With the choose-your-own adventure style of the game, you will start off the game directly after the events of the first episode, and your final decision at the end of that episode will lead to the specific situations until you make it back to the house. Your interactions with specific characters in the first episode also come into play, especially with characters like Nick or Rebecca, who tend to be hot heads combined with being in very difficult situations.
The length of this episode is not too bad either, especially when compared to the very short episode for The Wolf Among Us last month. My playthrough took about an hour and forty-five minutes, which while a little shorter than most of the first season’s episodes, it is a good bit longer than the first episode of the second season. I thought it was going to end up being relatively short based on the unlocking of achievements being so quick while playing, but the last couple segments of the episode are quite lengthy once you reach a certain location, where the last 1/3 or so of the episode takes place.
In the same manner, the graphical style found in this episode remains the same as what we’ve seen in past episodes, but it still feels perfect for the type of game that it is. Being based on the comic universe for The Walking Dead, the cel-shaded style fits like a glove on both the environments and characters themselves. The music is perfectly fine as always too, with the tense moments being especially scored well to impose fear and add to the atmosphere already created by the graphical style.
One of my biggest knocks on the recently released second episode of the other Telltale Series The Wolf Among Us was the fact that it had way too many technical issues that went further beyond the usual stuttering and freezes you expect from a Telltale game. The good news is that The Walking Dead: Season 2 – Episode 2 does not befall this same fate as it ran very smoothly for me most of the time. It is still a little stiff at times with movement, but really the only stuttering I suffered came in the “next time on The Walking Dead” segment. This was a drastic improvement from recent Telltale outings that suffered immensely from technical issues, which has long been one of my largest complaints with the company’s games.
The Walking Dead: Season 2 – Episode 2: A House Divided picks up right where the first episode left off and hits the ground running very quickly. Unlike the first season, we are actually introduced to a very menacing villain that appears to be set as the antagonist moving forward for at least the next chapter or two. The introduction of this villain, combined with the story and the return of an old companion, put this episode up there with the very best of the series thus far. Needless to say, this is one episode of The Walking Dead that you will not want to miss.
[Editor’s Note:The Walking Dead: Season 2 – Episode 2 was reviewed on the Xbox 360. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]