The Walking Dead The Complete Second Season (Retail Edition) Review

Following up to the first season of The Walking Dead is no small task – how do you go about topping one of modern gaming’s biggest phenomenons? By making it incrementally more horrible, obviously. Season 2 picks up pretty much exactly where Season 1 left off, plot wise – but this time you’re playing as Clementine – which removes any sense of indirectness playing as Lee enforced.

Now it’s just Clementine and a world full of things that want to eat her. But her indomitable spirit endures, and the lessons Lee taught – for better or for worse – persevere. The overall tone of season 2 is much less hopeful than before, with all the events of the previous game weighing down every move you make. Your choices from season one do carry over and although you’re dealing with an almost entirely new cast of survivors they can make a real difference. If you don’t carry over your save data, the game just randomly makes those choices for you, which obviously cripples the personal aspect somewhat.

So how does Clementine stand up as a protagonist by herself? Well, pretty bloody well, really. Depending on how you played the first season and, of course, on what kind of choices you make as the story moves forward, she’s either a no-bullshit hardened survivor or a quiet, repressed young woman becoming more than a little unhinged by the world around her. As usual most of the choices you make don’t affect the overall outcome, more how the central character evolves and the people around them view them. More than ever, “they’ll remember that” is important, and some of the choices left up to Clem, a person still in the process of learning right from wrong, are impossible. It’s an absolute master class in writing and storytelling, because you don’t just play her story – you experience it from her perspective.

That’s the most impressive aspect of season two. There’s no longer that fostered feeling of parental protection, now you’re right in the shoes of a lost little girl in a world full of people she can’t trust, and all the betrayals, all the injuries and horrible deaths are that much closer, that much more frightening. It takes what made season one so incredible and ramps it up – expanding on what was some incredible groundwork and doing a much better job of representing the world of The Walking Dead than the series – which, despite the acclaim, often plays out more as Eastenders with zombies.

Technically, the QTEs are significantly improved – although they remain much easier on keyboard as opposed to controller, and for the PS4 version, it would have been nice to see some touchpad integration (Seriously. It’s one of the controller’s best features and it’s going to fall by the wayside when it could be put to glorious use, especially in games like this). The action sequences are just as frantic, and this time you’re smaller and much more vulnerable – not to say Clementine doesn’t put up a fight. Playing as a child – even a routinely badass one – is a literal game changer. Brute force is no longer an option. The odds are stacked against you, and you will be held accountable when your choices get people killed (and that’s definitely going to happen). There’s so much I wish I could gush about in this review but the reality is I’m treading on eggshells about spoilers as it is.

You don’t NEED to play season one to enjoy season two, but honestly – it’s one of the greatest experiences of this generation, so if you haven’t, just go play it. Play it, and play it again to see all the different outcomes and dialogues. Play it to see how your choices in season one affect the events of season two. Just bathe in the most excellently created games of their kind. When a certain unexpected character reappeared in season two my heart genuinely jumped into my throat and I felt like I’d actually just bumped into an old friend.

The cast of survivors this time around aren’t, in my opinion, as endearing as the first, but they’re interesting in their own way and the different directions they attempt to drag Clementine in. Should she become a cold, hardened zombie slayer? Or should she leave the fighting to the grown ups and stay a little girl? The final choice of the first season was symbolic of the kind of person Clementine was going to be, and season two really puts that person to the test.

This is another excellent entry in Telltale’s swelling stable of success, a tale of blood, survival and woe that grabs you by the jugular and infects you from the start. From the heartbreaking beginning to the snowballing cascade of tragedy at the end, all five episodes are going to grip you more than anything Telltale have offered up before, and leave you cold, empty, shocked, and, of course, hungry for another round. I’m still waiting for the day Telltale fall short – but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.