The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

It's been a while since I've gone over a game hasn't it? All the way back in July last year. I had wanted to do 'An Hour of:' of 'Dishonored', 'Halo 4', 'Darksiders 2', but I just never did them. It was also recently that I was saying that a new zombie game had to come out soon. Well, I had lent my 'Left 4 Dead' games out, and I wasn't particularly in the mood for the 'Dead Rising' games or Tell Tales 'The Walking Dead'. 'Dead Island'  eventually came to my rescue, what with 'Riptide' coming out soon and I needed to complete it.

And then Terminal Reality and Activision's 'The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct' enters the frame. Terminal Reality, as it turns out, I have no experience with as I have never played any of their previous games. Activision though are behind the 'Spyro the Dragon' series (One of favourite franchises - though they did the reboot series), the Tony Hawk's skateboarding franchise (Which got boring after 'Underground'), 'Call of Duty' (Which you could argue is starting to get boring), and 'Guitar Hero' (Which started to get boring after 'Legends of Rock').

Survival Instinct follows the backstory of Daryl and Merle Dixon and how they made their way to Atlanta. And yes, they did get Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker (Respectively) to voice their characters, and that's really good. Most games based on films/television shows would have just gotten an impersonator. Actually I think Activision is the only company to have gotten the actual actor to voice his character in any movie/TV show adapted game. Video games are getting better though, I will admit that.

We start off taking control of 'Dixon' on a hunting trip. It's the tutorial level, you know, the one where we're told how to do the basics. So really, first impressions are rather dull. Do you remember the opening to the TV series? We get a lot from A. Rick's encounter with the girl zombie and B. the interaction between Shane and Rick. Here, I have no idea who Buck is, I have no idea who Jess is, Hell, I have no idea who I am.

And that turns out to actually be a good thing. I thought we were controlling Darryl, however, as it turns out, we were playing a false protagonist, his dad Will. We see the horror and the sadness in his face at seeing his father in such dying. Which is weird seeing as how in the episode 'Home' it seems that Darryl didn't particularly like his dad due to abuse he received in childhood. But maybe there's more to it, I don't know, we're not told. But this and the opening credits is actually quite good, and it fits into the Walking Dead theme quite well.

We then control Darryl, escaping the woodland area before heading to Sedalia. The combat, is okay...ish. It's easy to master, and that's mainly because there's only two buttons. Well, three including aim. The problem is that if there's more than one zombie, you will most likely get hit, since there's no block function. Yes, I know 'Dead Island' also didn't have a block function, but at least there you could hit the zombies with one swing, at least you could knock the zombies back with your weapon. Here, the most a blunt object can do is knock the head of one zombie slightly to the right. And it takes four hits. With the earlier weapons anyway.

Another thing we come across is stealth. This is a pretty good feature, sneaking up on your target to take them out quietly. Or at least it somewhat similar to that. The thing is you can just nonchalantly walk up behind a walker and execute them. And it's so easy I'm surprised I haven't gotten the achievement for killing fifty of them (this way) yet. That and the execution appears to use the same animation, I think only once or twice has it changed.

They've also implemented a sprint feature, which depletes as the character gets tired. The problem is he gets tired after about five seconds. Again 'Dead Island' had a stamina feature, where it was actually good. This is like the first stamina feature used in one of the WWE games where the wrestler gets exhausted after three moves. According to this game, I am fitter than Darryl since I can run longer. And I am not the fastest guy ever.

There's also a survivor feature, something along the lines of 'Dead Rising', but it's not really explored. You can pick up survivors at locations, though it isn't well executed at the first location (Implying it improves later on, whether it does I don't know). In Sedalia you can find two survivors, the problem is you can only keep one because your vehicle can't hold them all. It's good and bad. It's good because, yeah, you're not driving a clown car. You can't stuff fifty people into a two seat car. The problem is we're forced into dismissing a survivor (Even though one can just get in the back of the pick-up truck), and in a world where the dead are rising. We're basically giving whoever it is a death sentence. We even get an achievement for this. Then again it isn't the only achievement we get for failing. We get one for dying thirteen times and for five survivors dying while scavenging. Then again there's a glitch for the one which says distract fifty walkers; it unlocks after one.

I have to say, I do like how the zombies act in this game. Like taking care of one is very easy, two is easy, three gets difficult, any more and you're really screwed. Kind of like how the zombie experience should be; alone they're weak, but dangerous in large numbers. Not only that, but the zombies can hear and smell. Well, the hearing part is down no problem, the smell part is, as far as I'm aware, nonexistent. There are some other downsides, like making sure that the corridor you're in is zombie free, go into a room for five seconds to get something, come out, and a zombie is standing there waiting to grab you. The walkers just pop up from nowhere half the time. And I do literally mean nowhere. There is also a zombie hug feature where, if the zombie grapples you, it initiates a mini game where you need to stab the walker in the head. If there's another zombie then it'll also grab you the second you kill the initial zombie. Unless you kick it away. It's a good looking feature, but you can get hurt very easily in this. In fact you'd be lucky to come out of it with half your health intact.

Now, originally this was going to be 'An Hour of' posting, but partway through I had to go do something else. When I came back however, I found that I had to start the location again. Apparently there aren't any checkpoints in this, except for when you get to a new location. The game play though is fairly simple. It's, sort of open world, you can choose where to go when you want to, but you do still have to follow a certain track. This is okay, you don't get lost, but at the same time you do still need to investigate and scavenge the area, either for health items, weapons, collectibles (Which are stuffed squirrels. Kind of fitting when Darryl ate one raw in season two and normally hunts them for food), and side mission objectives.

The graphics though are good and bad. At times you can see a lot of detail, like in the woods, but at other times it looks so...bland. Heck, I wouldn't have given it much though if I hadn't have watched Total Biscuit's video prior to playing, but the best example would be when you get to Sedalia. Look to you left and you can see some good graphics and a fair bit of detail, look ahead towards the town and everything seems to slow down and appear to be...I won't say Playstation One graphics, but it's not what you'd expect the current generation of consoles to have.

When people first heard of this game, they basically said from the start that the game was going to suck. I normally tend to actually play the finished game before making a decision on whether it's good or bad. And this game, isn't finished. It's not bad, per se, but it's not great either. It's okay. The general census, and I have to agree, is that the game was rushed out. Not sure why, there wasn't anything for it to coincide with; unless it wanted to coincide with the finale of season three. The graphics can be messy, the combat and executions repetitive, the game play can be off, and yet with the ideas this game has, and focusing on one of the popular characters from the television series, it really deserved more. Really what this game needed was to be tweeked for a couple more months, then it could have been a really good game.

If you want to play a really good Walking Dead game

Get the Telltale one. Or get this one if you're a die hard fan.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

I'm almost done, I'm so close to the end I can taste it. I'm almost at the end of the Twilight Saga. Just one more story and this franchise is over! The bad news is they've split the last story into two films.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are now married, signalling the fact that Bella will soon turn into a vampire (her father STILL isn't aware of this). However Bella decides that she doesn't want to die a virgin, and she and Edward consummate their marriage. Cue the necrophilia comments. However this results in Bella somehow getting pregnant. With the unborn child growing at an accelerated rate and killing Bella from inside, as well as posing a threat to both them and the people of Forks, the Quileute pack decide the child cannot live, prompting Jacob to leave and join reluctantly the Cullen's.

This film is boring! BORING BORING BORING! My God, it was so bland it made me angry. I can now see the Twilight franchise as a mountain, 'Twilight' is the start, 'New Moon' was the peak, and then it went downhill from there.

It does appear that Harry Potter has made splitting books into multiple films popular, what with Twilight and 'The Hobbit' doing the same thing. But the difference between 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part1/2' and 'Breaking Dawn' is that there is a lot of stuff in the Harry Potter books that are necessary to the plot. Again, I haven't read the Twilight books, but from what this film tells me seeing Bella and Edward play chess, seeing him abandon her at one point, do nothing but talk, look I'm sorry but is all this really vital? I get it, you're trying to tell me they're in love, you've been telling that in the last THREE GOD DAMN FILMS! The film couldn't have just done most of this in a ten minute montage? Actually, I'm sorry, there was a montage. Three of them. All of which did nothing to move the story along. Simple solution, Bella and Edward get to their honeymoon resort, we see a them have fun, they have sex, and bam she's pregnant. Did it really have to be talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk sex talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk pregnant.

You see '...Deathly Hallows Part 1' managed to balance the slow talking scenes and the fast action scenes brilliantly. Maybe if the talking scenes were actually interesting I could've enjoyed them. It's not like I don't like constant talking, I really enjoyed 'Lost in Translation', mainly because the conversations there were actually interesting, but the conversations between Bella and Edward are so completely and utterly dull, I think watching paint drying on growing grass would be more fun. The film even managed to make a naked woman (Stewart in this case) boring and the ONLY real action sequence in the film underwhelming. It's pretty amazing that that was possible when you think about it.

Then again, it's all down to the characters because, guess what? They're (still) BORING. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is still throwing a child tantrum; yes I was on his side but his character hasn't progressed at all, he's still in the same stage that he was back in 'New Moon'. Actually, now that I think about it, none of the characters have made any real progress. This could have been the second film in the franchise and there wouldn't have been any difference. These characters haven't learnt anything since 'Twilight', they haven't evolved beyond the persona we first saw in 'Twilight'. They're suppose to be young adults by this point, except the one hundred and nine year old who preys on seventeen/eighteen year old girls, but they're still acting like thirteen year olds.

Speaking of which, remember in 'New Moon' where Bella has a go at Jacob for killing people (Though this is easily swept aside by Jacob saying he only kills vampires). Guess what? Edward admits that HE killed people, and Bella pretty much says "yeah, whatever". Oh Edward says that the men he killed were, as Bella puts it, "murderers", but she can't just go from "you can't kill humans, it's wrong" to "whatever you say dear, I'll put the kettle on". Oh and there's this vampire called Irina (Maggie Grace) who has a fit because werewolves are at the party and they killed Laurent back in 'New Moon'. This is brought up and knocked aside in a second. Oh, and Bella's friends from high school still exist. Apparently.

The acting has NOT gotten worse, but neither has it gotten better. It is still the same bland, boring, dull voices. I keep forgetting to mention this but, Billy Burke. I want to like you. But throughout these films you have been as dull as everyone else. Do I really need to comment on the others? I think my previous reviews have already said enough, I can't really add any more. Well, I will repeat that the scene where Pattinson and Lautner was, again, done very well. Maybe they should get together, they certainly have more chemistry together then either or them do with Stewart.

Okay, I'll go over THAT scene. This film is anti-abortion. And I suppose in a way, so am I. I mean, whether life starts at conception or when the baby is born, it's still life. A baby is born, that's life. A baby is conceived, it's either life or it'll lead to life, it's the same to me. So when this film says "abortion is bad, BUT the fetus is killing her", it's a difficult thing to comprehend. And I suppose I'll give the film that, it challenges you, it makes you think what you would do in their case; kill the baby or kill the mother. The scene itself, I suppose it was done very effectively and well done, but at the same time, it isn't great.

Effects, well, they don't really use them that much. But when they do, the enhanced speed still looks stupid, and the wolf effects still look good. Bizarrely though, the vampires don't sparkle in this any more. There they are, standing in the sun, and they're not sparkling. You know, it's one thing ruining vampires, but to ruin them and then not follow through with consistency, that's just lazy. There was also this moment where we could see the wolf pack communicating to each other AS wolves. This could have been done great, but instead the way the voices were portrayed, it comes off as a joke. The make-up I will compliment though, in particular on Stewart when she's portraying a person who is ill and is getting worse.

So, in case you didn't understand my feelings towards this film, IT'S BORING. It's dull, it's tedious, it's slow, it's not interesting in the slightest, it's underwhelming. I've said some good points, but overall it's just not that good. Those who don't like 'Twilight' definitely won't like this, those who are indifferent to the franchise will be bored before the half hour mark, only those extreme die hard fans will find anything good in this. But really, did this have to be split into two parts? I haven't seen part two yet so I don't know how relevant or necessary bits are in that, but there's at least thirty minutes in this film which can be cut, and I'm sure there's more which can be taken out. Then, with some editing and a good flow, this could have been salvaged.

But before we get to part two, let's have a look at 'The Host'.