Game Info
GAME NAME: The Walking Dead Season Two: Season Finale – No Going Back
DEVELOPER(S): Telltale Games
PUBLISHER(S): Telltale Games
PLATFORM(S): PlayStation Vita
RELEASE DATE(S): August 26, 2014
We made it everyone. The final episode of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead Season 2 has arrived. And it brings with it intensity, humor, and feelings. Was it worth the wait or was it dead on arrival?
(The review below will contain story spoilers, though attempts were made to keep them vague.)
Like episode 3, episode 4 ended on a tense, dramatic cliffhanger. So naturally the season finale starts where we left off. After the previouslys, you find yourself in the middle of a gunfight trying to find out what to do with yourself and the new baby in the group. The showdown was shorter than I was expecting and it was actually much less nerve racking then I would have expected. But that seems to be a general theme around this episode. Once everything calms down, a lead on a new shelter is presented, so off you go into the wild white yonder.
Along the way there’s some calm moments where we get to see the characters be real live actual humans instead of survival experts, and also some tense ones where you get to make more fun (they’re not really fun) decisions. Most of the episode, however, seems to be made up of Kenny yelling at everyone and everyone yelling at Kenny. While part of the ending did make the room feel like mist could be rolling in, it didn’t pack the emotional punch that the ending of Season 1 did. In fact, the entire episode felt pretty anti-climatic to me. Sure, things got hairy and dangerous, but the stakes didn’t seem as high. And like Episode three, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in terms of adventuring. You control the shooting of some zombies, but for the most part you’re just directing Clementine to the one option that will advance the story out of three. When the credits started rolling, I stared at the screen and thought, “Is that it?” It sets up the future third season nicely, but as a season finale it fell flat.
My main issue with this episode is that it feels like it should have been somewhere in the middle of the season. It had the feel of one of those “we just had some major crap go down, so we’re taking a break for an episode to get the characters to the right spots so we can really wreck some shop next week” kinds of TV episodes. There is a sweet dream sequence towards the end, but otherwise the seemingly monotone story combined with the out-of-place episode order left me very underwhelmed following the last two installments.
Graphics, sound, & performance continue to be consistent. Art style is still good. Voice acting is still spot on. Performance still jumps and stutters. I’ve you’ve endured the issues through the beginning of the season, there’s nothing happening here that’s any better or worse.
THE RECOMMENDATION
If you’ve played episodes one through four, you’re obviously not going to stop at the season finale. It’s definitely worth finishing to see what happens to the characters and where season three will start. Just be prepared to be let down and left wanting more when it’s all said and done.
