The first season of The Walking Dead was incredible on its own, thanks to wonderful character moments, but its one glaring weakness was the lack of a true villain. This addition, along with some cool callbacks, has completely re-energized a series that was fairly lackluster in its first outing this season, but has since been growing stronger and stronger, with a potential to eclipse the already award winning first season.
You would think that being watched like hawks in such tight quarters might lead to some interesting stealth like missions, but for the most part this episode is very story based with little exploration. There is one moment where you have to go search for walkie talkies, but it’s extremely straight forward and anyone could figure it out. This also seemed to be the case in the most recent The Wolf Among Us episode, so perhaps it’s just a middle chapter thing.
While the setting of the zombie apocalypse is dark enough, past episodes in the game managed to have a level of hope at times. However, In Harm’s Way was one of the lowest points for our characters thus far, with a completely lack of control over their lives while under the iron fist of Carver. Rather than having a set goal on where to go, like in the first season, or even a plan on where to go next, as seen in the first two episodes of this season, the only focus for our characters this time is escaping. While the episode features such a bleak setting, there is one hilarious moment late in the episode that is a nice bit of levity in such a dark episode.
Episode 2 of the current season has perhaps one of the best climaxes of the entire run thus far, but Episode 3 managed to give us one that was just as good or perhaps even better. Without giving anything away, the last 20 minutes or so of this episode are by far the best, with some of the most satisfying moments of The Walking Dead series so far. There are decisions that should hold a lot of weight moving forward, which hasn’t been as much of the case in recent episodes. I know I was literally on the edge of my seat by the time this latest episode was over, as one of the major decisions you must make concludes the episode, which will make the two month wait for the next episode all the more difficult.
Telltale really has seemed to have gotten the whole stuttering and freezing thing straightened out finally, as the last few releases have been much improved on their past endeavors. When playing through I did not notice a single freeze and hardly any stutters at all. The “Next Time On The Walking Dead” segment was even stutter free, which is usually the part of the game that suffers from it the most. The load times did seem a little longer than usual this time, but they weren’t weren’t a hindrance of any sort.
The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 3 – In Harm’s Way continues the trend of escalation found in the previous episode, with way too many prominent character moments to count. Clocking in at what seemed like longer than the last few episodes, there was plenty going on, even with an absence of actual action early on in this installment. Carver continues to be one of the best additions to the series thus far, and you will find even more reasons to hate him this time around. The bleak nature of this episode perfectly fits the atmosphere we expect from The Walking Dead and In Harm’s Way is easily one of the best single episodes we’ve had of not only Season 2, but the video game series as a whole.
[Editor’s Note:The Walking Dead: Season 2 – Episode 3 was reviewed on the Xbox 360. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
