Top 10 Video Game CS/Play Movies

07. The Walking Dead

Few games have resonated with the gamer community quite as well as The Walking Dead - despite the fact that a significant portion of that community has reached full saturation when it comes to zombie stories.

There can be no mistake that The Walking Dead is a Zombie Story - but note the caps here - it is THE Zombie Story of the past two game seasons! Despite the fact that the story has been so widely spread between the original graphic novels, the TV shows, and the video games (and we mean games plural), the reality is that gamers at least are not fully sated. Yet.

The primary game series was created by Telltale and uses an original story rather than following the story that has been very well-told by the TV show. In fact the story in the video games - which has been told by dividing the games into Episodes and Seasons - has created an entirely new layer of fans.

Contrary to popular belief, the games were not based on The Walking Dead TV show, but rather on the graphic novel / comic book series, which goes a long way towards explaining how the games seem to have a much tighter feel with the novels over the show.

The plan all along was to create a game for traditional and mobile play, which is why it is available for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire HDX, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

When the stories are discussed, the fans of the TV show end up feeling a bit confused because while they know the players from the show well - the games added something to the mix that is often said to go beyond the story of the show.

What we mean by that is simple: a lot of fans of both stories are quick to point out that from an entertainment and emotional level, the story in the games is actually superior to that of the show!

Defining popularity requires a layered approach here - we already pointed out that the graphic novels and TV show have their fans, and the games have their own large community.

The games were created as an episodic interactive graphic adventure - developed and published by Telltale Games exclusive of all of the other stories associated with the IP.

The story that was created for the games was crafted with the assistance of the author, Robert Kirkman, which is probably why it feels so authentically a part of the Walking Dead universe.

Including the game here is almost a given, particularly due to the manner in which it was created, which was a hybrid of the choose-your-own-adventure and episodic style that compliments both a TV and film approach.

The game world is the same place as the world of the comics, and its events occur immediately following the onset of the zombie apocalypse, specifically as it broke out in Georgia.

It should be stressed that most of the characters are original to the game, which centers around the story of university professor and convicted murderer Lee Everett, and a little girl named Clementine who he ends up rescuing. Or perhaps they rescue each other.

When we say that the characters are original to the game, we are not suggesting any sort of cross-over between game and show, but rather the cross-over that does take place is between the game and the graphic novels. And that is actually a good thing, because where the show takes certain liberties the games do not.

Kirkman's contribution to the game was to offer the wizards behind it a sort of oversight in order to guide the story in a way that ensured it followed not simply the canon of the story, but its spiritual essence as well.

When we made up this list and selected the games, at first it was pointed out that while The Walking Dead can be thought of as a single very large game, the reality was that it was five smaller games that join together. That being the case it was suggested that what we should do was pick the best episode out of the five and make it the entry here.

In the end though we couldn't do that. Not because no one episode stood out over the others, but mostly because divided or not, those five smaller games genuinely make up the larger big-picture that is The Walking Dead: The Video Game. Which is why we included all of the episodes as this single entry in our list.

http://youtu.be/fQsEn33ETu4

Our justification for that decision is simple really - had the game focused its mechanics on platforming and puzzle solving that might have been a valid approach. But with its heavy focus upon characters over events, and the solid relationship that the wizards behind it built between the players/fans and the characters, it really is a no-brainer.

If you have yet to play the games - even if you have watched the TV show - we strongly urge you NOT to watch the movies embedded above, because the spoilers that they contain are best absorbed as part of the game play.

On the other hand, if you have played the game, the movie-versions above offer you an added element of entertainment that perfectly fits the point of this Top Ten feature. So eat up!

Posted: 20th Nov 2014 by CMBF
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