Dead At The Gates Redux: The Walking Dead: Season 2

Imagine, if you will, that you're trapped in a dungeon somewhere.  Sand covers the floor, strange liquid drips from various areas, and you're never able to get a decent night's sleep.  Every now and again a figure shows up with bread crusts for food.  He drops them on the ground and waits for you to crawl forward to cram them into your mouth, but the moment your fingers get close, he brings his boot heel down and crushes them into the sand, breaking them apart into mere dust.  And if you try to be aggressive when you grab the bread, you just wind up with broken fingers.

Then, each time, the figure kneels down and lifts your chin up.  He looks you over, observes the bloodshot eyes, the sunken cheeks, and the cracked lips you have.  He smiles kindly for a moment, and asks, "I'm sorry...have I upset you?  Here, let me go get you some bread."

The cycle continues.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the experience playing The Walking Dead: Season 2.

The only thing more emotionally draining than that experience is the fact that behind you in the cell is an open door that leads to freedom.  All you have to do is take it.  But you won't.  Because, somehow, you've convinced yourself that it's not as bleak as it appears, and that if you can just last a bit longer, that one piece of bread you get will be worth it in the end.

Top Eleven: Top Eleven Of 2013

So yesterday I decided to revisit the source of most of the pain I felt doing this blog and look at the eleven worst things I had to deal with.  So let's turn it around for the eleven things I enjoyed reviewing, discussing, or simply prompting like an unpaid advertiser in the year 2013.

Dead At The Gates: Aftermath (Spoiler Free Edition!)

In the aftermath of playing Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, Erik needs to take a little time to decompress, have a few deep breaths, and think about the experience he just went through.

We join him now, after the tears, the anger, the self-reflection, and the brief stint watching cartoons to get his spirits back up to see what he thinks, now that it's all over.

Dead At The Gates: Part 5

...there is no hope.  There is simply the inevitable.  This is a chronicle of my experience with The Walking Dead video game from Telltale Games, presenting my thoughts and some of the choices I made as I played.

Caution: The following articles will have massive spoilers for the storyline of the Walking Dead video game.  This is not to say this is how your playing the game would happen, but these are the events that occurred when I played.  But, really, does it matter?  We'll all die anyway.  Does not seeing a spoiler really matter so much?

Dead At The Gates: Part 4

Having just played through Telltale Games' heart-wrenching The Walking Dead, I'm going to be presenting my experience in each episode as well as some of the major choices I had to make.

Caution: The following articles will have massive spoilers for the storyline of the Walking Dead video game.  This is not to say this is how your playing the game would happen, but these are the events that occurred when I played.

Dead At The Gates: Part 3

Having just played through Telltale Games' masterful work The Walking Dead, I'm going to be presenting my experience in each episode as well as some of the major choices I had to make.

Caution: The following articles will have massive spoilers for the storyline of the Walking Dead video game.  This is not to say this is how your playing the game would happen, but these are the events that occurred when I played.

Dead At The Gates: Part 2

Having just played through Telltale Games' masterful work The Walking Dead, I'm going to be presenting my experience in each episode as well as some of the major choices I had to make.

Caution: The following articles will have massive spoilers for the storyline of the Walking Dead video game.  This is not to say this is how your playing the game would happen, but these are the events that occurred when I played.

Dead At The Gates: Part 1

Having just played through Telltale Games' masterful work The Walking Dead, I'm going to be presenting my experience in each episode as well as some of the major choices I had to make.

Caution: The following articles will have massive spoilers for the storyline of the Walking Dead video game.  This is not to say this is how your playing the game would happen, but these are the events that occurred when I played.

Morality, Opportunity, and Picking Sides: Choices in Video Games

The surge of "choice systems" in video games has had a rather significant resurgence in recent years.  Mostly, it seems like a way for a game developer to offer players a chance to customize their own game experience, make the story more unique to them.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  There have been a few games I've played where it felt a choice system was simply tacked on, others seem to have their entire game premise based around difficult choices.

Now, I'm not a video game scholar.  I haven't studied the history of video games, or interviewed developers, or anything like that, so all I can report on is my own impressions.  If I'm off, or wrong about something, I hope someone lets me know in the comments below.  I'm not looking to pick a fight, just express what I've experienced.

More after the cut.