REVIEW – The family meeting almost entirely threw the gameplay into the trash can, and thus, the third episode of The Walking Dead Season Three received a worse rating than the first two chapters. On the other hand, though, the story is getting intense, and yet, the complete episode looks a little too shabby.

The previous episode ended with the return of an unexpected character, whom you could see only in memories. Oh yeah, here we go with reliving the past again, but only after the recap, which seemed to have been longer than I expected it to be. After the memory, we jump into the present. I understand that Telltale wants to hook up the past to the present events by having an action-reaction method, but I haven’t seen many purposes of this move yet.

We are family

In no time, the team starts to plan ahead, but the situation seems to be a lot more politically complicated in Richmond than you would initially think. The positive in the pile of excrement is that the person who was injured gets taken care of in a hospital, but the disagreement between the four leaders of the base eventually ends up throwing the team out the door they came through just hours ago. Is it a trap? I don’t know, but after a few QTEs, the team lines up again. Oh yeah, QTEs: I didn’t see any „collect multiple items and talk to everyone gameplay segment” in this episode.

There wasn’t any throughout the eighty minutes that took me to complete Above The Law! I don’t remember a similar situation EVER in the history of The Walking Dead. Think about it: Telltale launched the first two chapters in December, and since then, they have released absolutely nothing (probably because of the development of the Guardians of the Galaxy episodic game, which will launch in April, and I have no idea about those characters whatsoever…), which makes me ask a question: WHAT exactly took the devs three months on this episode?

Memories ahoy

Another memory segment follows, and it will reveal more of Clementine’s past, and if you guessed that it would tell all about her conflicts with The New Frontier, you are correct! You end up getting to a marked area on a map (after choosing one of the two stars in the sky – I might have picked the right one on my first guess?), which was followed by another twist. Oh God, this bald f_cker is here again, and someone else that turns out to be a traitor.

Before getting rid of him, I managed to screw up one QTE, resulting in a single death (good job, get a banana, myself), then I really enjoyed slamming his brains to a pulp. After defeating that bald guy, a retaliation happened with another confrontation, a suspicious scene that happened for only a few seconds that will still become an important event in the fourth episode in my opinion, then guess how the episode ended. CLIFFHANGER! Oh yes, just what we needed!

The others

I didn’t recall hearing a song in the episode, so in regards to audio, I can only judge the voice acting, which is at least has the usual quality. In the graphics, seeing the characters „pulled” to a point to begin their animation is still quite noticeable, and the movements are still a little awkward here and there. Challenge is only present in QTEs, and maybe you have to move a few things once or twice in the episode as well, meaning that the gameplay itself seems to have taken a major blow.

In my opinion, the story was the only thing that kept the episode going, making it mostly better than the Michonne mini-series’ three chapters. This is the only aspect that made me rate the game a very weak 7 out of 10. The graphics are average, the music/audio is good, the ambiance is good (but not great!), and the gameplay almost doesn’t exist. So far, I believed that the fourth episodes are the weakest links in the series, but I was proven wrong. Unless Telltale strikes back in June (or whenever they launch the fourth episode), seeing the finale will be close to being called a chore…

-V-

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Genre: Episodic, adventure, QTE simulator, interactive, cel-shaded zombie invasion

Release date: March 28, 2017