Before I begin, I have to say that this is not your normal game, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s not about gameplay per se, but rather who you are as a person. With that in mind, let’s delve into this masterpiece of a game.

The story follows Lee Everett, former college professor and convicted murder. Riding in a police car on his way to prison, Lee is knocked unconscious after the car hits a Walker and veers off the road. Awaking to a broken leg and the sheriff’s corpse outside the car, Lee investigates the area. After freeing himself from his cuffs, he is then attacked by the sheriff and must protect himself. Fleeing from the attracted Walkers, Lee finds an abandoned house and enters in search of help. It’s here that he meets Clementine, an eight-year-old girl hiding out in her treehouse. After killing her undead babysitter, Lee befriends Clementine and the two begin their long journey to find a safe haven.

The gameplay is mostly puzzle-based, having you find items you can use to progress. But that’s not the focus of the game. It’s not the things you do so much as the decisions you make. During cutscenes and conversations, you choose nearly everything you do and say. As a result, you feel like you’re in control of the story. The moral ambiguity, the uncertainty, the regret; you feel these things when you make any major decision.

Take these events for example:  When you find a woman who is bitten, her last wish is to not become one of the undead. Will you give her the gun and grant her wish, or will you keep it from her in the hope that she can be cured? Will you tell people that you were a convicted murderer before all this began, or will you keep it from them in fear they may not accept you anymore? Will you take from a possibly abandoned car, full of food and other supplies, or will you refuse, even though your group is close to starving? Those aren’t even the toughest questions that you’ll ask yourself. Some of the choices and results will make you want to cry, some will make you feel like a villain, and some will make you feel like throwing up in disgust.

That’s the thing about this game–it’s all about the pressure. While you play this game, you won’t always be able to maintain a righteous path. In the heat of the moment, in that split second you have to decide, you may deviate from your morals. In all the panic and frenzy, you may make a decision that you will regret immediately afterwards. You might tell yourself that you won’t do that, that you’ll always stick to your morals, but until you’re in that situation, you won’t understand the feeling.

What makes this game so perfect isn’t just the spectacular writing or the riveting story. It’s the immersion. You forget everything around you and enter their world. Everything becomes real–the people, the emotions, the reactions, everything. You hold their lives, knowing that they look to you for guidance, a weight made all the more onerous by the fact that you make the choices. You can’t rely on the game making the choices for you, no matter how much easier it would be. But in this case, we wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s why this game easily gets a score of a 10/10; it’s one of those games to which you compare all others. It’s a game that is memorable the whole way through, and will not only show you for who you really are, but also demonstrate that it’s always possible to become the person you strive to be. It’s a game that reminds you to never give up hope, because you’ll see that there will always be good and beauty in the world, even as the world crumbles to dust around you.