400 Days was teased so much by the
development team at Telltale Games that many fans believed that this
downloadable content would be an important addition to the story told in the
first season of the game.Fans will clearly find much to love in the new story
that the developers spin but most players are better serviced by simply picking
up the episodes launched so far in order to experience the more nuanced
narrative built around Lee and Clementine.400 Days is a game about the rest of
the world, about other initial survivors who need to deal with their own past
and with the inevitable effects of undead presence.The core formula of The Walking
Dead is unaltered here: little to no actual combat takes place, there are a few
puzzles and interactive moments to click through and the core of the game is
built around conversations, observations and harrowing decisions.Gamers need to
select how their character will answer to certain situations and each small
choice they make can have a bigger impact down the line.400 Days takes place
around a diner and the various characters that are introduced are entirely new,
which gives Telltale a chance to deploy its extensive narrative capabilities to
quickly sketch backstories and personalities for them.
While not long, the DLC is packed with moments that will impress or gross out gamers and with a few decisions that have a lot of impact.It’s clear that Telltale felt that the new cast gave them more freedom to do insane things with them and I liked how the lives of most survivors were described as tough and pretty miserable even if they managed to find a relatively safe place to hide from the undead.There’s also a strong current of misanthropy running through 400 Days as, over and over, men managed to let the worst part of themselves get to the surface and dictate their decisions.The development team also frames the situations in the game in such a way that even a player who knows the universe of The Walking Dead will be tempted to take the easy way out even when the circumstances suggest that doing the right thing might actually make sense.
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