Hey guys. I feel like we've got to know each other pretty well over the last few weeks, so I'm going to level with you folks. When I started this Backlogtober initiative, I thought I'd maybe clear half a dozen games from my onimously stacked Pile of Shame before falling off the wagon and... I don't know... replaying a Pokémon game, or something. Instead, here we are - a little over halfway through the month with a whopping eight games cleared to date, and a little less than two weeks left to keep adding to that tally. I've surprised even myself with the level of commitment I've applied to this thing,and I'm determined to keep this momentum going through the back end of October. At this point I'm feeling pretty good about beating the remaining three games from the shortlist of ten titles I put together before Backlogtober began. Heck, if I can beat eight games in eighteen days, I should be able to clear 'Splosion Man, Zeno Clash and Uncharted 2 in thirteen, right? There's a decent chance I might even clear the list with time to spare, in which case I have one or two other titles in mind to round out the month.

But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now my focus is on the two latest titles to be added to my list of games completed this year. Most recently, and less importantly in the context of this blog, I saw the 'true' ending of Metal Gear Solid V yesterday afternoon. By this I mean I wrapped up all the story stuff, saw the end of Quiet's arc, beat Mission 46 and watched the full credits roll for a second time. I have a lot I want to say about that game, but I also recognise this isn't the place to do it. I need to write a dedicated blog, free from the confines of Backlogtober, where I can go to town with spoilers and talk in-depth about how the experience of playing the many various aspects of that game made me feel. The short version that I'll present here is that I loved every single damn second of the 105 hours I've put into it these past seven weeks, to the point where even though I'm done with it from a story perspective, I'll probably continue playing it in dribs and drabs for the remainder of 2015. Damn, that's a good video game.

The primary focus of this blog is the second season of Telltale's The Walking Dead, which I worked my way through last week. I've been meaning to get round to it since finishing the first season back in 2013, but have been holding off from it - initially I was waiting for the whole season to be available, and then once it was I decided to wait for a decent opening of time to play through the whole thing. The Backlogtober initiative, coupled with a week of annual leave, conspired to create perfect conditions to witness the continuation of Clementine's story. So I jumped into it last Tuesday, managed to restrict myself to an episode a day (just about), and saw the final credits roll on Saturday night.

Even now, a full two days after the fact, I'm struggling to articulate my feelings about The Walking Dead: Season Two (hereafter referred to as 'TWD2', for brevity's sake). I know I didn't like it as much as Season One, but it's difficult for me to explain precisely why it didn't grab me in the same way. On paper there isn't a huge difference between the two - it's still a narrative focusing on a band of men and women trying to survive in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. It still draws most of its impact from the interactions between those characters, and it gives the player a degree of agency in those interactions so that they might influence the outcome. Maybe that's part of the problem, that it leans so heavily on the first season that it struggles to establish its own identity as a result. Telltale effectively bottled lightning with the first season of The Walking Dead, and it was always going to be a near-impossible act to follow.

But I don't think that's entirely it. TWD2 feels like all the pieces are there, they're just not put together quite as well as they could be. The gameplay balance felt slightly off, more skewed towards quick-time events than bona fide action sequences, and with an almost complete absence of puzzle-solving. The new characters felt more expendable than the cast of Season One, usually dying before I could get a decent handle on who they really were (Luke and Jane are the notable exceptions here - it's no coincidence they were my favourite newcomers to the cast). Perhaps most frustrating of all was how most of those new characters reacted to Clementine - after I praised the original season for the way it re-shaped the notion of player choice in video games by eschewing the power fantasy in favour of a more realistic approach, Clem felt like she had far too much sway on the others around her, especially when you consider she's just a kid. Don't get me wrong, I love her as a protagonist, and I think the way her character arc develops through both seasons is possibly the games' strongest narrative suit. I just wish some of the other characters had been more dismissive of her, at least some of the time.

Another big problem for me was the fact that the overall narrative arc for the season reached its peak in Episode Three, and from there the story didn't really have anywhere to go but back down. The intense showdown between Clem's troupe of survivors and Carver's cult of personality is incredibly climactic and arguably the series' best moment, but there's still two whole episodes to fill after that, and for the most part what comes after feels incredibly weak. The final scenes of Episode Five go a long way towards redeeming the game, but by then the bulk of the damage has already been done, meaning the game has to really ramp things up really quickly at its conclusion. The whole pacing of TWD just feels 'off' as a result, charting more like a bell curve than the steady progression towards climax and release that the first season pulled off so wonderfully.

I don't want to come across as too down on TWD2. In spite of the negative feedback above, I still think it's a great game cast from the now-familiar Telltale adventure mould. It's well-written, particularly in the case of the dialogue, and some of the choices it presents you with have a huge impact, especially when you see the ramifications of those choices play out. When it's good, it's very good. It's just a shame that it had to live up to Season One, because unfortunately it doesn't hit the highs anywhere near as frequently. I'd still like to see another season set in the Walking Dead universe, but it's not as high on my wishlist as a second season of The Wolf Among Us, which could honestly be my favourite Telltale adventure series of the lot after I played through it earlier this year.

I feel like I spent a decent amount of time dwelling on what's still to come for Backlogtober at the very start of this blog post, so I'll refrain from repeating myself here. I will say that my main focus has now shifted to 'Splosion Man, Twisted Pixel's 360-exclusive indie platformer from 2009. I'm a bit reluctant heading in, since my previous experience with the game didn't do much to grab me and I haven't had the best of track records with platformers so far this month. Still, I'm willing to persevere and see if I can make it through - after all, with the exception of a particularly nasty house spider, nothing has beaten me yet this Backlogtober. You can probably expect the next Backlogtober update some time towards the end of this week. Until then, thanks very much for reading. Take care duders, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - 'Splosion Man (X360)