You don’t need to be familiar with the niche, adventure genre or Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead universe to feel comfortable playing through the 2 hour experience that is Episode 1: A New Day. The front-runners of the genre, Telltale Games, have crafted an experience that, while staying true to what attracts fans to adventure games, immerses you in a zombie apocalypse like no other game before it. Adventure games have never been this close to escaping obscurity, and with any luck they will have the Walking Dead as a blue-print for the genre’s future endeavors.
The Walking Dead pays homage to its graphic-novel roots with a cel-shady aesthetic that I can stand behind. Those familiar with previous Telltale games will feel familiarity in the visuals, not straying far from the “look” they seem to continually have in their games. The game is visually pleasing to say the least.
A New Day starts rolling and rarely slows down enough to give the player a break, which is exactly how episodic experiences like it should be. The theme sticks throughout the episode in more ways than pacing: dialogue and decision choices also bleed urgency. This plays into authenticating the situations at hand for players and spicing up the pacing of traditional adventure games.
I finished episode 1 in a single sitting, enjoying every minute of my time. When I was finished, I pondered my decisions while holding back the urge to replay the game and make new ones. Replay value in The Walking Dead is high, with nearly every decision you make, be it an action or dialogue decision, having a repercussion that will alter the events that follow – and with any luck, drag-on into future episodes of this Telltale series.
I withheld a lot from this review, hoping to keep this adventure as chock-full of surprises as intended. A New Day hit all the right notes – action, puzzle, and dialogue – effectively and in a short period of time, never losing my attention. I’ve never payed much attention to adventure games, sans a few classics, but will most definitely start now. Telltale’s latest episodic series does good by the Walking Dead name, should please anyone intrigued by interactive-movie experiences, and stands as a bench-mark in the library of games they’ve developed. You don’t want to miss A New Day, as the only disappointment is waiting for the next episode to hit the download space.
