Very slow and repetitive game.

Pros:

+ Zombies are a threat, if in higher numbers - I really liked that
+ the game has just the right difficulty setting, not too easy not too frustrating
+ some good placed jump scares and action scenes

Cons:

- this was sold for 50€.....the graphics are terrible and the game is altogether bad programmed.
I had to set up my graphics settings everytime I wanted to play, since the game wont save your changes....
- you can find survivors on the way and pick them up and lead them, but it just doesnt matter......they do nothing no matter what you decide to do
- the story is bad and not even worth mentioning
- you barely remeber any character in the game right as you finished it....thats how bland they are
- its a console port! and a very bad one to say the least
- scavenging for stuff becomes annoying and repetitive
- many things are scripted which is very poorly done in this game
- the DLC is just a horde mode that gives you nothing.......I mean you can buy a whole different horde GAME for the money that is way better
-Merle is barely in the game, he maybe has 10 lines of dialouge
- Deryl and Merle seem not like their characters in the show would act, it feels very different

Overall its not interesting enough to keep you drawn in, and for a (originally) priced 50€ game the production value is extremley poor and just feels cheap. I would not recommend this game at all.

It seems as though 95% of the budget allowed for creating this abomination was spent on obtaining the original theme music from The Walking Dead television series. A vastly inferior game from all angles. Do NOT waste your money on this.

Welcome to The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. Is it the terribly buggy mess of a game that other reviews suggests, or is there more to this first-person survival horror game from Terminal Reality?

Campaign
In this game you play as Daryl Dixon, hillbilly and crossbowman extraordinaire, and get to know his story between the initial outbreak of the virus to when he and Merle - Daryl's brother - decide to go to Atlanta. This takes you from a small hunting cabin to small towns to dams to desolate gas stations, in search of supplies, survivors and, ultimately, rescue. Standing between you and salvation are hundreds of Walkers just looking for their next meal hug.

As mentioned, this will take you through a wide variety of locales that, while completely linear, are full of signs of the panic the apocalypse brought with it, and this is one of the game's strongest points. Along for the ride is the only truly persistent friend you have in this adventure – your brother. Merle is reduced to a few spoken lines, but it serves to deepen their relationship slightly.

Their story might not be the greatest one out there, in fact it's really quite minor, but this is a game that's all about the gameplay, not the story.

Gameplay | Graphics | Sound
And as far as gameplay goes, Survival Instinct doesn't even begin to compare to what you might know from the Telltale games. This is a first person survival horror game centered around you introducing your favorite weapon – of which there is a decent variety – to the brain of any walker you come across. You can sneak past a few of them, but the walkers have a surprisingly good field of view and if they spot you, they're coming for you, potentially bringing more with them.

As far as graphics go, they're not terrible. That's not saying they're good, far from it, but it probably won't hurt your eyes to look at. Probably. Is it acceptable for a 2013 game? No. The NPCs, who look the best, you won't see very often. The environments are hit and miss – some are borderline terrible, others are... not great, but decent. Walkers look good from a distance, but not up close.

In horror games, the sounds can make or break a game. Fortunately, the sounds are good. The way the game handles them is less so, making it difficult to pinpoint nearby zombies.The distant groans of zombies against the dead silence sets a great ambiance, though. The voice acting, done by the original actors, is pretty decent save a few lines here and there.

Flaws
The game is certainly not free of these. For such a big-title game released in 2013, it came loaded with low resolutions, stiff and very linear maps, and only one enemy type – of which there were only seven or eight different models – the walkers. Now, while I feel the complaints about poor AI might be misdirected – zombies ARE that stupid – this could easily have been offset by throwing in some bandits to spice things up. Now, back on the matter of bugs - I personally experienced no bugs in my four playthroughs, suggesting that patches fixed these problems.

In conclusion
It's not a great game, but if you're itching to kick zombie ass as Daryl, can overlook the flaws of the game and you can get this game on a sale, you might enjoy it. The game can be beaten in about 4 hours if you rush, and about 6-7 if you take your time with the side missions.

Rated 4/10, a potential 5 if you like the world and these kind of games.

A rucksack of good ideas wrapped up into a poor implementation. It is clearly obvious that Activision got the contract from AMC to implement this ASAP when the hype for The Walking Dead still was there and before they killed off one of the Dixon brothers. This is what happens when you rush things.

What's funny is that most of the ideas in the game are somewhat slightly refined versions of ideas previously seen in The War Z (now known as Infestation: Survivor Stories). It uses exactly the same loot-and-go system, the same melee-blows-to-the-head-while-the-walker-punches-you-with-the-arms kind of combat, but changed to a single player campaign with a simple story.

Also, it's pretty obvious that the PC port is just the console version of the game adapted to run under a Windows operating system and nothing else: the settings are crappy, the language is set as default of your system (and if you try to override it, you will end up not hearing the dialog voices at all), the aiming is obviously designed for controllers and the game is set to run at 30 fps, the console standard, instead of 60 or even 100 like other PC games do.

The only thing that's really good about this game is the voice acting of Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker. They really give life to their characters here.

Anyway, overall, this game is a perfect example of a rushed cash grab over the hype of an audience over a franchise. And the worst part is that sometimes and under the right circumstances this game is even fun, as I've spent a lot of time playing, laughing at the bugs but genuinely focused on the game for a long time before getting bored.

It is worth what I paid for it (or less), around 8 bucks. My recommendation is that if you're into The Walking Dead and you're curious about what this game is about (like I was), you go and get it from an Australian by trading. They have the game at 10 bucks (instead of the 50 bucks that they are charging the rest of the world to get this), which is odd because generally games are more expensive in Australia than the rest of the world. I wonder what happened here, maybe something about licensing?

Well, that's about all I can say about this game. If they implemented some of the cool ideas this one has (like the grabbing zombies stuff, pushing them and dismembering) into The War Z (or Infestation: Surv... that) then that game would be lovely to play with friends.

Conclusion: if you want to get this (and I mean, you really, really, REALLY, NEED to get this), you have been warned.

Have a good night and let's hope there are no walkers around the corner.

There's not really any possible way to look at this game and say that it's a good, successful game. It's ugly, the story doesn't really make much sense, there are no characters to speak of, the levels are boxy, small, and dull, combat doesn't feel particularly good, there are no real set-pieces, it has all the hallmarks of a rushed, low-budget licensed title. It's also short--around 5-6 hours for first completion. I can't hold this up as any kind of hidden gem or recommend it to anyone who normally shies away from bad games.

That being said, I think the idea behind the game was pretty cool. The developers basically said "Let's remake Oregon Trail as an FPS with zombies." You can choose between different paths, meaning you have to play the game at least twice to see every level. You can pick up people to add to your group--these characters have no personalities and are not seen during levels but can scavenge for items. You occasionally break down on the roads or run out of gas or hit a blockade and have to play mini-levels to go on. Resource management is pretty key as you have very limited resources throughout the game, you never really get ahead of the curve. You can have people in your group die or dismiss them if you don't have room for them. There are optional objectives in levels that can lead to newer vehicles or extra survivors to add to your groups.

Conceptually, that's really cool to me. I wish a game with more budget and dev time could make use of some of these ideas. They're not really well implemented. The scavenging and roadblock missions reuse the same very small content, nothing is really engaging, the survivor party members don't add anything to your game, and since they have no characterization or really any dialogue you don't feel bad about dismissing them (they don't even do a Final Fantasy Tactics style thing where people cry and beg to let them to stay).

I don't really have much to say about the core FPS gameplay. The weapons are sort of dull, zombies only die from headshots, most of your kills will be QTE stealth kills with your hunting knife. Using the machete felt pretty satisfying to me, and when you unlock the crossbow... oh, by the way, this is a game where you play as the redneck guy with the crossbow from The Walking Dead TV show, voiced by his original actor. The character is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bore and I have no idea why anyone made a game about him or why he's a popular character in the show... when you unlock the crossbow that's pretty fun. You can retrieve arrows from enemies bodies even while they're still alive. It's pretty satisfying to walk backwards slowly as a zombie is chasing you, shoot it with an arrow, pull the arrow out of its body, and then immediately shoot it again in the same arrow all without being hit. If you have a good hit rate you can functionally have infinite crossbow ammo for the rest of the game. Besides those two weapons everything else was pretty boring. When zombies get close enough to you there's kind of a interactive stick-waggling QTE to kill them, and this is neat the first few times but when like 20 zombies get close to you they basically line up one by one and you're just sitting there for like 5 minutes experiencing the same QTE again and again until you either clear the room or die. Ideally don't get into situations where the zombies can mob you.

The game is built to be played at least twice as you don't experience about a third of the content the first time. There are no difficulty level options, but your second time playing you have unlocked perks based on which survivors made it to the end the first time through so I suspect it's easier the second time around. I got 23/50 achievements the first play through. I'm of two minds. I liked, or rather tolerated, the game enough that I kind of want to play the rest of the levels in a sort of morbid, this game is a stinker, kind of way, so I might do a second playthrough.

I guess then, this is me recommending The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct if you like bad, maddening, frustrating, dull games or you can get a sort of weird enjoyment out of them. But if you're looking for a good game, or even a hidden gem, this is definitely not it. I'll add that the 38 Metacritic rating very obviously reflects reviewers going into the game aware that it's a budget license title and looking for an excuse to beat up on it. Yeah, it's bad, but I've played a lot worse games with a lot fewer interesting ideas--even if the ideas don't work. This is way better than Homefront or Rogue Warrior or Aliens: Colonial Marines or Dead Space 3 imho.

This game is criminally short.
I managed to complete it 4 times in one day.


Textures look terrible, story is terrible and leaves on a cliff-hanger.
You die quickly, you move almost as fast as the zombies when you run.
Not worth any money. I regret buying it after playing it for 30 minutes.

You seem to be playing as an emotionally unstable fella. He tends to start crying any time that you run. Which is honestly fairly annoying.

Nothing new or interesting here.
Buy TellTales TWD instead.

Like a poor man's Dead Island, except that game costs less while offering more. Oops.

Decently playable if you mod it to make the FOV slightly acceptable (since the default feels like 50H) and tweak damage/movement/stamina values, and top all that off with enough booze to make most anything acceptable.

One of the best features of the game is forcing you to take smaller and smaller vehicles which forces you to tell your supply-gathering party members to ♥♥♥♥ off... then directly after that giving you a vehicle that could have held all of them. Only now you never get replacement side characters unless you luck out in a random encounter while driving... which never happened even on the drive option that gives you more chances for encounters.

Voice acting is awful, like even the "seasoned" show actors couldn't be bothered to try, and make sure to use those framerate limiters. No limit? Superspeed, cutscenes go out of sync and nobody finishes a sentence before the next guy starts talking. Sometimes the 60FPS limiter actually limits to 50... and still plays cutscenes too fast.

The ending is total cop-out as well.

It's like Activision simultaneously wanted to get quick showfanbux, and kill off one of the developers it owns. That's right, Terminal Reality is no more.

This game is terrible, i bought it for $10 because i love the walking dead and despite the negative feeback i had faith but it really is terrible. Graphics, controls, story, you name it and it's bad this is the perfect quick explanation of the game: "This game is like a pizza with pineapple and anchovies: a great idea destroyed by bad choices." It had the potiential to be great but it wasen't executed well at all. Stay away from this game, i wouldn't even play this if it was free. Don't waste your money! Play telltales the walking dead or a shooter game instead.
I'd give it 2/10

1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: DUDE
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: I JUST
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: LED LIKE
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: 9 ZOMBIES
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: INTO A CORRIDOR
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: AND RAN INTO A BATHROOM
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: SHUT THE DOOR
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: THEY START BANGING ON IT, I THINK "OH F**K I'M TRAPPED BETTER GET READY TO FIGHT"
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: 2 SECONDS LATER
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: STOPS
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: I OPEN THE DOOR
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: THEY'RE GONE
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: DESPAWNED
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: THEY'RE F*****G GONE
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: ENTIRELY
1:55 AM - The ElbowStealer: I CHECKED
1:56 AM - The ElbowStealer: THE WHOLE
1:56 AM - The ElbowStealer: RESTAURANT

The credits moved really fast so that nobody would have their name bound to this miscarriage.