After an amazing first season, the second season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead video game has started. Season one of The Walking Dead was such a great experience, but I don’t know how to feel about season two.
I sat down and played The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains and I was immediately overjoyed to learn that the game puts players in the role of Clementine, the child protected throughout the whole first season. I figured Telltale would go in this direction, but I wasn’t quite sure.
The story kicks off with Clementine travelling with two characters from the first season; Ohmid and Christa. Christa is shown to be with child and the group stops at a public bathroom to get cleaned up. This is when the action in the game starts to pick up. However, I’m not going to be saying anything specific about the story if I can avoid it. The Walking Dead is one of those games that has such a great story that it should be played and not read.
That being said, I really enjoyed the story and it still had all the heart-wrenching moments and twists and turns as the first season.
Gameplay in All That Remains takes a different approach than season one. There is less talking to people and making choices than there was in the first season. On the flipside, there are way more action sequences that require the player to be fast with the controls.
These changes kind of disappointed me. I loved getting to know each character from the first season and all the different dialogue options made for some really interesting changes to the story. This doesn’t mean that there are moments where the players get to know the characters, but they were few and far between.
Another thing that bothered me about All That Remains was how long it lasted. I remember spending anywhere from three to five hours on episodes from the first season, but I only spent about an hour and a half with this episode. It reminded me how disappointed I was when the last episode of season one only lasted a couple of hours. I really hope that this isn’t going to be the new trend with Telltale. Five dollars for an a little over an hour of gameplay (which doesn’t have much in terms of choices to make) doesn’t interest me and it really limits the game’s replayability.
One neat feature in The Walking Dead games is how choices will connect to later episodes. This feature remains in season two. Players can even use save data from season one to keep choices from that game. I played the first season on Xbox 360 and moved to PC for the second season, so I had to leave my save data behind. Instead, players can choose to have random choices made for them. This feature was present in the first season and even allowed me to continue playing after a glitch with one of the episodes erased my save data. Maybe things will change in later episodes, but I didn’t notice choices from season one having a huge impact on season two.
Graphics in All That Remains have remained largely unchanged from the first season. The comic-book art style is still there and it makes for a refreshing look when compared to all of the games with hyper-realistic graphics on the market. I did notice a lack of graphical glitches in this episode, which was a minor issue in a few episodes from season one.
Audio in All That Remains was great. All of the characters were voiced well (even if they didn’t talk much) and several added sound effects made the game feel more alive. One example of this is when the player has to move Clementine around a house without being detected. I found myself jumping every few seconds as I moved around and caused the floor or stairs to creek.
Overall, I liked The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains. I enjoyed where the story went and loved the fact that I got to play as Clementine. However, I was disappointed by how short the game was and the lack of conversations. It’s too early to pass judgment on season two, but I hope future episodes are more like those from season one.
The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains earns 3.5 Gin Gems out of 5!