Braaaaains!

Well, I have finished The Walking Dead. Like Shaun of the Dead it succeeds because it decides to use zombies to tell a story about human beings, which is pretty much the only way I can end up not being bored to (un)death by zombies. It's a good story, but I question all those "game of the year" awards. It's more of a choose your own adventure film than a game, really. It's worthwhile without a doubt, but I'm not sure I'd say it does anything particularly innovative and interesting with interaction.

The one thing I did like game wise is the way that the save system is set up to encourage you to live with your mistakes. If you don't manage to do something in time, then it's hard to go back and do it again, and I felt this did add to the storytelling, making the protagonist into a flawed hero quite nicely. What was less good was that when I screwed up, it was usually due to issues with the rather clumsy controls, or the standard "no, I meant be sarcastically reassuring, not berate the guy like a total dick" dialogue dilemmas.

PS Quick time events are pretty lame in FPSes. I'm not sure Telltale is doing anyone any favours by infecting (do you see what I did there?) the adventure game genre with them.