The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode 2 - A House Divided

 PC
User Score
8.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 392 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 314 out of 392
  2. Mixed: 36 out of 392
  3. Negative: 42 out of 392

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  1. akaliel
    Mar 5, 2014
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Did not care for episode 2. It was essentially 1 long cutscene with very little interaction. No puzzles or problem solving to speak of. I think the hardest thing you had to do was find an ornament for a Xmas tree.

    The ending was forced and pointless. It was quite clear that the game is pushing you to surrender, even if you try to stand up for yourself and fight, you'll get a couple of your friends killed and are forced to surrender anyway. I was looking for the option right at the end labelled "give me the damn gun". And now it looks like in the next chapter we're playing nice with our captures. Yeah. Right.

    Sorry Telltale. I very much enjoyed Season 1, with it's clever puzzles and difficult choices. Season 2 thus far has been a poor imitation. Hope it improves.    … Expand
  2. Comet
    Mar 7, 2014
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The Walking Dead: Season Two suffers from the same shortcomings Season 1 did: A lack of meaningful choices and actual gameplay.
    What you get is an interactive tv episode where most of the interaction is talking plus a few action scenes with quick-time events. Occasionally you can control clementine like in a classic adventure game but puzzles and exploration are barely existent. The dialogues between characters are often limited to the minimum and the overall challenge is laughable. Seriously, a three year old could beat this game.

    What irks me the most is that the majority of the dialog options and choices don't matter very much and the game will always progress along a given path and you'll always end up at the same spot at the end. The only thing you can influence are the fates of two of the characters and it remains to be seen if that will actually make a big difference in later episodes. I honestly doubt it.
    Other than that you're starting in different places depending on who you went with at the end of episode 1. This has no effect on the storyline because you'll end up at the same place with exactly the same crowd after in the 4th chapter.

    What's also a bit annoying is that you can't skip any cutscenes so if you replay scenes you're bound to sit and watch all dialogues again. Bad choice in my opinion because the writing is certainly not THAT good.

    Regarding the storyline: I found it interesting enough but I didn't like the way it went because I would've made a few choices differently than I was allowed to do. I know that there are limits to how much diversity you build into such a game, but sometimes I was asking myself why I just didn't watch the show instead.
    All in all the episode is rather short. It took me just about 2 hours to complete it.    … Expand
  3. Escherichia
    Mar 7, 2014
    4
    I think this game started with the wrong foot when the developers introduced us to the group of the most unlikable people ever.
    This episode tries hard to recover from that, but its tough to empatize with a doctor who denies treatment to a 10 years old girl, a guy that throws you to the floor because you got bitten, and an angry unfaithful pregnant lady. The rest of the group is so bland    I think this game started with the wrong foot when the developers introduced us to the group of the most unlikable people ever.
    This episode tries hard to recover from that, but its tough to empatize with a doctor who denies treatment to a 10 years old girl, a guy that throws you to the floor because you got bitten, and an angry unfaithful pregnant lady. The rest of the group is so bland its not even worth mentioning, and everyone is so self absorbed and useless that you just cant care about anyone you're with.
    In a game with little to no gameplay, you need to either have a compelling story or good characters to keep yourself going. This season of The Walking Dead, unfortunately, has neither.    … Expand
  4. RadarE33
    Mar 4, 2014
    4
    More of the same... unfortunately. While the devs listened and made some of the characters a little less insufferable, the story, setting and atmosphere all suffer from the last episode's problems. Plot holes and logic errors are scattered all over the episode, made ever so glaring near the end of the episode. Worse is the fact that there is little actual GAMEPLAY this time around, withMore of the same... unfortunately. While the devs listened and made some of the characters a little less insufferable, the story, setting and atmosphere all suffer from the last episode's problems. Plot holes and logic errors are scattered all over the episode, made ever so glaring near the end of the episode. Worse is the fact that there is little actual GAMEPLAY this time around, with much of the episode taking place in interactive cutscenes or QTE's. The bunch of misfits Clem is stuck with are still a bunch of lazy and incompetent slackers, opting to send Clem off to do everything--including zombie killing duty it seems. The only person to be sympathetic this time around is the complete **** from E1, and that quickly nose dives as she becomes just as self absorbed as the rest. Only when you near the end do you get a glimmer of hope that you might be able to join up with competent people, but we all know that can't last: we're only in Act two of these dreary season after all.

    The realism and immersion is utterly destroyed when you realize they are trying to have the player do all the things Lee did in S1, but in the body of an 11 year old girl. There's acceptable disbelief for story and gameplay's sake, and then there is just plain embarrassing writing. The character model for Clem is clunky and robotic rather than natural, and facial expressions appear to have been recycled from Season 1 characters. Clem's voice actress is so damn bland: I think she can do an excellent job if given proper direction but the monkeys writing this drivel seem to have told her to give her best impression of a adolescent robot. I understand that they want to make the dialogue "neutral" so everyone can feel like they're Clem, but the charm of S1 was choosing how Lee acted and acting out the role we wanted to play; It wasn't BEING Lee. We saw how Lee's character responded to events in the way WE chose. "Being the character" only really works with a silent protagonist guys: having Clem's delivery be boring and uninteresting leaves me wondering where her damn personality went.

    Overall, my expectations were low after E1. Even those low expectations were not met. Avoid.    … Expand
  5. boogiesmeister
    Jun 4, 2014
    0
    the game is good, but given each episode is about 1hr of fun & then you have to wait several months for the next episode is simply ridiculous & unacceptable. This is the last season of this game, which I have bought. Every time a new episode is released, I don't remember anymore what was happening in the last one.
    For me this is unacceptable.
  6. Abbeysisland
    May 15, 2014
    3
    Quite dull. Long cutscenes, very few choices. Most actions are out of your hands. So you are little more than a passive onlooker, with a few choices of action or dialogue here and there. Definitely not as good as Season 1, where you got to act quite a bit more.

Awards & Rankings

55
#55 Best PC Game of 2014
79
#79 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 40 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 40
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 40
  3. Negative: 0 out of 40
  1. Riot Pixels
    Apr 10, 2014
    63
    Another episode comes and goes, but the stale formula remains the same. It is ‘survivors of a global catastrophe fight amongst themselves’ multiplied by ‘get your hands off the mouse, we’ll play the game for you’.
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  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Apr 7, 2014
    80
    Perfect story, perfect direction, not-so-perfect gameplay. [Issue #240]
  3. Games.cz
    Mar 25, 2014
    80
    More action-oriented, richer but mainly more thrilling than its first episode. The Walking Dead is in good shape. Besides, House Divided is one of those episodes where you feel your gameplay decisions actually make a difference. If only its characters grew up.
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