SPOILER NOTE: If you have played The Walking Dead Episode One, this feature is spoiler-free. If you have not, it does include spoilers, so go play the game and then come back.



Opinion: Telltale's main character is a sign of a new kind of game.
I love Telltale's The Walking Dead. I also believe it's an important game because it points to how gaming is changing -- evolving -- in order to appeal to that core of ourselves that demands emotionally gripping stories and characters, that holds the part of us that occasionally grows weary of the dominant model of gaming-as-combat. At the center of The Walking Dead is its main character Lee Everett, and he is something special.

On the face of it, The Walking Dead is an ordinary gaming experience. The story is a simple and familiar one of confused people running away from extreme danger. The gameplay mechanics are rudimentary, involving choosing straightforward dialog options, or clicking on bad guys fast enough to ensure that they go away. The puzzles aren't especially challenging; you find things and put them to use in a particular order.

No, the reason this game is so awesome is because Lee Everett is a straight-up nice guy.

He's that rare videogame character who doesn't spend his dialog slots blabbing to you and the rest of the world about his awesomeness. His one-liners are gently self-deprecating, rather than the usual tired put-downs. Rendered in a comic-book style, his facial expressions are emotionally transparent - hopelessness, pain, fatigue, concern, confusion, shame, anger. He is an everyman. I like his personality and I enjoy spending time with him.

It's interesting because the game I played straight after The Walking Dead was Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I found it a complete turn-off because in comparison, Adam Jenson is so two-dimensional and annoying. That's kind of crazy because, compared with most games, Jenson is a deep, sophisticated charmer. But in story terms, he's an empty thing, a human-shape attached to weapons.

So what makes Everett special? Most of the characters Lee comes across, in my view, are unremarkable, but this helps in allowing the quiet, reasonable, softly spoken man to become part of the story, as opposed to dominating the screen in the tiresome way of most videogame protagonists.


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He's ok, but I'd rather play as Rick.