Reviewing a series of episodes in a game season poses an interesting challenge. In singular game reviews, it's helpful to draw comparisons between the game being reviewed and other games in popular videogame canon. But talking about episodes in a season is different. It seems almost redundant to repeat that the graphics in The Walking Dead — Episode 4: "Around Every Corner" are of the same quality as the first three episodes. The sound effects are equally powerful in creating an aura of fear. The gameplay is the same mix of branching dialogue with other characters, solving puzzles, and fighting/fleeing zombies with guns or via quicktime events. Instead of rehashing the similarities, it is more helpful to analyze the differences.
One of the most notable differences in "Around Every Corner" is the movement. It is highly probable that a zombie apocalypse would elicit a "fight or flight" response in the minds of the survivors. The practical manifestations of this impulse are to hole up in a defensible location—fight—or to keep moving to stay away from the undead hordes—flight. Telltale Games' rendition of The Walking Dead captures this movement of terror well. In Episodes 1, 2, and 3 of the season, protagonist Lee Everett exhibits both tendencies as he moves across the state of Georgia, picking up and losing fellow survivors along the way.
In each of these first three episodes, the movement is well-defined. Episodes 1 and 2 show the group of survivors primarily finding places to hide. There is some movement between these hideouts, but a sense of a home base is always present. Episode 3 focuses more on flight as Lee and his band of still-human companions set out to Savannah, where they hope they will find a more permanent refuge. The motivation behind the movement, or lack thereof, is clear and understandable: stay in one place or move in a more-or-less straight line to the next.
The movement in this episode seems more like running in circles. You arrive in Savannah by train, but the gameplay at the beginning of the episode starts as if you were just dropped down into the middle of the city. The geographical continuity with the previous episodes immediately dissolves. The momentum of the journey built by sequential movement earlier in the season breaks down in a maze of Savannah streets. From the opening scene to the end of the episode, you and your crew move from one hopeless resting place to the next with little awareness of location.
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