The Escapists: The Walking Dead (PC) Preview

Waking up in an abandoned hospital, players must guide Rick Grimes in an attempt to find out what is happening and then escape from the zombies now infesting the area. The first level teaches the basic controls and mechanics involved in escapes, such as finding and crafting gear, how to access and travel though vents and tunnels, and fighting back against zombies with both melee weapons and the guns introduced along the way.

While the visuals are pretty simple, it is easy enough to recognise each character by looks, and surroundings have enough detail that there will be no difficulty in figuring out what is being looked at - plus the purposeful 8-bit pixel approach has its charm. The atmosphere is augmented more by the audio, though, with some decent music playing in the background, changing in style depending on the time of day.

There is the option to use either keyboard and mouse controls or a standard gamepad, with the former working very well, moving around and passing gear to companions with the keyboard, while the mouse controls accessing the inventory, interacting with the surroundings and attacking enemies. Everything is smooth and as it should be.

Further in, levels will have Rick with a party of other characters and involve a lot more variation in the gameplay. He will have a number of actions to achieve each day in the current area, involving head counts, meals, and chores. Completing these keeps up morale and reduces the chances of a zombie attack, while skipping them or falling unconscious in a fight will increase the risk of an invasion of the current base.

There are also goals to complete once on each map, which involve collecting certain gear or clearing out enemies from a location to enable escape from a sector. In the free time between these, Rick can exercise and read to improve his stats, equipment can be found, weapons distributed to other characters so they can help fight enemies, and even a number of missions for other characters can be done to collect currency. Once all the required goals are completed, and Rick and the rest of the group are properly outfitted, it's time to bust through the undead and continue to the next level.