Played on Playstation 3

Originally written August 22, 2013

The Walking Dead: 400 Days is a special DLC episode of The Walking Dead video game. It’s not part of season 1 of the game, nor is it an episode in the upcoming season 2 either. Rather, it’s meant as an episode to bridge the two seasons together, and also to introduce the characters that will be seen in season 2 of the game. Needless to say, if you’re new to the series, you don’t need to have played any of the other episodes to understand what’s going on. However, 400 Days gives some nods to certain characters and events from the original game, and I’m pretty sure season 2 will as well, so if you want the full story effect, I highly recommend playing season 1 first. If you’ve already beaten season 1 and are itching for some of The Walking Dead to hold you over until season 2, 400 Days is a pretty good extra episode.

Story: 8

The story aspect of 400 Days is actually hard to judge because we get so little of it. Rather than play as one single character and see their story, you play as five different characters in 400 Days, and we’re introduced to these new stories. The characters we’re given are Vince, a man on his way to prison; Wyatt, a man trying to escape from some people trying to kill him and his friend; Russell, a young guy walking alone on a road that’s picked up by a stranger; Bonnie, a recovering drug addict; and Shel, a woman trying to protect her sister inside of a hideout. As the game title implies, the story takes place over 400 days, from the start of the zombie outbreak to over a year into it. We’re seeing each character at a different point of this time period.

The stories are mostly pretty great. However, we really only get to scratch the surface of all five characters, as you only get about 15 minutes worth of story from each of them. Some stories are more interesting than others, with the standout ones being Russell and Bonnie for me. In the end, we get some solid stories with interesting moments throughout, but it’s not nearly the same caliber as the first game, mainly because it’s just introductions. However, for the short time we get to spend with each of these characters, we get a great sense of getting to know them.

Gameplay: 8

The gameplay for 400 Days is exactly the same gameplay from The Walking Dead. For those not familiar, it’s a point-and-click style game where you’re given choices on how to progress the game. There’s three types of gameplay sections: traditional point-and-click style, where you walk around and examine things/talk to people; choice sections, where you’re given a series of dialogue or action choices to make to progress the story; quick-time events, where during an action scene you’ll have to mash the on-screen button to get out alive.

Compared to season 1, 400 Days has significantly less “walking around and examining things” parts, which probably is why it’s runtime is so much shorter. The only story where this type of gameplay is seen a lot is in Shel’s, where you’re walking around your hideout. Otherwise, the large majority of what you’ll be doing gameplay-wise in 400 Days is making dialogue choices to have the story play out how you want it to. It’s a system that still works great, just not as well for a surface-level character intro.

Graphics: 6

Much like the first game, the graphical department is where I have to dock points from the most. Not because of how the game looks, because again 400 Days brings back the beautiful cel-shaded kind of graphics we’ve seen before that give the game its own unique style. The characters and environments are just as well done here as they were before. What brings the game down AGAIN though is in its animation. 400 Days is very laggy, and it was the biggest problem that plagued season 1, so I figured they’d take time to work on fixing that. But that problem is back and just as bad as before. It’s frustrating when you’re watching a scene and the picture lags behind while the dialogue continues. Here’s to hoping they fix this in season 2.

Sound: 7

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I feel the sound department should take partial responsibility for the above lagging problem, as there’s also moments because of it where a few words of spoken dialogue will be repeated by a character. Other than this problem, the sounds in 400 Days are fine. I feel what should get the most recognition here are the voice actors, as I feel like the voices for the new characters are just as good as the characters of season 1. What doesn’t feel much different is the music/sound effects. It still does its jobs, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t quite as memorable and didn’t give me the same level of immersion as it did in season 1. Then again, it’s simply an extra episode, so I’ll hold off until I see how season 2 does.

Length/Replayability: 6

Unfortunately, I wish 400 Days would have been a bit longer. As I said before, you only spend about 15 minutes with each character, and then plus an epilogue at the end, makes for an episode that’s only around an hour and a half long, about half the length of a normal episode. It’s not too short, but even like another 5-10 minutes with each character would have been nice. The episode has about as much replay value as you’d expect. There’s nothing else to be unlocked by playing it again, no extra modes or anything. But if you want to see certain situations play out differently, you can play it again and make different choices. Still, these choices you make in 400 Days will carry over into season 2, so the real impact of a lot of the choices here have yet to be seen.

Overall, I think it’s wise to not expect too much from 400 Days, or else you’ll be missing the point of what it is. It’s simply a bridge episode meant to introduce the characters of season 2, and for that it does it’s job well. It’s really just an extra episode given to help hold us over until season 2 arrives. For fans of the first game, I recommend it, even if it is with some issues.

3.5/5