Wrong Way On A Dead-Way Track

Last night I received my first legitimate shock while playing Telltale's The Walking Dead adventure game. I finished Episode 3: Long Road Ahead, with many of the original party dead or left behind.

The most shocking was the reporter girl's death. Heh, I've already forgotten her name. Lilly, heart attack dad's bitch daughter, blew her freakin' head off. So I left Lilly in the ditch and drove away. That will probably come back to bite me in the ass.

If they don't die on-screen, they don't die.

Anyway, I'm happy to be rid of heart attack dad and his bitch daughter; I have been wanting to get rid of them since episode one.

Also, we met a wise, old homeless man named Chuck. He kind of reminds me of Gandalf because he was wise enough to tell me that I should have a plan and that I should teach Clem how to shoot a gun.

This seems like very wise council, except I'm not sure I even know how to shoot a gun. In fact, I hate guns in this game. Two times in episode three I had difficulty with, you know, dying. And both involved guns. I'd prefer a blunt melee weapon over a firearm any day in the world of The Walking Dead. But, for some reason, the game insists on making me use guns.

I also encountered my first serious glitch in the game: the action options and target reticle didn't load in one area. When I entered the area, I could walk around, but I couldn't interact with anything. I couldn't talk to the people there and I couldn't open the door at the other end of the area. Luckily, I could go back the way I came and re-enter. After a couple minutes trying other options, I had power down and restart the game. Luckily, this didn't happen during an action sequence; it was one of those, you-need-to-talk-to-everyone-to-progress sequences.

Shocking, but boring and glitchy...not a good outing for The Walking Dead Episode 3. In my honest opinion, I think the series has gone downhill since episode one. We'll see how four and five work out.

Heart Attack Dad Is Dead

In the refrigerator room with the salt lick. I always called them salt "blocks" when I was a kid, but whatever. It was a brief, gleeful moment in what I thought was an all-too-familiar outing in Telltale's The Walking Dead Episode 2, subtitled, we're hungry, but not that hungry.

The button-time or quick-time events weren't as annoying as they seemed in the first episode, maybe because I knew when to expect them; I still died a couple times, mostly because I don't have the A, B, X, and Y buttons memorized on the Xbox. And if they were to mix up the colors and the letters, holy cow, I would be screwed.

I really didn't want the dairy "farmers" to be cannibals, so much in fact that I engaged in all the dialog trees multiple times to see if I could get a different answer. And once I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we would be eating Mark (the convenient new addition at the beginning of the episode), I did everything in my power to make it happen. I even tried not to find him in the secret, hidden room on the second floor of the farm house.

Yes, even the little fruit girl, Cantaloupe, no wait Clementine, ate some of Mark.

After that, I went on a killing spree. And I chose to kill heart attack Dad while his daughter Lilly was trying to (incorrectly) resuscitate, him. Well, technically, Kenny did it, but I helped by saying it was a good idea.

Unfortunately, I couldn't kill Lilly during this episode, even though she just stood there as the last "farmer" was kicking the crap out of me. Eventually I got away from him and the farm's electric fence. At that point, I wanted to make him take a bite out of the electric fence for feeding all of us (except me) roast human. But I settled with a headshot.

Episode 2: "Starved for Help" was definitely predictable and a little bland. I don't think the story was as well-crafted as the first episode, but the second episode was not bad, by any means. It's like a good B movie; glad I watched it, but happy I didn't pay for it.

Getting through the last three episodes before April may be a challenge, but I think I'll go for that goal. Happy zombie hunting!