The Walking Dead Video Game, a guest review by Nita Tyndall

When The Walking Dead show first premiered, it was a show my dad and I got into, curled up on the couch on Sunday evenings because my mom thought it was too gory and didn’t want to watch people get eaten by zombies. Which was fine. I wanted to watch people get eaten by zombies.

But then I wanted more.

(Not that I wanted to get eaten by zombies. Or eat people. Gross.) But I wanted more than sitting on the couch, watching.

Enter The Walking Dead series by Telltale Games.

Telltale is a company that specializes in story-based, episodic games. The Walking Dead, while set in the same universe as the comics, features new characters and storylines (with a few cameos from comic book characters). You play as Lee Everett, a convict “offered a chance of redemption in a world overtaken by walkers.” The game is story-based and episodic, with five episodes in a season. You play as Lee for all of Season One, following as he tries to protect a young girl named Clementine who’s alone at the start of the zombie apocalypse. You follow his POV, and the choices you make as Lee tailor the game—in some instances, going as far as to decide if a certain character lives or dies. (There is a season two, but you know, massive spoilers so I’ll let you find that one on your own).

More to the point, it’s diverse and an amazing story. The Walking Dead isn’t like other zombie games, there are no zombies to mow down, no gory death scenes. Instead it accomplishes something I think the show tries to do and occasionally fails at—it makes you care about the people in the apocalypse.

I grew attached to Lee. I wanted to make the right choices for Lee and for Clementine and the good of the group, but if this game taught me anything it’s that making tough decisions is all well and good when zombies aren’t attacking and there’s no time pressure. And yeah, I rolled my eyes at some characters and I hated others, but more than that, I wanted them to survive. I wanted Lee and Clementine to survive.

The Walking Dead: Seasons One and Two are available for XBox, PlayStation, Mac, and PC.