The world belongs to the dead, but you fight to take it back for the living. You are collecting survivors to try and reestablish some semblance of a community to protect them and yourself. Protect them from what? The dead and living alike are out to get you in this game. Be careful or you will find out truly why they call it the Walking Dead. Here is our review of Overkill’s The Walking Dead.
From Developer Overkill Software, and Publishers including Starbreeze Studios and 505 Games, comes the newest instalment into the world of the Walking Dead. Immediately after you click the play button you are introduced to some new characters for the game. The beginning video in the game is pretty good for video game story scenes. You will soon learn a little about what is going on in the game. Your group of survivors is stealing back a purifier pump for clean water, and they get it but other things happen. You will learn why it is not cool to mess with “The Family”.
When you enter the actual game you will be asked to pick a class to play as, and this class can be changed and levelled up at any time. Overkill gives us four classes, the Tank, Scout, Tactician, and Support. Each class comes with its own base setup of weapons, including ranged and melee weapons. Do you want a sniper rifle like Sasha or a crossbow like Daryl? Each of these weapons gives you different tactics to use. Don’t worry if you want to play a specific class with different weapons either, because you get to modify your loadout however you want to. I mainly played as a tank, equipped with a sub-machine gun. a machete, and a pistol. Each character gives you a different playstyle, but even with that, the main game has its own playstyle that you need to get used to.
Stealth is a main component to The Walking Dead. Whether you are watching the show or playing this game. The main thing survivors learn is how to be quiet and avoid the dead when they can, and if necessary, to take action to take them out. Each of your weapons come with suppressors which will help to make you quiet, for a limited time. Yes after several shots your suppressor will break and you will be left with loud weapons. Pull out your machete, or baseball bat, or whatever you have for melee, and go to town on the walkers. Make sure to hit them in the head though, because just like the show only a headshot will kill them, again. There are also traps that have been set up by survivors, similar to the ones in the show, and if you trip them you might run into a bit of trouble. Examples of traps I have seen are bear traps, and strings with cans attached which set off explosions.
Gameplay is pretty straightforward as well. You run around the dead trying to avoid them, kill them when necessary, and then finish your mission taking out the living members of the Family. Bullets fly straight to where you are pointing so don’t worry too much about bullet dynamics. When fighting the living make sure to kill them, because if you shoot them and they go down they may not be dead and you might be. As someone who played the beta, there were key differences in the survivors camp also. Instead of the entire camp being open, now you have to research and level up your different areas. From gun ranges to the infirmary. You will need to use your accumulated scavenged items to upgrade your base. As you progress through the story you will also find survivors that will help you with missions that go on in the background. You can assign them to areas of the base or out into the field to scavenge, scouting, and even assassination missions. Each of them has their own special skills, and the missions will tell you what the possibility of completion will be. Make sure to make the right decisions.
Note: Our copy was previewed on Steam with a code provided by PR.
