Walking Dead, The: Episode 4: Around Every Corner (Video Game)
Amanda Dyar
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Developed and Distributed by Telltale Games
Available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 & PC (Reviewed)
Rated M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language & Suggestive Themes
The Walking Dead Episode 4: Around Every Corner continues the epic journey and may be the best episode thus far. Up to now the story has focused on Lee and Clem’s survival among the undead, but the new episode was written by Gary Whitta. Who is Gary Whitta, you ask? Well, he racked up many years as the Editor-in-Chief for PC Gamer magazine before he made his way to Hollywood. He is best known for the 2010 film The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington. Gary Whitta has acted as a supervisor over the game’s writing team until recently. However, in Episode 4, Whitta stepped up to write the episode himself, and fans can definitely tell!
Whitta has seamlessly blended his episode with the others before it and did an outstanding job of doing so. Whitta delivers excellent characterization while giving fans more of what they already loved from the series in Episode 4. The story incorporates a few new elements but will give players the familiarity they have come to know from previous episodes as well. As time has gone on, each episode has gotten darker than the previous one, and this also applies to Episode 4.
Players will notice this right off the bat during gameplay–as Lee digs up a dog’s corpse to get its collar in order to use it to get through a pet door that is activated by a chip. If digging up corpses of family pets wasn’t enough, it gets much darker as the episode plays out. This example serves as a short and snappy description of what fans can expect from Around Every Corner as a whole. The episode is gorier, darker and still manages to magnify the humor from Episode 3. The unique blend of dark humor gives the episode a nice distraction for taking the player’s mind off the morbidity and lonely struggle of the characters.
Around Every Corner offers new concepts in regards to its mechanics. The mini-games are somewhat better than what players may have seen in the previous episodes. Episode 4: Around Every Corner delivers everything we loved from the series thus far, including beautiful comic-style art, amazing voice-over work, an engaging storyline and interesting characters. It is getting harder to see how Telltale Games can top what they already done, especially with Episode 4. I guess we will just have to wait and see what the finale brings!
You can visit the official The Walking Dead website to learn more about the game.
4 1/2 out of 5
Categorized:Reviews
