The Walking Dead Episode 2: Starved For Help starts off 3 months after Episode 1 and it’s Lee (you) with a new character named Mark hunting in the nearby woods for food for the group. Food supplies are running low and the only reason the group was able to survive this long was because of Mark, who was found at the US Airbase and had access to all the food supplies at the base. Lee and Mark are unsuccessful in their attempts to capture anything to eat and that’s because the hunting trip is cut short due to nearby screams. After racing to the area where the screams are coming from you discover the screaming was due to a new person getting his leg stuck in a modified bear trap and the two other individuals with him being unable to help. And no doubt the gunshot from hunting and the screaming was going to attract walkers and sure enough you have a very limited amount of time to make your decisions. Do you help this new group you’re unfamiliar with and risk your own safety as well as the safety of your group or do you leave this new group on its own? Well you have to make up your mind fast so naturally some of this will have to be sorted out later. Where as the first episode dealt with individuals joining together to survive during a zombie outbreak this one deals with the difficulty of surviving as a group, making decisions as a group and trust and loyalty in the group.

“Um, what are we looking at again?”

Gameplay

Depending on your choices in the first scene the characters that come back to your camp varies. The controls are the same as the first episode so if you played through that episode you’ll be completely familliar with the controls in this one. And the timed responses are back as well. Bringing back new faces to the camp doesn’t make everyone happy. It sets off an argument about what the group is responsible for and should the group help or even trust strangers at this point. The main reason for this argument is the amount of food left. You get to choose who to side with (or side with no one) and Lilly gives you the responsibility of deciding who gets to eat so you can see what it’s like for her. So you have 4 pieces of food and 10 people who need to eat. This was a good touch because it puts you in the mindset of what it would be like to try to survive as a group outside of fighting off zombies. How do you decide who eats? Do you keep it all for yourself or just give it to those  who were nice to you? What is your criteria? And keep in mind the game remembers the choices you make so it’s not as if you could do this willy nilly and could also affect the strength of the characters this episode.
So before a new zombie can finish scaring the *ahem* out of you, you’re left with a group on edge with some at odds with each other. So it seems too good to be true when two brothers approach the camp looking for gasoline and offering food in return. They say they have a dairy farm not far from the camp and that it’s protected by an electric fence. And that it’s just the two of them and their mother. Now why would anyone mistrust this offer? After having to choose between who eats and who doesn’t it’s easier to understand that survival is more than just killing zombies and that tough choices have to be made. You can decide to go with these two strangers and choose how much you want to answer along the way. It’s amazing how deciding who gets to eat cheese and crackers can make you mistrust a stranger asking how many people are in your group. Either that or maybe I already have a mentality that would help me survive in this kind of world. And on the way to the farm you come across two bandits arguing and it doesn’t end well for one of them, which only confirms the current lawlessness in this world.

“This is my rifle. There are many…”

All is well when you arrive at the dairy farm and things appear to be just as the two brothers, Danny and Andrew St. John, described. Brenda St. John welcomes everyone with open arms and gives those in your group who travelled with you some food to take back to camp. And you’re told you can explore the premises to your heart’s content. You’re told that the fence will work properly once the walkers are cleared from it. This is your cue to explore the farm, make repairs to try to ingratiate yourself to the St. Johns or just inquire about the status of the farm. After all your entire group will be joining you shortly and you don’t want everyone to be in harm’s way. All doesn’t go so well while checking the perimeter and Mark is injured. There was some kind of agreement between the St. Johns and the bandits in the area that the bandits feel were broken and now you’re caught in the middle. So much for an easy dinner for everyone. And getting answers out of the St. Johns regarding the conflict with the bandits or even what time dinner will be ready is now more complicated.

I won’t give away any spoilers regarding the story however it was a good story. You’re not just confined to the farm after arriving there and some of the developments that occur off the farm will have implications beyond this episode. You have to manage the tensions and mistrust within your own group while trying to uncover the truth of what’s occurring on the farm and about the St. Johns. There is alot of action in this one however the lack of zombies does become very noticeable towards the end. It works for this episode as well as against it. The choices you make deal more with impacting loyalty and trust than immediate life or death situations. Since it’s revealed in this episode that one doesn’t have to be bitten to turn into a walker and that everyone is infected it’s even harder to keep everyone calm and satisfied. The action does require some quick selections and the controls seemed a little less responsive in the beginning than episode one. I believe this episode was to give you more insight into the world at large and what some people have resorted to doing in this world and set the stage for bigger things to come facing the group. As one who’s read the comics and watched the show it’s easy to question the actions or decisions of the characters but in this game when you have to make decisions that affect the lives of others in the group and don’t know the motives of other groups you encounter in this lawless world it’s not so easy. This episode did a great job of capturing that.

Summary

Episode 2: Starved For Help is an excellent continuation in the Walking Dead saga even though it has very few zombie appearances. The gameplay is still enjoyable and controls were still responsive. The inability to skip cutscenes you’ve already experienced or conversations you already had is slightly annoying but definitely not a deal breaker. This episode focused more on character development and the relationships between the individuals in the group. The big reveal in the game was slightly stretched out long after I figured it out however there was another revelation that was way more interesting to me and I’m looking forward to seeing how that plays out. If the first episode left you excited to see how things would development for the group then episode two leaves you more invested in the characters and with a greater understanding of what it’ll take to survive not just as an individual but as a group in this new world. If you enjoyed episode 1 there’s no reason not to play episode 2. I highly recommend it

“No thank you, I already ate”

Kareem Ali

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