The Walking Dead

Evening all.

As a gamer (in my spare time between working in the MoD and being a dad) I find that sometimes you just feel like a complete change. Sometimes you might want to read, listen to music, scan YouTube for hilarious videos of people eating ghost chilli peppers and other such ventures in your free time.

A couple of years ago I had the misfortune to contract pneumonia, bad times indeed but it did give me a ton of time to lay back on the sofa and rest...albeit whilst struggling to breath without pain, but still beggars can't be choosers.

Anyway, one thing that got me through that shitty ailment was a little something called The Walking Dead. I don't mean the tv show that's returning to our screens later this month, I mean the comics that the series is loosely based on. I say loosely because if it followed everything in the comics tv audiences would be a bit more shocked than they alread are. However, I digress.

I read through volume after volume of the comics reaching a point where the events of Hershel's farm in season 2 seems like very old news to me. He'll even the discovery of the prison that is going to dominate season 3 seems like a distant memory.

The books captivated me, and for the times when I was reading them, the pain seemed to fade for a while. So, good times yes? Yes. Well when the tv show came out they originally had this little online game you could play which looked a bit poor if I'm honest, so I never indulged in it. Earlier this year however TellTale games brought us The Walking Dead Season 1, done much like their Back To The Future games. And that is well.

The games are riveting, immersive and so fun it feels much like the comics and the tv show, while creating a new story arc, and every couple of months they have released a new episode, with ep4 due to come out this month, and the season finale due in December along with a boxed retail version of the game.

Well that's all great, and what's even more great is that apparently TellTale have been commissioned to make Season 2, eps 6-10 in 2013. Excellent news ja?

Not just that but The Walking Dead fever doesn't stop there, nosirree bob. Coming soon will also be a TWD FPS game featuring tv show characters Daryl and Merl Dixon in a story set before the tv show started. Not too bad, but me? I dunno, it looks good but you gotta understand, I'm a TWD purist, and I hate to tell you but Daryl and Merl are characters that are only in the tv show, they don't appear at all in the comics, so for me, they shouldn't be there. And to have a game that is based around them seems a bit weird.

Now the TellTale games story and (almost) all new characters feel great be ause they aren't a part of Ricks group, they are a different set of people following a different course. And I like that. I think the potential is there in TWD universe to create something like a great RPG or even MMORPG, too many zombie games take the "BLAST THEM ALL TO SHIT" route, which admittedly is something that happens a fair bit, but it's the survival aspect, the people, the food shortages, the looking for shelter that is what a zombie survival game should be about. Christ even a Sims mod could work.

In fact an RTS TWD game could work as well...that's usually about resource gathering, keeping your base or "safe zone" well...safe. There's an awful lot of scope for TWD but predictably, they're going down the FPS route. Oh well.

Anyway, I've written this blog over 2 nights because of various technical reasons, and the flow I had when I started has gone a bit really. So I'll leave it there.

Basically the outcome of this blog is that TellTale games TWD Season 1 has episode 4 coming out this month with episode 5 coming around Christmas with an expected Season 2, Eps 6-10 coming out in 2013. Not just that but The Walking Dead Video Game is coming out focusing on the Dixon brothers before they joined the group outside Atlanta in the TV show. But you know all this. You've just read my blog.

TTFN

Toolbox 24