2012's episodic point & click game Telltale's The Walking Dead was undeniably one of the best videogames this side of 2000 and will most likely go down in history as one of the best games ever made. As an early adopter & huge fan of the of the comics and someone who thoroughly enjoys the TV show I was a little wary at first, but as you can see from my review it is one of the best games I have ever played. So to get us back into the universe of TWD ready for Season 2, Telltale created a DLC episode titled 400 Days a short while back. After having a TloU hangover and a backlog as big as a motorway I decided against buying it, but my thirst for more TWD had to be quenched and so here is the review for 400 Days.
So 400 Days presents us with five stories that are between 10 to 20 minutes in length that have nothing to do with the story of the much loved Lee & Clementine. Instead this sets up the scene for Season 2, introduces us to the main characters, gives us their back-stories and ends where Season 2 will most likely start off. Now whilst this is an excellent idea on paper, it doesn't execute as well as you might think.
Now before the torrents of hate start hitting me, yes 400 Days is an excellent expansion to an excellent game but it feels as if Telltale are force feeding us a ton of information that may or may not be relevant later on in the franchise in an incredibly short time frame, therefore information they give you might be passed off as something irrelevant, or we may simply suffer information overload from remembering everything they throw at you in this hour long episode and get it all jumbled up.
First thing to remember is that each person you play as has something completely different to do than the others, this mixes in all the best parts of Season 1 into an hour, but you can have too much of a good thing and feels like it was thrown in just to get people to buy the game. Hell the best section of the game was confined to a seat on a bus as you make tough decisions via heated conversations as zombies attack the bus around you. The rest of the sections, though enjoyable, never quite reached that kind of level of intensity and therefore never got off the ground.
Because each one is so different and so short I cant really say too much without giving too much away but you'll be being hunted through corn fields in the middle of the night, running away from a madman in a truck, looking out for your younger siblings and raid a survivor camp all in the space of an hour, at least 400 Days gives you variety in what your doing and never disappoints in what it manages to come up with next.
Gameplay is the same as Season 1. Left stick to move, right to control the cursor and face buttons to interact, however there wont be much moving involved. All the sections take place in very small areas (with the exception of Bonnie's chapter in the corn field) though so the left stick gets a bit of a break on this and two of the 5 sections are entirely dialogue based so don't expect too much from it.
In short 400 Days is for its price of £4 is worth it especially if you like The Walking Dead (it does require at least Episode 1 of Series 1 to play) and is best played after you finish Episode 5 of Season 1. However don't expect a deep and touching story that Telltale have delivered us over the past year and don't expect character development...hell I cant even decide who I do and don't like yet. So if an extra hour long slice of more Walking Dead can tickle your fancy its worth a shot, its also worth getting if you plan on buying Season 2 because its does what Episode 1 did of Season 1 meaning that Season 2 Episode 1 can get right on with it.
Right then back to the backlog.
The Walking Dead: 400 Days – 7/10
+More TWD
+Great Intro to Season 2
-Too Short
-Too Much Information
-Never Gets Going
