cool new tear effect, the pictures for all the upcoming chapters have cool new subtle sound effects, even the button prompts in the action scenes are cooler. As I said the game has this nice added layer of richness. If you loved the comic book style presentation before you'll love it extra this time.

Sadly a minor bummer from the first game turns up again though. Sometimes when things get hectic the game engine chugs and you feel like you may have missed a few frames of animation. At other times there's a split second after you've made a decision that the game freezes before suddenly continuing with the choice you made.
It's pretty minor but even though you've seen it do it before you still often have a moment where you think you didn't push the button properly or that the game may have crashed.

(I did notice playing through the 1st Season this week that a few times where the game used to chug or the sound went out of sync the game now no longer did this, this must have been corrected during the 400 Days DLC Update. Which bodes well for Season 2 if you're picky).

SOUND and MUSIC

One of the subtle highlights of the Walking Dead is the great atmospheric sound. When there's a section of the game where you're just exploring a space there will often only be the sound of whatever your surroundings are. The wind going through the trees, leaves rustling gently across the ground, or the distant sound of a river running.
This is very powerful, and reminds me of classic Resident Evils where your only enemy may be an empty hallway, with the sound of a monster somewhere nearby... BUT WHERE??? It could jump out at me at ANY MOMENT!!!
This works perfectly in the Walking Dead.
I also liked the song during the credits, nice touch Telltale.

STORY and GAME

Spoiler free :)

Episode 1 is my favourite episode of the series so far. Just when I thought the game was going to go slow for a minute or two and let me look around or take me in a certain direction the game will suddenly go off in a direction I never saw coming.
Telltale love to pull the rug out from under you at every opportunity. People you think are going to be with you for the game as long term supporting characters get taken away before you know it, people you think are nice and helpful turn out to not be as helpful as you thought and every jerk you meet has a glimmer of humanity to them. It's a testament to the amazing writing and story telling skills of Telltale that they manage to do this, and it's another great improvement over the first Season that adds this layer of richness to the world that they've created. e.g. In the first season Larry is an Asshole who'd rather have an argument than help solve a problem. I'm pretty sure everyone who played it disliked him as much as me. Season 2 Ep: 1 doesn't have anyone quite as black and white as that, if they're a jerk you're always left wondering why and how did they become a jerk.

The other star of the game is obviously the star, Clementine!!!
They've done an amazing job making a little 9/10 year old girl the Heroine of the story. In the first season people were always saying what a tough little girl she was... I never saw it.

I do now! She really does feel like the daughter of Lee (if she had been his actual daughter) in fact the whole episode feels similar to Lee's journey. There's a bit where Clem bashes in a Zombies head with a hammer (a definite homage to Lee with the babysitter in the original Season's 1st episode), an agonizing bit that is reminiscent of the arm sawing in season 1 and even many lines of dialogue Clem says just the way Lee would in season 1, a really nice touch.
The voice actress is really talented, she really does feel like her fathers daughter.

That's another thing, the poor girl goes through hell. It's one bad situation after another and often a very gory or violent situation after another. I really was playing it and beginning to think they've created a new genre. If the Saw Movies and Hostel Movies are torture porn than this is Survival Porn.
Poor Clem is often in a tricky life or death situation and she has to work out a way to survive using only the most useless items like a needle, lighter or fresh air.

In fact the very fact people enjoy discussing the Walking Dead games and how they play through it is testament to it's great design and storytelling. This is another great tale that's going to lead to many exciting future episodes. Whereas 400 Days DLC was short and disjointed by comparison this is obviously a great return to an involving long winding story like the original 1st Season with Lee was. I'm already sucked in. I love it.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Once again the Achievements are story related, 8 Achievements for a total of 100G. This is actually a great move on their part. Achievement hunters get an easy completion and everyone else gets to play through the story the way they want to with no thought of a missable achievement to nag at the back of your mind. They could add optional Achievements in future episodes like they did in the 400 Days DLC but as it show'd from that, they don't really need to so no quibbles from me.

POSSIBLE DOWNERS

Apart from the occasional frame rate chugging mentioned earlier are there any bad points to Season 2 of the Walking Dead??? Not really, but I'll point out a few things I've called 'possible' downers.

*It's pretty short. Coming in at around 90mins - 2 hrs. Hopefully future episodes will be longer, but in some ways it's good to be left wanting more than for it to be too long and wishing it was over.
*£3.99(UK) REALLY??? Season pass £11.99. REALLY??? How come The Wolf Among US, released only 2 months ago had a season pass for £9.99. Has inflation really jumped 20% in that time??? I doubt it. Sounds like Telltale or Microsoft money grabbing for a popular product to me. Luckily this is still cheaper than a retail game and you're still getting a high quality product for that price.
N.B. Thanks to MFMegazerox, turns out price of The Wolf Among Us and TWD Season 2 in the USA is the same, it's only in UK and Europe where it's more expensive, so price increase is not Telltales fault. Thanks MFMegazerox.
*Carrying your save over from the first season doesn't seem to effect anything that happens in this episode. You could technically start fresh and it probably wouldn't be much different from using a save. Saying that, we don't know what the future holds and your season one save may very well play out in future episodes. Time will tell.

CONCLUSION

Another excellent game from Telltale and the world of The Walking Dead.

So should you buy it??? YES!!! If you've played the first season you're probably already downloading it as we speak. If you haven't, buy the 1st Season now while it's on sale on the Marketplace. You'll love diving into the world and this is a cooler, smoother, better paced continuation of an awesome saga of survival.

Clementine... A+ girl.

SPOILER ALERT: This review contains HUGE spoilers for the Walking Dead Season 1. Season 2 has one important spoiler that is hidden under a spoiler tab so don't click that. I'm not responsible for what you see and you have been warned.

Telltale Games' The Walking Dead was a game more for the experience and adventure rather than its gameplay. Lee's adventure through the zombie apocalypse back in 2012 was exciting, devastating and shocking all into one game. Now, continuing his legacy, Clementine continues the adventure in a fantastic new perspective that will hit you more that ever. Telltale definitely doesn't fail to impress.

STORY: I going to try this without spoiling too much, although Season 1 will be spoiled here, you have been warned once again. Before Lee's death, at the end of Season 1, he tells Clementine to find Omid and Christa. Once Lee dies, you arrive at a field and see two figures in the distance. And that's where the game ends/starts. Season 2 begins with a change in perspective as you probably know, as you play as Clementine. From the beginning, you are already faced with depressing and shocking events and quickly things go down hill. Playing as Clem is a huge change from Lee. I find it interesting that because you play as a kid, its different on how you go through events throughout the story. What I'm trying to say its different from playing as Lee and you can tell by playing. That's probably the best I can put it. Your Clementine can be all nice and caring while mine can a bad ass and be all serious. Throughout the story, meeting and losing people is something that, IMO plays a much bigger role in this game. Although in the first season, you felt sad for losing people and going with others. In Season 2, it seems like a much different story. Clem's is more about trust this time around. You WILL find people you like a lot and people that you want to stab the **** out of them. Your final outcome in episode 5 will be your most hardest choices in the entire series. and they will make you think and feel whether or not you made the right choices. My Clementine's ending legit made me tear up and was probably one of the roughest things I had to do in gaming ever. The story doesn't disappoint. I will say that the game is much more enjoyable playing it yourself than watching a Youtube Let's Play and then playing the game. I wasn't planning on getting the game the day Episode 5 came out so I saw an ending before I even got Season 2 Episode 1 (Shoutout to TrueAchievements and DaveKinetic for giving me a copy from that contest we had when Episode 5 came out). Although I still had tears, watching a Lets Play made me less surprised and was expecting a lot of the events of the game.

GAMEPLAY: If you played The Walking Dead: Season 1 or any Telltale game for that matter, you know this game is a point and click adventure game. Moving the cursor (or whatever it is) brings up tasks you can do with certain objects, "Press A give _____ this or press X to talk to _____," that sort of matter. Choices and dialogue are a huge thing in the game. During conversations, dialogue boxes appear and you can make choices based on what you say. You don't even have to say anything and you can remain silent. I used this feature a lot more than the first season and its not a bad thing to use. They are points in the game where you walk around finding things or running away from a zombie with the LS, which is great as old Telltale games, you had to click to move to that location. They are quick time events that actually fit very well in to the game. Failing these can make you die or, instead of respawning, can affect someone or something else immensely. This includes shooting a zambie (intentional, whoever understands this get a cookie for dern sure), missing a hit, trying to save someone from someone else.

PRESENTATION: Graphically, this game looks very good. The art style is based well on the comics, where the entire series started in the first place. It matches very with the tone of the game. It can be light or dark whenever it wants to. Sounds and music as give the game that post-apocalyptic feel. Zombies, gunshots, and voices are spot on. They are just 2 things I had with for the presentation, if they are considered to be in here. 1 only happened once but might as well mention it. I had Clem reappear for a second while the game was loading a cutscene. No big deal. But something that just bugs me a little bit was the loading. Depending on the situation, the game will take from 1 second to 15 seconds to load. Small things like shooting a zombie and the game loading for 2 seconds to load a cutscene. Others being a act to act from one setting to another can take up to what feels like 15 seconds to load, but I might be exaggerating. The Walking Dead Season 1 also had this problem. These two things are things you can get by very easily though and doesn't ruin any of the game at all. Other people have said that the framerate drops, but unless I'm dumb and that's was it is above, i personally didn't experience any drop of the frames.

MISC.: Now the achievements. Each episode contains 8 Achievements for 100 gamerscore, 6 10G, 1 15G, and 1 25G. You WILL master each episode as all achievements are story based and none are missable. No choices affect achievements at all. The game is great for people who need 500G. The price for the first episode I believe is $5 (sorry for other territories that I don't know your prices) as well as each individual episode. You can buy the season pass for $15. I bought mine for $10.04 when is was on sale, so you can wait for a sale but at the time of writing this, one just happened so you might have to wait. I feel the price is definitely worth the price.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The Walking Dead Season 2 is one of the best story out there. The game doesn't fail to disappoint. I personally can't wait to see what my Clementine does in Season 3.

FINAL SCORE: 9.75/10

Feel free to comment about the story or the review in the comments. Cheers!

This is my review with only one spoiler so anyways what to say that hasn't been said! Graphics and music are way better! then season 1. Your choices from Season 1 carry over so you get to continue your story from season 1. They have you doing so much! Talking, cursing, killing, fighting, fight and run actions! So many choices they offer you! They go with you to season 3 so pick wisely! Plus you will cry! So in the end you get a digital xb and ps exclusive that has 40 easy non missable achievements for a game thats 10 hours in all. So I recommend it to all Walking Dead Fans!