PAX PRIME: The Walking Dead- Episode 3 Long Road Ahead

‘The Walking Dead’ isn’t a story about zombies. It’s a story about people, relationships, survival and choice. The zombies are just a backdrop. Substitute ‘zombies’ with a natural disaster or Nazis and you get the same effect. People need to make tough decisions in order to survive the world around them.

As with the game and the comic, one of the major themes of The Walking Dead, is “Bad things happen to good people.” And in Episode 3 ‘Long Road Ahead’, you can do absolutely everything “right” and still get a bunch of consequences you in no way wanted. It’s a horror game, and sometimes, life just isn’t fair.

I’m a fan of point-and-click adventure games, generally speaking. I recognize that this genre isn’t really everyone’s cup of tea by today’s modern standards; but, Telltale tends to do it exceedingly well.

The latest chapter, which is the third in a five-part series, details what may be the most dangerous moments yet for Lee Everett and his group of survivors.

In terms of gameplay, Telltale has set up a system that works well, and has certainly hit its stride in terms of placing action icons around the environments. It’s typically very clear what to do or where to go, and players will know when the time for action is at hand. Most importantly, the action plays out smoothly…even though there are events in this episode that requires some intense button-mashing. The cell-shading of the game is gorgeous and the cut screens prove that the fiction is well worth the price of entry. You need to be playing this.