For more on The Walking Dead: Episode One, check out our full The Walking Dead: Episode One review. Or, for more of the best Xbox 360 games for a 10 year old, why not try our Family Game Finder
Based on the popular US TV show and comic book of the same name, The Walking Dead is a point and click adventure, set in the southern US as a mysterious outbreak starts to turn people into zombies. Focussing on the people caught up in the outbreak rather than the outbreak itself, The Walking Dead is a mature, moving account of a group of very different people, brought together, and forced to rely on each other for survival. With branching conversations, the decisions you make will affect how other characters view you, which in turn will affect the entire storyline, from the start, to finish.
Playing like a choose your own adventure book, The Walking Dead is a gripping story, that teens especially will be able to lose themselves in for the short while it lasts. While it's more challenging than it really should be to pick up and play, due to a confusing interface, and the lack of the ability to save manually, The Walking Dead is a game that deals with mature subjects. After you find an eight year old girl, alone, in the opening scenes of the game, you end up taking her with her, and becoming something of a father figure to her. Judging when to lie to protect her from a painful truth at the expense of losing her trust is an incredibly difficult thing to have to do - and it's something that's bound to move anyone who attempts to take the game seriously. Repeatedly putting you into difficult situations, there's very rarely ever a "right" option - just different shades of wrong - and with your every decision affecting your standing with your fellow survivors, there are plenty of tricky decisions to make. It'll move your teen as much as a good book - but due to the excessive levels of violence, this really isn't suitable for younger players.
As a game about a zombie apocalypse, The Walking Dead contains large amounts of violence, gore, and swearing. The F word is heard several times throughout the game, along with slightly lesser words like "sh*t". It's the gore, though, that could be the real problem. Hitting a zombie in the face with a hammer so much that you cause its eye to fall out is overly graphic - similarly, there a numerous heads that get burst open (with bullets or otherwise), limbs that get ripped off, and necks that get bitten through. Very, very gory.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
