The Walking Dead – Saison 1

The Walking Dead – Saison 1

Telltale has definitely found the right formula of the moment: to release adaptations of films or series, keeping the same format by episodes, while not forgetting to be a game anyway since the player is well and truly involved in the unfolding Of the history. What about the first season, in five episodes, of The Walking Dead, taken from comics and the famous American eponymous series? This is what we will see. Let's go !

We are the first day of the epidemic, and you play as Lee Everet, who does not start the story in the best possible way since he finds himself a little under arrest, until the car that Enlisted in jail hits a zombie and goes off the road ... And the first choices start, ruthless. Traditionally, whether in Robert Kirkman's comics, in the series, or in this game, nothing is Manichean. I do not know about you, but looking at the series a few years ago, I had already said, "But what would I really do in this situation? The characters, whether we love them or hate them, are finally only types who had a normal life before the epidemic, and who, faced with a reality and inevitably horrible situations, had to adapt more or less brutally.

 But after all, who is this famous Lee? He does not come from the comics. We have never seen it in the series. Yes, he is only a lambda type in the zombie universe, and will meet a small isolated girl, Clementine, he will decide to take charge. All the characters we meet are all created specifically for this game. In itself, the principle is very good, because otherwise the familiar player of the universe would know in advance who would react roughly how. And finally, even if we sometimes recognize some archetypes of characters or traditional situations, it is only to play better with. Note that the art of cel-shading gives a very BD rendering tribute to the original comics in the most beautiful ways.

Here, no pumping operations to be carried out; the gameplay is ultra-simple since ultimately, the most important is the story. The puzzles to solve do not break three legs to a duck and you do not risk a sprain to the neuron; we are far from the combinations of well twisted objects at Monkey Island. No, here everything runs from source and takes place in a logical way, so that the whole is linked in a fluid way, in the manner of a series that one could watch on TV. We have some QTEs that dot the story, almost at the limit as an excuse to involve the player in the present action; pounding a key repeatedly is a relatively harmful action for the brain.

Nevertheless, the main interest and the enormous strength remains the history, the dialogues, and the choices. Any discussions you may have will have a timer to answer, silence or lack of reaction is also a form of choice. And in addition to being responsive, it will be very careful! Clementine, like any child, is a real blotter. Where traditional Point'n Click allows us to explore all dialogue options, The Walking Dead will let you choose wisely your replicas. All characters have goals and motivations, often contradictory, and responding quickly without thinking can quickly have harmful consequences, even dramatic. However, there will always be a moment when you will doubt each of these protagonists.

Of course, your choice of answers are a little illusory because they will not affect the main storyline. These are therefore not choices in the sense of the term RPG, but just a way to signify our reaction to a given situation. The rest of the scenario will still follow his thread whatever happens, the whole thing is how. I must admit that I have never felt so involved in the picky and offensive choices to be made in a short time, and most importantly, I have never regretted so many who have had consequences very often unfortunate. However, in hindsight, we say that there was anyway no bad or good choices, only particularly cruel situations.

Where Telltale quite rightly is this knowing how to play with our aprioris; the one who irritates us is not necessarily the most stupid, and the one who can be worshiped is sometimes as useful and fit as a whelk. So you try to play on velvet with everyone, to do the service mediator. But when deciding and choosing between one or the other, the choice made, whatever it is, will necessarily pay later, in the same episode or one of the next. And being accompanied permanently by this charming little girl strongly reinforces the pathos side of the title. At the end - and what an end, brothel !! - only one question remains: what kind of human are you?

The dubbing is, I think, very good, always in the tone, helping a lot in the immersion of this hit. The music as for it, without being omnipresent, underlines at best the scene which is unfolding. Finally, the episodic format, worked with many effects of tension, works exactly like an American series. Each episode always ends with an abusive cliffhanger that only gives you a chance to follow the sequence, such as the basic addict.