The Walking Dead 2 Episode 2 Review

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks. Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/the-walking-dead-2-episode-2-review-de7a0325c8f#.ab6ac56ny

I wasn't really sure what to expect from the second episode of The Walking Dead 2 because the first episode didn't have much going on in it. I didn't know enough about the group of people I met to make predictions about what was going to happen. Luckily the second episode picks things up; well, it's not lucky for the characters in the game, but you know what I mean.

The most important thing that happens in this episode is the people in your new group get fleshed out more in a big way. The Walking Dead would fail completely if it didn't have strong characters that you care about. I found myself drawn to the people in the group to varying degrees, much as I would in real life.

The biggest challenge Telltale faces in this game is finding ways to give the player agency in ways that make sense for an 11 year old girl. For the most part I think they succeeded, though there were a few exceptions; for example, who would leave Clementine alone to figure out how to turn off a wind turbine?

Unfortunately I cannot go into the best things about this episode without spoiling everything, but trust me: The Walking Dead 2 is officially now worth getting. There were a lot of surprises, which I was not expecting. I thought I was prepared for anything that Telltale could throw at me, but I was very wrong.

Much like the first episode, they end with a huge cliffhanger. If you hate dealing with those, you might want to wait until the third episode comes out, but that will probably end on a cliffhanger as well. I'm enjoying playing it one episode at a time, but I wish I had somebody I could discuss things with.