After the events of A New Day, Lee and the survivors end up in a motel parking lot that they've reinforced. They come upon a couple of high school athletes and their coach, who is caught in a modified bear trap. Modified to where you cannot open it. Which insinuates that it was built for people, not animals. This is where your first decision comes in. Do you leave the coach, since there are a ton of zombies coming after you or do you help him? Once you make the decision to help, you more than likely won't like the method in which you have to 'help' him. Spoiler alert, you have an axe at your disposal.
This is just one of many touch decisions you have to make in the second episode of the adventure game series: The Walking Dead. This is not to be confused with the shooter, The Walking Dead, that was just announced this week. This game series is an adventure, decision based game with no shooting or attacking controls. You are given situations where you can attack, but their all direction pad decisions.
The second episode is better than the first one. The first one was done well and had a lot of emotion behind some of the scenes in reference to Lee's past and family. This game, depending on what decisions you made in the first game, can be heart wrenching at times. The game that the reviewer played had Lee make friends with Kenny, the southern family man, due to Lee protecting his kid in the first game (if you so chose). There's a big decision to be made towards the end that puts a giant wedge between you and Kenny if you do the right thing, but strengthens your relationship with Lilly, who hates you at the beginning of Starving for Help. It's hard to watch Kenny and Lee fall apart as friends. In other scenarios, other relationships can be destroyed or strengthened, but this is just one scenario.
The game once again plays more like a splicing between a television show and a video game. You can control the character sometimes, but a lot of your decisions are conversationally based. There's even a section where saying the wrong thing will instantly get you killed.
The story starts out like previously stated, but the bulk of the story is about a family of dairy farmers that invite Lee and company to eat at their farm. The group is starving (in one part Lee has to decide who eats and who doesn't) and they don't have much of a choice. Soon they become involved in a feud between the farmers and a group of bandits. Trust issues are central to this story. Your suspicions about some of the characters start to boil over until they hit a fever pitch at the end of the game in an extremely brutal way.
Starving for Help's problems only cropped up toward the end. There were some loading issues with some of the cinematics. There were slight, but got a little irritating at times. The cinematics for the preview of Episode 3: Long Road Ahead was even more glitchy. It's like it was calculating the decisions that were made during my game and then loading up each 7 second scene. It didn't ruin the experience, but it can take you out of the fantasy.
If you enjoyed Episode 1, you will love Episode 2. If you didn't, then don't bother with Episode 2. The game is brutal not only on a gore level, but on a basic emotional level. Choose wisely.
The Walking Dead: Episode 1: A New Day Review
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