Essay: The Wolf Among Us

Here's an essay I wrote last semester for a cool English course I took called Gaming & Narrative Theory. It got me an A so I guess it must be somewhat decent.

The Wolf Among Us, Player Choice and Dynamic Character Adaptation

            The Wolf Among Us is an episodic adventure/mystery video game released in 2013 by American independent game publisher Telltale Games. It is an adaptation of the Fables series of comic books, which takes famous characters from well-known nursery rhymes, films and stories and brings them together in one universe, a hidden community known as "Fabletown" in the  heart of New York City. The video game adaptation of this centers around protagonist Bigby Wolf, who is better known as the "Big Bad Wolf" from the Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs fairy tales. The Wolf Among Us has an interesting portrayal of Bigby. Despite the fact that he is the antagonist in the context that the person playing the game knows him in, he is very much the hero of the game. In this essay, I will argue that the player's perception of Bigby and other characters in the game is altered and defined by their previous knowledge of them in other texts, and that The Wolf Among Us is a legitimate adaptation of these characters. In her book Beginning to Theorize Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon defines an adaptation as "an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work or works" (7). The Wolf Among Us fits quit well into this definition, as it brings characters from a multitude of other works in several different genres and media together in one cohesive game universe.

            When a character is adapted into a new medium or text, they inevitably bring their reputation and previous actions with them in the mind of the person experiencing the new text, and this concept certainly affects the  perception of the character of Bigby in this game. Hutcheon writes that adaptations have an "overt and defining relationship to prior texts" (3). While her book is primarily concerned with film adaptations of works of literature, this certainly holds true in video game adaptations such as The Wolf Among Us. Bigby is defined for the player by his history in the fairy tales that he originates in.

            In The Wolf Among Us, Bigby Wolf is the sheriff and chief law enforcer of Fabletown. He uses his brute strength and skills of investigation to solve crimes and keep the residents of Fabletown safe and under control. This portrayal is extremely interesting given the previous portrayals of Bigby in the material his character is adapted from. In Little Red Riding Hood, The Big Bad Wolf is the antagonist of the story and primarily exists to deceive and try to eat Little Red Riding Hood. Having this previous knowledge of Bigby causes the player of the game to be cautious of him at first, knowing that in his background he is a villain who cannot be trusted. This is alluded to in the game as well. The characters inhabiting Fabletown all remember the events that occurred in not only their stories of origin but those of the others as well, and these events often create a reputation or image for these characters that affects the way that the other ones think of them. For example, a talking pig named Colin is often found at Bigby's apartment, and makes several appearances throughout the game. It is revealed that this is one of the Three Little Pigs from its eponymous tale, and in that particular story the Big Bad Wolf (Bigby) is clearly the antagonist. In this fairy tale, the Wolf destroyed Colin's house. In the context of The Wolf Among Us, this has happened previously and Colin often appears at Bigby's apartment because he is homeless as a result of what Bigby has done to him in the past. Colin is bitter about these events and he serves as a reminder to both Bigby and the person playing the game that he has done immoral things in the past and does not fit into the definition of a hero that most fairy tale stories subscribe to. However, it is made clear that Bigby feels remorseful about his past wrongdoings because he allows Colin to stay at his apartment. Interactions like this reveal a lot about Bigby and his character in The Wolf Among Us. It is easy to see him as a villain because of the evil deeds he has done in other works, but in this game he is quite clearly struggling with his nature and attempting to become a good "person".

            Whether or not he accomplishes this goal is entirely dependent on the person playing the game and the choices they make. Like all of Telltale's games, The Wolf Among Us is almost entirely driven by choice. An extremely high degree of control is given to the character over Bigby's actions. This ranges from small things such as choosing what he says in conversations and which questions to ask suspects, to far more profound and lasting choices such as whether to kill or spare lives or who to implicate in criminal investigations. A good example of this is at the end of the game where Bigby finally uncovers the culprit behind the killings in Fabletown. He (the player) is presented with two options: kill the criminal mastermind immediately, or take him into custody so he can face a fair trial for his crimes. Choices like this offer the player opportunities to "write" Bigby and decide what kind of character he is. It is made clear throughout the course of the game that Bigby has a very poor reputation among the other Fables. He is known for his violent temper and propensity for extreme methods that are morally questionable, but tend to yield results.

             This reputation can affect the person playing the game in one of two ways. One, it can drive them to do things "Bigby's way" and use excessive violence to achieve his goals. An example of this is early on in the game when Bigby is attempting to locate a person he has reason to believe is responsible for a murder and is attacked by Grendel, another literary figure originating in the English epic poem Beowulf. After subduing Grendel using his lycanthropic powers (Bigby is usually humanoid but has the ability to turn partially or fully into his wolf form to become stronger), Bigby is presented with the option of letting the defeated Grendel go or ripping off his arm. Interestingly, Grendel has his arm ripped off by Beowulf in the poem he originates in. This is a deliberate homage to the poem that makes the encounter with Grendel more enjoyable for players who are familiar with Beowulf.  In pivotal moments such as this, it is entirely up to the player to decide who they want Bigby to be. Doing things Bigby's way means violently pulling Grendel's arm off in plain sight of several other fables and further increasing his reputation of unfeelingly committing unnecessarily extreme acts of violence. Based on Bigby's historical context and his characterization in other works such as Little Red Riding Hood, this seems like the logical course of action, and what his character would unquestionably do in any other work of fiction. This illustrates how Bigby's past in other works of fiction affect the player's perception of him in this game. The fact that it is simple for the player to know what Bigby is expected to do and what he would likely normally do in situations such as these means that they may be likely to play the game in this way to bring consistency to his character. What is interesting about The Wolf Among Us, however,  is that the player is given the opportunity to deviate from this path and make Bigby perform acts of compassion and mercy.

             This is the other way that the inclusion of a strong element of choice in The Wolf Among Us affects the person playing. While Bigby's origins in famous fairy tales affects the player's perception of him to a certain degree, the choices in this game actually allow the player to change Bigby and make him a better person. Naturally there is no way to change who Bigby was in the past in the diegesis of the game and in other works, but if the player makes choices that are compassionate or helpful towards other people, they can begin to change the perception of Bigby within the game. A good illustration of this is the character of Snow White. She is one of the main characters in The Wolf Among Us, and originates in the famous film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow is one of the leaders of Fabletown and works very closely with Bigby in upholding the law. As her name suggests, she is by far the most innocent and pure character in the game, and often acts as Bigby's moral compass. This purity is established in the game, but can also come to the player by knowledge of Snow's character in the film she originated in. In the game, she keeps a very close watch over Bigby and often pleads with him to resist his nature and think before he acts. This can motivate the player to use Bigby to commit moral actions in an attempt to gain Snow White's approval. Despite Bigby's failings and misdeeds in the past, Snow offers him the opportunity to reform and change his reputation with the people of Fabletown. This concept of redemption extends outside the game to the person playing, because the player can turn Bigby into a strong, moral hero, which also changes the player's perception of him in light of his past evils.

            Uri Margolin addresses this dynamic nature of fictional characters such as Bigby when he says that "the properties ascribed to characters need not even form a logically consistent set, let alone one conforming to actual world regularities" (68). This means that Bigby does not need to be entirely consistent in all of the texts in which he appears, because he is a constructed character in a fictional world. Thus, while Bigby has been evil in the past, and can continue to be if the player chooses to make him so, he does not necessarily need to be this way in The Wolf Among Us to be the same character as he is in Little Red Riding Hood. Margolin goes on to say that "any given character may be amenable to a whole range of individuations, all of which are nonetheless compatible with the original" (69). In accordance with this, Bigby Wolf is an "individuation" of the Big Bad Wolf literary figure from the fairy tales from which he was adapted. This character has undergone immediately recognizable changes and adjustments from the original Big Bad Wolf, but remains an iteration of the same character simply because the game explicitly says he is and makes reference to his past in other well known works of fiction.

           

            Strengthening this argument for Bigby's legitimacy as an adapted character, Margolin says that the "later texts and the original must be related to each other both historically and intentionally"  and that the authors (in this case programmers) "must intend their readers to recognize the original version" (69). The Wolf Among Us is absolutely related to the other texts from which it adapts its characters. It would be nearly impossible for the game's writers and developers to accidentally place all of these characters in one universe with the backstories and personalities they have, so it is safe to assume that the adaptation of Bigby and everyone else in The Wolf Among Us is intentional. It is also clear that the game's writers intend for the players of the game to recognize the characters within it, because ample context and history is given for a large number of them. An example of this in the game is one short section where the player (controlling Bigby) is tasked with reading through a picture book full of depictions of the other Fables with the goal of locating and identifying an unknown woman who was murdered. While flipping through the book, the player can highlight and focus in on pictures of several of the other characters in the game, and with each there is a brief verbal description of them in the diegesis of their original fairy tale. This deliberate inclusion of references to the original texts the characters are adapted from is for the sole purpose of linking these characters back to their original texts, and reinforcing the sense of familiarity that they may already have in the mind of the player.

            When viewed using adaptation and character theories, The Wolf Among Us is a very interesting game. Being a video game adaptation of a comic book series that is in fact an adaptation, it contains a sort of "double layer" of adaptation. However, despite making a journey through three different media (some characters such as Snow White have come from films into comic books and now to video games), the characters in this fictional universe are still extremely recognizable iterations of their original forms, and contain more than enough shared characteristics with their source characters to be easily identifiable as the people or creatures that the game introduces them as. Bigby himself is shown as a human being in the game, but the way that the other characters react to him and the details revealed about his past before the events of the game make him unmistakably the famous Big Bad Wolf of fairy tale fame. Linda Hutcheon writes that an adaptation is "a derivation that is not derivative- a work that is second but not secondary" (9). This is description that applies especially well to The Wolf Among Us as a standalone text. While it borrows characters from other works, it does so in a manner that makes them new and different and uses them to create an original storyline. This game is "second but not secondary" in that it comes after the works that it draws from chronologically, but is in itself a creative work of original imagination. These characters are formed by their identity in previous works, but all come together to create an original narrative that is an effective and fascinating in its portrayals of already famous characters.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

           

              Before I begin this post, let it be known that I really don't like anime. I understand the appeal of Japanese cartoons, and a lot of my friends love them, but I personally am not a fan. Dragonball Z will of course always hold a special place in my heart due to how much I absolutely loved it when I was a kid, but other than that I've never really found an anime I've found immersive and fun without being completely stupid. "But Matt", you say, "You haven't seen (insert anime title here)! how can you say you don't like anime if you haven't seen (insert title here)!". Well to you I say, that doesn't matter. I don't need to see every anime show ever to tell that it's not my thing. I don't have anything against it, and if you like it that's totally cool, I just don't. Leave me alone.

               Despite my dislike for anime, I have found an extremely well made, immersive and memorable game in Level 5's overwhelmingly huge RPG, Ni No Kuni. I bought the game a few months ago on sale, the guy at the store told me it was a good choice and that it would keep me busy for a looooong time. "Yeah, whatever", I thought, "This dude is just trying to sell it to me to make money for his store", but I was totally wrong. EB Games Dude, you were 100%, completely right (for once.) Ni No Kuni is an absolute masterpiece of the Japanese RPG genre and one of the best games of 2013, if not the complete best. I'll admit that at first I was not really that into Ni No Kuni. To me, it seemed like a fairly generic role playing  game with nicely designed visuals by an actual anime studio and nothing else substantial behind it. Young boy loses his mom and travels to an alternate world with a living version of one of his toys to save her. Not a terribly original plot. Why do I care? I didn't at first. But as the long story of the game wore on I became incredibly emotionally invested in the characters and their roles in the plot, and hopelessly addicted to the deep gameplay and massive world. The main quest of the game follows the adventure of Oliver, a young boy who travels to a parallel universe along with one of his toys which comes to life and has apparently been a fairy all along. During this journey he meets up with Esther and Swaine, two others who follow him on his adventure for various reasons. In the most basic terms, his objective is to destroy the White Witch, an evil entity intent on destroying the world to make way for a new one, and somehow bring his mother back to life. This story isn't largely important to the game, most of the plot devices consist of NPCs saying "Oh, you need this to continue your adventure? Well do this for me and I'll give it to you" which is fairly standard for role-playing games. I found myself several times doing an errand for someone so they would give me something which I would give to another person in exchange for all or part of what I really needed all along. And that in itself is one of the big appeals of Ni No Kuni, if you play it and find that you like it you're really in for a treat because the game goes on FOREVER. There are literally hundreds of sidequests and bounty hunts you can perform for the various denizens of the game world. Some of them take minutes to complete, others hours, and to get 100% task completion in the game will take you weeks if you're a committed player, months if you take your time. The world is massive and very well designed, containing the various ecosystems you would expect in an expansive RPG: deserts, tundras, caves, oceans, forests, volcanoes, islands, and some incredibly weird levels that are perfectly at home in a Japanese fictional universe. This world never feels like a chore to traverse either, you thankfully gain the ability to fast travel early on in the storyline and later acquire both a ship and a dragon you can use to fly to parts previously unreachable. There are about a hundred hidden treasure chests to find and if you want to create every single alchemy recipe (a task that took me about 30 hours of playtime alone) you'll be travelling a lot.

               But that's enough about the world. A role playing game is nothing if it doesn't have good combat, and in that aspect Ni No Kuni is great, nuanced but simple at heart. The combat system in this game is real-time, and most of the time your characters will not be fighting directly but instead using creatures they have tamed called "familiars". These are essentially the enemies found in the game. When you defeat a creature, you sometimes get an opportunity to tame it. If you choose to recruit it, it becomes a member of your party and you gain control over it. Familiars can equip weapons and armor, and gain abilities and stats as they level up. This probably sounds a lot like Pokemon, and to tell the truth it is. There are several different types of familiars, and over 300 species, so you'll need to find strong ones and know which types to use to succeed in combat. This means travelling all over the world and fighting all the creatures lots of times to capture them, and then fighting tons more to level them up to make them strong (and evolve them to their strongest form, just like in Pokemon). Having a strong team of familiars for each of your party members is the key to victory in Ni No Kuni, and to make it through the endgame and fight the postgame ultimate bosses you need to pretty much find the best familiars and get them to max level. Doing this took me a looooong time but running around with  a crazy strong team destroying everything at the end of the game was extremely fun.

              The ridiculous amount of content and easy-to-learn, hard-to-master combat system in Ni No Kuni is brought together by simply amazing production values, and these elevate the game to a level of quality rarely seen in video games. The entire game is drawn and animated by the famous Studio Ghibli, the studio responsible for several critically acclaimed animated films including Howl's Moving Castle and the irresistibly charming My Neighbor Totoro. Everything in the game is absolutely gorgeous, from the cutscenes to the varied terrain, everything is beautifully brought to life. The soundtrack is also stellar, being performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic orchestra. Just listen to this. Or this. Or any of the other songs, they're invariably fantastic. There aren't many games that come out these days that make me want to just stand still in a dungeon or town, just listening to the gorgeous soundtrack. In terms of presentation, Ni No Kuni is amazing, and almost unrivaled in its quality.

               You should play this game. You might think it's for kids, but if you have any inner child left in you at all you will love it. There is so much to do and see in Ni No Kuni. And all of it is of the highest quality, and most definitely worth experiencing.

I'm Pissed Off Today, Let's Talk About Video Games

               God, I hate Call of Duty. If you play it and buy the games every year, I probably hate you too. If you pirate the games and play them, I still hate you because you have horrible taste in video games and if you're going to pirate stuff at least make it stuff that's worth having. Every year Activision insults the intelligence of the gaming community by releasing the same game, and every year you retards fall for it. It wasn't always this way though, Activision used to publish some pretty kickass stuff. Remember Tony Hawk Pro Skater? Those games rocked, until they ruined it by releasing a rehashed sequel every 10 minutes until they got so bad that no one cared anymore. The same thing happened with Guitar Hero. The first few games came out and were totally wicked, bringing a whole new gaming subgenre into existence. After that they started releasing far too many sequels far too often, with no real changes to the core game mechanic other than adding drums to compete with EA's Rock Band which was the same thing as Guitar Hero only much better. Wipe that smirk off your face EA, you're guilty of this too.

                The problem with strategies like this is that it places absolutely no value on the customers, and relies on the quality of the previous entries in the series to motivate consumers to buy the newest one, even if it's a half-finished, hastily thrown together copy of the great older games. There's no innovation, the reasoning is "well, it sold well last time so let's do it again". It seems like Activision is acting using Hollywood logic: if it makes money, milk it until there's no more money to be made. This is the logic that gave us a Spiderman reboot less than 6 years after the last one ended, or 4 damn Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Endless sequels, reboots, re-imaginings and remakes have been showing up in the last few decades, and it's reached a point where it's getting pretty ridiculous. I'm not trying to say that all of these are inherently bad, some of them are pretty great. I'll admit that I enjoyed Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, and the new Planet of the Apes reboot. I'm interested to see Superman this summer and the recent 007 movies (with the exception of Quantum of Solace) have been pretty impressive.There are some franchises that deserve to be re-imagined, considering the leaps and bounds technology in film has made in the last several decades. But not everything that was successful in the past needs (or even deserves) to get remade (lookin' at you, Michael Bay). You'd think after the steaming pile of crap that was the Star Wars prequel trilogy they'd leave it alone, but nope. There's money to be made, so here we go with another trilogy.


            Video games are taking the same path. Instead of new, fresh games coming out every year we're getting sequels, remakes and reboots. And that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Far Cry 3 came out this year, and it turned out to be one of the best games of 2012 because it's easy to tell that the studio learned from the previous games and used that knowledge to make something special and memorable, not to mention incredibly immersive and outright horrifying (goddamn sharks). Last year also saw the release of Hitman Absolution, a reboot of a much beloved series that had been idle for quite a while. The game was great, staying true to its challenging roots while adding replayability and that aspect of creativity that thinking gamers crave. Sequels aren't a bad thing, but there has to be some evolution in them. A sequel should feel somewhat like the game that came before it, but it needs to have enough new ideas to distinguish it as an improvement over what came before. Some games hit this nail right on the head (see Mass Effect 2) and some games fail at this horribly. Which brings me back to my original topic, how bad Call of Duty is. I believe that creating a worthy sequel takes time. The developers need to reflect on what went well in the last game and what didn't, find out what the players liked and hated, and use that information to improve upon the last game. I think a really good example of this is Rocksteady's Batman games. There have been a lot of Batman games in the past, but none have even approached the level of depth and immersion that these have attained. The first game, Arkham Asylum, was fantastic, blending easy to learn but hard to master combat with hidden secrets, puzzles, clever boss fights and a tight, focused story that consisted of interesting, iconic characters and a great setting. Even after beating it there was a lot of stuff to find, and really hard challenge maps to master if you really wanted to get into them. Arkham City came out more than two years later and improved upon the formula a lot. It took place in a huge open world, with a lot more maps and enemies. There were a lot more boss fights and literally hundreds of riddles, secrets and collectibles to find. It also contained more subplots and character development for Batman himself, which was excellent. There were even more playable characters available as DLC, with Catwoman coming free with the game. City was just a massive improvement over Asylum, which is a huge accomplishment considering how great the first game was. This is an instance where thought and creativity brought forth a fantastic sequel.

             But in Call of Duty we see no such thing. Every year in the fall, in time for the Christmas rush, we see a new COD game come out. And they're all essentially the same. If you put any two of them side by side you won't be able to tell which is which because they all contain the same guns, virtually identical graphics, the same perks etc etc. I have to give credit where credit is due though, COD4 was a great game that brought life into a dying franchise. It was innovative, and cool. But Activision has been milking that once cool military game for far too long now. If they had taken time to think about what they were doing instead of rushing out the same game every year then maybe they could have released a few worthy sequels by now. But they didn't. And they haven't. The single player campaigns have arguably taken the biggest hit in this respect. They last around 3-4 hours in each game and just basically consist of running around shooting foreign people the whole time while stuff explodes. No replayability, no variety. It feels tacked on compared to the multiplayer modes, which is what everyone apparently buys it for. The multiplayer consists of running and gunning, twitch-based gameplay. Whoever sees the other player first gets the kill. Whoever sets up the most mines and find the best place to camp wins the match. There's no teamwork involved because it's all about getting the highest score. It's complete repetition. Don't feel bad though, if you're a Call of Duty fan. Most people that play it are younger and this generation of game consoles is their first gaming experience. People who grew up playing games like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six know how great shooting games can be, and how shallow and narrow COD is compared to these games. So it's not your fault. You probably just don't know better.

               Another thing that really pisses me off about this game series is the amount of downloadable content that they release for each game. When a Call of Duty game comes out, it has multiplayer maps on the game, but throughout the year Activision releases more maps and game modes, usually around four packs a year at a modest 15$ each. This is an absolutely stupid practice. I'm not saying that DLC in itself is a bad thing, but Activision and a lot of other publishers release too much of it at too high a cost. It's cool to download extra levels and stuff for games that extend the playtime you'll get out of the game and enhance the experience, but paying another 60$ a year (the same cost of the initial game) just to have all the maps is ridiculous. And an obscene amount of people fork over the cash every year. Guess what Ubisoft did a few months after releasing Far Cry 3? They put out some new co-op maps for the 4 player game mode (which is excellent) for  the very reasonable price of FREE. Rockstar released new content for Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption, also free. Activision doesn't do this because they think of their fanbase as sheep and want to squeeze every cent they can out of them. To get the full experience of one game, you have to pay for it twice over. And they do this every year. And people still fall for it and somehow enjoy the games.

             Reader, you can play any game you want. If you want to throw down 120$ on Call of Duty every year and line the pockets of these Activision execs while they laugh because they can get away with it, cool. I just want you to think about what you're playing, and question whether the Call of Duty series is really worth all the money and time people dump into it.

*SPOILER ALERT*

It isn't.

The Walking Dead Game

I'll say it right off the bat. Zombies in pop culture is getting stale. Actually, no, it's past that. It's getting tired and old. The horse passed away a while back, came back as zombie horse, died again and now they're giving it a pretty thorough beating. If I hear one more person say "OH MAN I HOPE A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE REALLY HAPPENS DUDE I CAN TOTALLY SURVIVE I'M GONNA DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND BE THE ULTIMATE BADASS BLAH BLAH BLAH" I'm going to go crazy. Everyone thinks they'd survive a zombie apocalypse, and realistically it wouldn't be an apocalypse if everyone survived it so shut up and accept the fact that you'll be part of the 99.9% of the population that dies  shortly after the event begins (which it won't). It just pisses me off that zombies are a sure-fire way to make money, and that fact is being exploited in every corner of the entertainment industry that is capable of capitalizing on it. The games are getting repetitive, the movies are derivative, and it's just getting boring, to be honest. It's not that I hate zombies, the original Night of the Living Dead film still scares the hell out of me. I thoroughly enjoyed games like Dead Rising 2, Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare, and Dead Nation. There's just a point where they need to either cool it or stop, and that point has passed.

So why do I love The Walking Dead game so much then? 

Some people think Telltale Games is clinging to a sinking ship. I mean, creating point-and-click games on PC and consoles in the technologically developed gaming climate of today? It's definitely old school, a genre that is pretty much dead in commercial gaming. There's more of an emphasis on high action setpieces, realistic graphics and fast paced gameplay these days, and The Walking Dead isn't particularly huge on any of those things. If you're not familiar with the gameplay style, I'll elaborate a bit. Basically you walk around, examine your environment, solve puzzles and most importantly, engage in dialogue with the other characters. You play a convicted murderer named Lee who gets caught up in the middle of a zombie outbreak and encounters an innocent little girl named Clementine who he protects along his journey, with the ultimate goal of bringing her to her parents. These are the two main characters, and the rest are fairly interchangeable. Why? Because Telltale sees fit to kill several characters off in every episode and bring in new ones. Normally in horror movies I'm fairly good at predicting who is going to die and who will live. But in The Walking Dead, not so much. In the last episode alone I can think of 4 moments where my jaw literally dropped and I was saying "Dude. no way, like seriously?". The best part of this game is by far the story, and the level of unpredictability that is there. Lee and Clementine and their various companions are on an incredible journey and by the end of each episode you really feel like you've made some progress, whether you've fixed up a broken train, escaped from a farm inhabited by horrible cannibalistic rednecks, or decided who to save when the building you're in is being overrun. The Walking Dead thrives on immersion, dragging the player with it on its insane, unpredictable journey. And I gotta say, it's been amazing so far. I also like the way they decided to release it, as an episodic continuing game. This is season 1, hopefully  implying that there will be more seasons to come, and there are 5 episodes that go for $4.99 each. I bought the season pass when episode 1 was released for $20, so if you bought early you even save money. Every episode takes 3-4 hours to complete which is a pretty nice value for 5 bucks, especially considering the quality of the content. Every single episode has improved upon the last, and best of all, the episodes are extremely replayable.

Free choice is something that a lot of games advertise, but not many actually do right. It's one thing to give the player a bunch of black and white choices and then give them 1 or 2 endings depending on what they pick like Infamous or Bioshock, and something else entirely to let the person playing make hundreds of small choices throughout the game in the form of dialogue and scripted actions. Every episode of The Walking Dead contains a lot of conversation, and every single thing you say to anyone impacts the story, the way they think about you and how they're going to treat you in future episodes. I have one guy in my group right now that doesn't trust me and won't help me anymore because I didn't take his side in a particular argument like 3 episodes ago. The characters in The Walking Dead remember everything you do and say, even the order you complete objectives in will affect your interactions. Most of these choices aren't just choosing sides either, a lot of them have multiple options and you have to think very carefully about the possible repercussions of what you might do. I remember in one episode I had 4 pieces of food and I had to decide who in the group to give them to. It was a really hard decision, and I could have approached it multiple ways. Even the characters in your game are determined by your choices. I can think of several people that have died along my journey that I could have saved by making a different choice, and several people in the group now that are only there because I chose to keep them alive. The sheer amount of choice in this game makes it well worth the price, after I finish episode 5 I plan to replay the entire thing again making different choices in every episode. But even after 2 full playthroughs there will be a lot I still have to experience to say I have seen everything. 

The graphics in The Walking Dead are not amazing (on the PS3 version I've been playing at least), but they stay true to the franchise's graphic novel roots. The zombies look great, and the character expressions are very well done, which is good because how a person feels about you is usually indicated by their expression when you're talking to them. The scenery changes a lot throughout the story, which is more than I can say for the TV show. The characters in this game have goals greater than just staying alive, and while some of them are inevitably unlikable, you put up with them anyway because sometimes you get to tell them off or even decide whether they live or die later on. The Walking Dead is really what you make it, and if you go with your personal morals when making decisions you can become incredibly emotionally invested in it. I feel really involved in the lives of the characters in the game, and if Clementine dies in episode 5 I'm going to cry like a baby.

Play it. 

Play This Game: Dark Souls

Dark Souls is the best console game to be released this generation (in my opinion, which is correct), and one of my favourites of all time . Every single aspect of this game is near flawless, and in a sea of derivative, unimaginative, laughably lame mainstream games it stands head and shoulders above everything else. It's challenging, emotional, immersive, addictive, beautiful, and completely amazing. Why should you play it?

1) The high level of difficulty.

Dark Souls is not for children. If you're a typical Call of Duty playing, Nickelback listening, Transformers watching douchebag, then don't even think about playing this game, because a) you're not worthy, b) you'll most likely ragequit early on and c) I hate you. Dark Souls is for people who want a challenge, want to die a lot and actually THINK for once in a video game. Right on the back of the game it says "PREPARE TO DIE" in huge letters, and you're going to. A lot. Hundreds of times most likely. In my 400 hours of playtime, I've died hundreds of times, probably thousands. But the thing about Dark Souls is that every death is a lesson. When you die, you learn about hazards in the environments, the attack patterns of enemies, what they're resistant to or weak against, when to charge and when to be careful, etc etc etc. This is one of the greatest successes of Dark Souls. It defies the modern conventions that games have (d)evolved to. There's no mini-map on your screen telling you where to go, no arrow giving you directions, very few tips and free items. The only advice you're gonna get is the messages that other people playing online leave behind to help you, and a lot of those are made by trolls that just want to mess with you. Dark Souls does not hold your hand in the slightest, and that's one of the reasons playing it is so satisfying. When you figure out how to open a shortcut you previously couldn't get to, or beat a ridiculously hard boss (which are common in Dark Souls, the bosses are insane) or even just make it to the next save point you feel amazing. So many times in this game I've found myself holding my breath without realizing it, and then when I finally make it to safety I let out a sigh of relief and feel awesome because I just did something really difficult and I feel good about it. Sure, it's really hard. Most of the enemies can kill you in seconds, regardless of your gear. But when you finish the game you have an amazing feeling of accomplishment that very few games can give, you feel like you actually DID something.

2) Atmosphere/Immersion.

Atmosphere is something that a lot of games miss the mark on. It's that immersion factor, the way a game can drag you right in, to the point where there is nothing but the game and your attention is totally consumed. Because of the aforementioned difficulty, Dark Souls requires that much more concentration to play (also because you can't even pause the game). You won't be able to play it while texting, you won't want music on, and playing it drunk is probably a bad idea too, although I've heard of some cool Dark Souls drinking games. Since the game autosaves constantly, everything you do is final. There are no do-overs. You can't load up your previous save and try whatever it was you were doing again like in Skyrim. This made me play really carefully, and care about what I was doing. Constantly assessing risk and strategically planning your battles is a key to success in this game, and since you play the game with your mind you are so much more immersed and invested in the game. You have to read the enemies and know your surroundings everywhere, because the game developers did an amazing job here. They set up traps, put enemies in the most inconvenient spaces and made incredibly difficult levels to traverse, because they hate us all and don't want us to beat the game (notice I said beat, there's a difference between beating a game and finishing one). So when you do finally destroy the final boss and beat Dark Souls, you feel totally badass. I remember the first time I beat it, I was strutting around the house like I owned the place and wasn't a loser living in his parents' basement until he finished college and finds a job, it felt awesome.

In addition to this, the atmosphere in the game is enough to creep anyone out. The world you're in is completely bleak and hopeless. Everyone there is depressed, and everyone else wants to kill you. The areas you go through in the game are dark and dreary, devoid of sunlight and filled with murderous creatures that sometimes come out of nowhere. Some of the levels are riddled with traps, others are dark, hopeless labyrinths. The mood of Dark Souls is incredibly depressing, and after playing for a while you certainly feel its effect on your psyche. It's not a happy game, and when you become hopelessly addicted to it you get fully immersed in this nightmarish world, never to return until you turn off the game, which you won't want to do because you're hooked.

3)The absolutely brilliant multiplayer/co-op

Dark Souls' multiplayer is like nothing else on the video game market today. There's no invites, no lobbies, no matchmaking. There's just the game world, and whoever gets brought into or comes into it. When you're running around dying, killing, looting and dying more, you can randomly get invaded by other players. This person comes into your world as a red phantom, and basically hunts you down and tries to kill you. You either win or die. There are also clan-like groups known as covenants that you can join that give you special abilities and advantages in the PvP system, which spice things up a lot. Being invaded is scary. When it happens, your heart skips a beat and you wonder who it is, what kind of character they have, how good they are etc. There are hundreds of weapons in Dark Souls that you can upgrade and create, and they all handle differently than others. Finding a weapon that you like and are comfortable with is key to being good at PvP. Some people are incredibly good and kill you easily, but most of the time it's a pretty fair fight since you're always around the same level. Defeating an invader or hunting someone down and killing them is very satisfying, adding to the gratification Dark Souls offers to those who take on the challenge. 

Even more fun is the co-op. When someone wants to help another player out, they leave a sign on the ground. This appears in the worlds of other players and they can summon the other player as a white phantom to help them get through the level or finish the boss off. Helping people out is awesome, and certain boss fights are really insane to do alone, so the co-op is a welcome addition to the bleak, depressing atmosphere of the game. Hooking up with a friend and running through the levels quickly is incredibly fun.

I could write pages and pages about Dark Souls because I truly believe that it is one of the best games to come out in recent memory, but it's better to experience it yourself than read about it on some stupid blog. So I encourage you, give Dark Souls a try if you're brave enough. It's coming out for PC soon with new content, so everyone, console and PC gamers alike, can experience this amazing game.