The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 4: Amid The Ruins Review (PC)

The Walking Dead series has brought forth a variety of great experiences in its first season, and so far, its second season is even more intense thanks to the new protagonist, Clementine, and the various adventures that await her and her group of survivors.

Now, the second to last episode in the second season, called Amid The Ruins, has just arrived and promises to confirm just what happened to the group after the cliffhanger ending of the last chapter, while setting things up for the conclusion in episode five.

Can the group survive its latest predicament in the new adventure or should the walkers devour the latest episode? Let's find out.

Bear in mind that, while I'll try not to spoil too many things about The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 4, I will openly talk about things that happened in previous chapters.

Episode 3 saw Clementine and the group finally escape the makeshift prison set up by Carver and his posse in the derelict shopping center, but things haven't been easy. Kenny was almost killed, Rebecca is close to giving birth, and the other survivors aren't in the best situation either.

Help Clementine ...

... on her new adventures

Amid The Ruins deals with all these things head-on and puts a bit too much on the shoulders of protagonist Clementine, a small child that's been forced to grow up way too fast by the zombie apocalypse.

Players will have to deal with plenty of tense situations, and in quite a lot of cases there's no right answer or solution that solves all problems.

What's more, the fact that the group has no shelter also makes a big impact on the story, as the zombies don't care about your internal struggles. They just want your flesh and brains, meaning you can also expect a few close encounters with the walkers in the new chapter.

While traditional gameplay is once again scarce, expect lots of great dialogue and plenty of important conversations between Clementine and the other survivors. As always, decisions need to be made that have an impact right in this episode or will show their consequences in the last chapter.

Once again, the game brings into question whether or not a group is necessary for survival in the world of The Walking Dead. Clementine has so far relied on others to keep going, but it's become rather clear that the new group is weighing her down in different ways. Jane, one of the people she met at the shopping prison, serves as a clear reason to go out on her own but the story still has other plans for the little child.

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In this new chapter, the invisible hands of Telltale's writers are much more visible, as there are plenty of situations where you can tell the obvious and safest course of action but you aren't allowed to follow it, instead leaving yourself vulnerable to surprises towards the end.

As always, right at the end, Telltale shows a few statistics about the major choices made by players in the new episode, and this time around almost all of them are split 50/50 or vary slightly towards one course of action over the other. It serves to show just how tough the choices are and how there's no good or bad way of dealing with things.

In terms of visuals, don't expect any actual improvements over the last few episodes, as Amid The Ruins doesn't try to reinvent things. It once again features some low-res textures in quite a few spots and some of the animations are a bit too choppy for their own sake, but it's not anything that seriously affects the experience.

Telltale should certainly try to improve or at least keep the facial expressions of characters from becoming choppy, as there are plenty of situations in the new episode where a character's facial gestures change way too suddenly.

The soundtrack features the same traditional tunes but once again the voice acting takes things to a whole new level. While the dialogue is top-notch as always, the delivery really makes the characters stand out as lifelike beings that have already gone through a lot during the zombie apocalypse and don't have time to worry for themselves, let alone for others.

Help others ...

... and defeat the walkers

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion