Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
UK Price: £3.99
US Price: $4.99
The Walking Dead: 400 Days must rank as one of the most unintentionally ironic game titles since Final Fantasy. While it refers to the game's sweeping coverage of the first year-and-a-bit of a zombie apocalypse, your experience of undead America's initial 13 months will clock in closer to 400 seconds. Episodes of the first series (the first The Walking Dead game is split up into episodes) are rarely lengthy affairs, but 400 days is fleeting even by their standards.
If you've played The Walking Dead before, however, you'll know that quantity is no measure of quality, and 400 Days features some typically first-rate drama in its meagre length. It doesn't leave an awful lot of room for much else, however, and consequently the series' weaknesses are considerably more pronounced than they have been previously.
400 days is intended to be an interim episode between the first and second series, though precisely in what manner it is supposed to bridge the gap isn't entirely clear even after playing. There doesn't appear to be any continuity with the first series in terms of characters or location, so the obvious conclusion is it is designed to introduce the new characters for the second series, although we won't know for certain until that is actually released.
At first glance, 400 days looks no different from the earlier episodes. As before it uses those highly stylised comic-strip visuals which largely succeed in masking the limitations of Telltale's ageing in-house tech. Only the small environments reveal the wrinkles on the engine's face. It quickly becomes clear though that 400 days works very differently from the first series. Whereas series one centred around a single main character for its entirety, 400 days tells the stories of five different characters, which interweave in a way we shall be deliberately vague about. Each brief tale lasts around twenty minutes, and focuses on a defining moment in that individual's survival story.
To relate so many stories in such a short space of time requires seriously sharp writing, and Telltale's pencils must be so pointed they could poke a hole in empty space. Characters are established with an economy of narrative that makes Hemingway look verbose. Their traits, their motivations, and their relationships are all made clear in a few lines of dialogue, and just the right amount of information is related to make their situations compelling, without any clumsy exposition dumps.
A good example of this is the third of the five stories, which focuses on Shel and her younger sister. They're part of a group led by a friendly-seeming fellow named Roman, and due to their previous survival experiences have an almost obsessive-compulsive attitude toward their own protection. Much as with Lee and Clementine in the first series, the decisions Shel makes influence her little sister's behaviour, and as Roman becomes increasingly autocratic and unforgiving in his "protection" of the group, Shel faces some tough choices which will not only affect her but her sister as well. Pretty impressive for less than half an hour of game time.
Well, we say "game". The Walking Dead has never been big on interactivity, preferring to lend player agency via decision making rather than through freedom of movement or action. Yet it needs to be said that 400 Days really pushes the definition of "game" to its limits. Only one of the five stories has areas which you can explore in even the most basic fashion, and in two of them the characters barely move at all. The advantage of this of course is the plot moves forward with both pace and purpose, but even so 400 days feels overly constrictive. Of all the episodes so far, this one is the most likely to have you wondering why it is a game, rather than a TV show.
The answer to that has of course already been mentioned - choices. 400 days features these in abundance, from simple dialogue options to typically agonising decisions over whether to leave someone behind, who to leave, who to kill, and so forth. And as always, you'll inevitably find yourself making decisions which you never thought yourself capable of. 400 days excels at making you second-guess yourself.
But do these choices actually matter? One of the frequently cited issues with the first series was that your decisions often didn't massively affect how the story played out, the writers often played a few narrative sleights of hand to keep the story they wanted to tell on track. With 400 days, it's difficult to ascertain the extent of the consequences of your decisions. Each story has an obvious binary choice at some point, and at the very end the effects of those decisions are revealed in a way that's clear if not particularly satisfying. Also, it's impossible to say how these choices will play into the second game.
One last thing worth mentioning is 400 days' use of earlier savegames. If for whatever reason you haven't kept the saves from the previous episodes, 400 days will generate the choices made previously on the fly, suggesting it requires those decisions in some faculty. On the other hand, there's no obvious point at which those earlier choices could come into effect, so it's somewhat hazy regarding whether it actually uses those decisions or not. Again, the likely explanation is that the choices from both season one and 400 days will carry over into season two, which is why 400 days takes them into account. So you're probably best off making use of any saves that you have.
As a one-off experiment, 400 days is intriguing, but not entirely successful. The five stories needed to be tied off in a dramatic manner in order to make the sacrifices toward gameplay and depth of relationships worthwhile, but because it is sandwiched between two seasons with much more to play out yet, the game simply can't do that. Season 2 can't come quick enough, but judged on its own merits, 400 days is more likely to leave you scratching your head than drying your eyes.
Publisher: Telltale Games
UK Price: £3.99
US Price: $4.99
The Walking Dead: 400 Days must rank as one of the most unintentionally ironic game titles since Final Fantasy. While it refers to the game's sweeping coverage of the first year-and-a-bit of a zombie apocalypse, your experience of undead America's initial 13 months will clock in closer to 400 seconds. Episodes of the first series (the first The Walking Dead game is split up into episodes) are rarely lengthy affairs, but 400 days is fleeting even by their standards.
If you've played The Walking Dead before, however, you'll know that quantity is no measure of quality, and 400 Days features some typically first-rate drama in its meagre length. It doesn't leave an awful lot of room for much else, however, and consequently the series' weaknesses are considerably more pronounced than they have been previously.
400 days is intended to be an interim episode between the first and second series, though precisely in what manner it is supposed to bridge the gap isn't entirely clear even after playing. There doesn't appear to be any continuity with the first series in terms of characters or location, so the obvious conclusion is it is designed to introduce the new characters for the second series, although we won't know for certain until that is actually released.
At first glance, 400 days looks no different from the earlier episodes. As before it uses those highly stylised comic-strip visuals which largely succeed in masking the limitations of Telltale's ageing in-house tech. Only the small environments reveal the wrinkles on the engine's face. It quickly becomes clear though that 400 days works very differently from the first series. Whereas series one centred around a single main character for its entirety, 400 days tells the stories of five different characters, which interweave in a way we shall be deliberately vague about. Each brief tale lasts around twenty minutes, and focuses on a defining moment in that individual's survival story.
To relate so many stories in such a short space of time requires seriously sharp writing, and Telltale's pencils must be so pointed they could poke a hole in empty space. Characters are established with an economy of narrative that makes Hemingway look verbose. Their traits, their motivations, and their relationships are all made clear in a few lines of dialogue, and just the right amount of information is related to make their situations compelling, without any clumsy exposition dumps.
A good example of this is the third of the five stories, which focuses on Shel and her younger sister. They're part of a group led by a friendly-seeming fellow named Roman, and due to their previous survival experiences have an almost obsessive-compulsive attitude toward their own protection. Much as with Lee and Clementine in the first series, the decisions Shel makes influence her little sister's behaviour, and as Roman becomes increasingly autocratic and unforgiving in his "protection" of the group, Shel faces some tough choices which will not only affect her but her sister as well. Pretty impressive for less than half an hour of game time.
Well, we say "game". The Walking Dead has never been big on interactivity, preferring to lend player agency via decision making rather than through freedom of movement or action. Yet it needs to be said that 400 Days really pushes the definition of "game" to its limits. Only one of the five stories has areas which you can explore in even the most basic fashion, and in two of them the characters barely move at all. The advantage of this of course is the plot moves forward with both pace and purpose, but even so 400 days feels overly constrictive. Of all the episodes so far, this one is the most likely to have you wondering why it is a game, rather than a TV show.
The answer to that has of course already been mentioned - choices. 400 days features these in abundance, from simple dialogue options to typically agonising decisions over whether to leave someone behind, who to leave, who to kill, and so forth. And as always, you'll inevitably find yourself making decisions which you never thought yourself capable of. 400 days excels at making you second-guess yourself.
But do these choices actually matter? One of the frequently cited issues with the first series was that your decisions often didn't massively affect how the story played out, the writers often played a few narrative sleights of hand to keep the story they wanted to tell on track. With 400 days, it's difficult to ascertain the extent of the consequences of your decisions. Each story has an obvious binary choice at some point, and at the very end the effects of those decisions are revealed in a way that's clear if not particularly satisfying. Also, it's impossible to say how these choices will play into the second game.
One last thing worth mentioning is 400 days' use of earlier savegames. If for whatever reason you haven't kept the saves from the previous episodes, 400 days will generate the choices made previously on the fly, suggesting it requires those decisions in some faculty. On the other hand, there's no obvious point at which those earlier choices could come into effect, so it's somewhat hazy regarding whether it actually uses those decisions or not. Again, the likely explanation is that the choices from both season one and 400 days will carry over into season two, which is why 400 days takes them into account. So you're probably best off making use of any saves that you have.
As a one-off experiment, 400 days is intriguing, but not entirely successful. The five stories needed to be tied off in a dramatic manner in order to make the sacrifices toward gameplay and depth of relationships worthwhile, but because it is sandwiched between two seasons with much more to play out yet, the game simply can't do that. Season 2 can't come quick enough, but judged on its own merits, 400 days is more likely to leave you scratching your head than drying your eyes.
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