The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains Review

     I just turned off my phone, turned off trophy notifications (don't read those trophy names beforehand, they could be spoilers!), carved out a two-hour block of my life, and sat down to play episode 1 of season 2 of The Walking Dead. I even played it on a different day than I was planning so that I wouldn't play it the same day as the premiere of series 3 of Sherlock so that I would have room in my brain to mull it over properly. I thought it would be better to review the whole season once I was done with it. So as an experiment, I decided to do the opposite of what I thought best, just to see what would happen. So here I am reviewing episode 1. Please refer to myreview of season 1 as I won't be reiterating the basics of how the game plays here.

     Let's start with the technical problems. I was so hoping that there wouldn't be any. After the huge mess that is the technical side of season 1, I was really hoping Telltale would make it one of their number one priorities to make the game run silky smooth. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Fortunately, nothing in episode 1 of season 2 is as bad as the worst parts in season 1. The animation skips a bit during auto-saves, but at least it doesn't freeze up. There is also some trailing in some scenes: a character will move leaving a subtle, barely noticeable trail behind them. It's not a big deal, and it only happens a few times. It's usually something that I see in PSP games. I believe it's a framerate problem. Either that or my tv is too weak. I noticed one wonky object moving during a scene a la the trees in season 1. I don't know how that happens, seems like it would be an easy thing to fix. There is also some clipping of an object someone is holding through the body of a character in one scene, and an object that jumps around noticeably in someone's hand. Finally, although the game very conspicuously found and loaded up my save file from season 1, it seems to have gotten several things wrong. During the “previously on The Walking Dead” part at the beginning, it showed many scenes from season 1. It got one part wrong though, showing the opposite of one of the choices I made. Then later, there is a reference to part of season 1 that also did not reflect my choices. This is really bizarre. I'm sure there is some difficulty in maintaining the continuity of a series like this where there are so many choices and things that could happen, but these errors are pretty inexcusable in my opinion. I mean, did it really look at my save or not? Didn't anyone notice that this was happening and fix it during playtesting? If it's going to show scenes from season 1, why would they pick one that wasn't going to load up your choice properly? Or is it some kind of glitch where it doesn't read your save file properly and then generates random choices? I suspect this may be the case, as it tells you that if you haven't completed episodes in season 1, it will generate random choices for you. In any case, it's a ridiculous flaw. One of the main selling points of the game is totally broken, which is a shame as it pulls you out of the game. Fortunately, the game is so strong, it pulls you right back in a second later...

     I know I probably sound like a broken record in these Walking Dead reviews, because now it's time to tell you that despite these huge flaws that effect the gameplay and the overall experience, the game is amazing. I'm not going to touch the story (at least not until my spoiler post!). Just know that it's just as good as season 1. It's different in several ways, but still so, so good.

     The controls have a few new tricks. Nothing major, so I'll let you experience them for yourself. The UI has a makeover for the better; your cursor is smaller and onscreen prompts and icons have a fresh coat of paint. The graphics look better too, and overall it runs better than season 1.
    On a non-technical side, one thing that bugged me was some of the language that pops up on the screen at the end that tries to get you to buy the other episodes. I'm fine with the screen in general as I want to buy the other episodes, but the part that says “Buy season pass now, best value!” or something to that effect seems out of place. I also am not a fan of the choice to have title cards with scenes from each episode available to view right from the beginning. I started to look at them, but then quit because I don't want any spoilers at all.

     One observation I made during the middle of the episode was that it would be cool to have an open world game that played like this. It would be cool to have a game like this generate random events and let you go anywhere and do anything. The Walking Dead is a very linear experience in some ways. Of course, just minutes after thinking this, I didn't think it again for the last hour of the game as I was totally absorbed in the story. Detailed story would probably be sacrificed to make an open world version of this game (at least with current technology and game budgets and development times). Some day in the future, there may be a massive open-world game with a story as detailed and involved as The Walking Dead no matter where you go or what you do. In the present, however, a linear game like this is a blast to play when the writing is top notch and the story is interactive.

     The bottom line is that season 2 is continuing the excellence in interactive storytelling set forth in season 1. I highly recommend you start playing and keep up with this series, as it is a continuing part of one of the greatest stories in video gaming history. Just keep your fingers crossed that more and more kinks are worked out as the season goes on and that future episodes will be technically flawless as well as continue the dynamite story. If they do, they'll earn perfect scores from me. But for now, episode one is a great game, tier 2.